• iCloud To Cost $25 Per Year After Free Trial Period

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Cloud, Featured, News, Rants & Raves, Rumors No Responses

    The LATimes reports that iCloud will initially be offered free but eventually costing users $25/year subscription:

    Dubbed iCloud, the service initially will be offered for a free period to people who buy music from Apple’s iTunes digital download store, allowing users to upload their music to Apple’s computers where they can then play from a Web browser or Internet-connected Apple device.

    The company plans to eventually charge a subscription fee, about $25 a year, for the service. Apple would also sell advertising around its iCloud service.

    We reported eariler that Apple has reached agreements with the four major record labels for their upcoming cloud service.

    The agreements, finalized this week, call for Apple to share 30% of any revenue from iCloud’s music service with record labels, as well as 12% with music publishers holding the songwriting rights. Apple is expected to keep the remaining 58%, said people knowledgeable with the terms.

    Are you looking forward to iCloud with $25 a year subscription?

  • Google’s Eric Schmidt Urging PC Users to Dump Windows and ‘Get A Mac’

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Cloud, Featured, Gadgets, google, Microsoft, News, Rants & Raves No Responses

    Some interesting tidbits from yesterday’s D9 Conference interviewing Google‘s chairman Eric Schmidt. Probably the most interesting one is that Google has “just renewed their Map and Search agreements with Apple”.

    In terms of platform war, Shmidt said there is, primarily, a gang of four that includes Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook. Microsoft is not included. He explains, Microsoft is not driving the consumer revolution, they are focused on corporate and are doing so successfully, something that will likely continue for decades to come.

    When asked how consumers could be more secure, he claimed that Chrome was a more secure browser, using two factor Gmail authentication is key and users simply “could use a Mac instead of a PC”.

    When Google launched its cloud music offering, many were disappointed, the service was just a locker for music. When asked why Google failed at signing with record labels, Schmidt simply says, “I’ve just not been successful in doing that”.

  • Apple’s New Data Center is Now Visible on Google Maps

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Cloud, Featured, google, News, Rants & Raves No Responses

    As noted by Fortune, Apple’s new mysterious data center in Maiden, North Carolina, is now visible entirely from Google Maps’ view. While this piece of information isn’t that interesting but the timing is. According to Fortune, Apple started allowing Google to display the data center in their Maps service soon after the official WWDC announcement yesterday.

    One of the mysteries surrounding the 500,000-square foot server farm Apple has famously constructed in a small North Carolina town called Maiden, besides its ultimate purpose, is why it didn’t show up on Google Earth.

    But if you asked Google Earth or Google Maps to show you the intersection of U.S. Route 321 and Startown Road, where the data center is located, the current satellite imagery stopped a few yards short of the construction site. West of Startown Road, there was, as recently as two weeks ago, nothing but woods and farmland and a bit of driveway that ended abruptly in the middle of a field.

    After Apple’s announcement Tuesday that Steve Jobs was ready to reveal iCloud, the “upcoming cloud services offering” presumably based in Maiden, N.C., we thought we’d give Google Maps another try.

    Lo and behold, there it was: A huge, white, nondescript building with a road leading in, a road leading out, and almost no employee parking.

    How was Apple able to keep Google from displaying this particular swath of satellite imagery? That’s still a mystery.

  • Samsung Demands Apple To Get Access to iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and iPad 3 Devices

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Featured, Gadgets, iPad, iPhone, lawsuit, Mobile, News, Patents, Rants & Raves 1 Response

    As part of the ongoing lawsuits between Apple and Samsung, started back in April when Apple sued Samsung over the “look and feel” of the Galaxy phones and tablets. This Is My Next points to an interesting piece of information as now Samsung is requesting to see some of Apple’s unreleased final and commercial versions of products . Namely the iPad 3 and the next iPhone, be it iPhone  4S or iPhone 5. This is to ensure and  evaluate if their future products, like the Droid Charge and the Galaxy Tab 10.1, could share similar features with them.

    This move comes after Apple requested to see some of Samsung’s unreleased products, which most of which were publicly released before, Droid Charge, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Infuse 4G and Galaxy S 2. Providing that only Apple legal team will get access to the devices. Similarly now Samsung says only the company’s lawyers would be able to see the iPhone 5 and iPad 3, with no one else inside the company getting access to the units.

    Samsung’s asking for a court order requiring Apple to produce “the final, commercial versions” of the next-generation iPhone and iPad and their respective packaging by June 13, 2011, so it can evaluate whether there’ll be confusion between Samsung and Apple’s future products. If the final versions aren’t available, Samsung wants “the most current version of each to be produced instead.

    Samsung says “fundamental fairness” requires Apple to give up its future products, since Samsung had to do the same. Tellingly, Samsung doesn’t reference any precedent or law to bolster this line of argument — it’s basically just asking the court to be nice.

    The full breakdown of Samsung’s latest request can be read over This Is My Next