Ten Features Apple Should Put in iCloud

The forecast for today: iCloud with a possibility of Jobsian reality distortion field. Apple is always catnip for the tech commentariat, but this year's WWDC, with whiffs of iCloud, iOS 5, and OS X Lion, is already fanning especially feverish coverage (as evidenced by the existence of this story). After all, it's not often Apple intentionally drops the name of a forthcoming product. And with his Steveness at the altar, you can expect the Kool-Aid to flow.

Considering the unusual circumstances of this keynote—possessing both the name and utility of the product to come—I intend to take this unusual opportunity to start the scramble: This time around, Apple could finally deliver a cloud-based service equal to its much-vaunted iDevices.

Apple has a history of buggering subscription services. In the beginning there was the simple and sparse iTools , then the derivatively titled .Mac (dot-Mac), and, since 2008, the headache-inducing MobileMe. With big changes in store for both MobileMe and iWork this could be the first shakeup to get it right (though I'll hold my bet).

For the following slideshow, I polled the PCMag staff and distilled our top ten requests into an eminently clickable slideshow. Some requests derive from actual rumors and reports, others from our own likely-to-be-dashed expectations. Read cumulatively, you'll find the ultimate complement to Apple's forthcoming iOS 5. Click on and throw a little catnip of your own by commenting below.

1. DRM Amnesty

If DRM is dead, it has quite a spirited afterlife. Yes, iTunes music has shed its DRM, and yes you can upgrade your library for 30 cents per track, but questions remain: what will iCloud do with old-fashioned, DRM-laden songs? And what of those iTunes DRM-tagged TV shows and movies? You shouldn’t have to worry about if you’ve copied a file to five computers. You shouldn’t even have to differentiate between "computers" and "devices;" those distinctions are temporary at best. The fact is, consumers have spoken: RIP DRM. Apple and the record (and movie) execs would do well to listen and let files run freely.

2. Yesterday’s $100 is Today’s Free

This $99/year thing, which Apple charges for MobileMe, has got to go. With Google Docs and Picasa customers can essentially replace Apple’s syncing service—it’s no wonder MobileMe is on BorrowedTime. The price tag needs to drop (a lot) or disappear: Perhaps iCloud comes along for the ride with Lion or maybe some services find the chopping block. For a lower cost of admission, I would venture that most MobileMe users would trade MobileMe Gallery for Flickr and relinquish their ".me" e-mail addresses for Gmail accounts, if they haven’t already.

3. Beyond the Walled Garden

Much as customers love the refined UI—for all its issues, MobileMe looks great—Apple needs to understand that people outside their commercials (sometimes) leave the walled garden. If they were to embrace this, even enable it, iCloud could become all the more useful. Help customers push files to DropBox or Google Docs, post images to Flickr and Picasa, or stay organized with Evernote. It shouldn’t be a one-way street, either: If customers already built libraries in outside services, it’s iCloud’s, not the customer’s, job to interoperate.

4. More Than Music

iTunes is already the central repository for music, music videos, television shows, movies, rentals, podcasts, audio books, iBooks, and apps (and I’m sure I missed something). Any complementary service to iTunes shouldn’t just "cloudify" tunes; ideally it’ll put the full kit and caboodle in the cloud. If iCloud is the new MobileMe, it should take iDisk along for the ride.

Then there’s iWork. You can already iWork from every iOS device or even access docs from the web-based beta version of iWork. If Apple’s serious about its own productivity suite, it makes sense for iWork to roll into the cloud. What you then have is one inexpensive—ideally free—cloud-based service that absorbs iDisk, iWork.com, and all iTunes-based content. It’s a big jump from MobileMe, but compared to competing services, it makes sense. Amazon delivers cloud-based music and storage with Amazon Cloud Player and Cloud Drive. Google does the same with Google Music Beta and Google Docs. It’s time for Apple to up the ante and produce a service caters specifically to its iOS devices.

5. Unlimited Storage

Absorbing iEverything is going to take an awfully large iCloud. While Apple will probably let customers put iTunes purchases in the cloud for free, iCloud could really find its pitch if it allows customers to send their full libraries—complete with apps and more—up to the cloud. Windows Live SkyDrive gives customers 25 gigabytes of online storage for free; imagine if Apple, flush with cash from iPods, iPhones, and iPads, took it a step further. Yes, it’s decidedly un-Apple to give away what can be monetized, but consider the long game. Apple already has the software (MobileMe) and a significant server farm. Imagine the competitive advantage of an iDevice with unlimited, always-on storage. It’s enough to stare down the onslaught of Androids. It’s probably a pipe dream, I know. Perhaps a more feasible solution is free cloud storage for purchases and discounted storage for everything else.

6. Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth

Sometimes cloud services can rain you out. For example, if I’m listening to an album and I walk down to the subway, if that album is stored solely in the cloud, my iPhone tunes out once it loses wireless connectivity. Video raises another issue: Watching a movie over Wi-Fi is quite different than watching over 3G. A successful iCloud could model Google Music, which automatically caches songs to your device as you listen and allows you to specify particular files for offline consumption. Considering every Apple iOS device already has 8+ gigabytes of storage, there’s more than enough buffer.

7. Lala Gets Real

To get a good sense of what’s in store for iCloud, you’d do well to look at former streaming service and Apple acquisition Lala. Lala had a catalog of music from which to draw, so no transfer was needed. The added bonus was that you got the ideal versions of music: high quality, DRM-free tracks. I see no reason why Apple couldn’t use this technology for any songs or albums customers already purchased through iTunes. In a perfect world, they would corral your musical mutts—songs from ripped CDs, Amazon, and others—and locate them in a heavenly iCloud. At the very least, however, I would love to see hybrid model, wherein iCloud automatically Lala's iTunes purchases and allows customers to manually upload miscellaneous media.

8. Smart Sharing

When it comes to video, there is no one magic file. I certainly don’t need 1080p on my iPhone, retina screen or not. And, if I’m on an AT&T network, low-res is best-res. Hopefully, iCloud will be a smart streamer. It will be able to see on what device and from what connection you’re watching. Similar to Netflix, iCloud will optimize media for your means: 1080p for AppleTV, YouTube-quality web video for the iPhone on the go.

9. Ping Opens Up

Critics and customers alike panned Ping. Apple’s social music service never really found its footing: It turns out people just aren’t that interested in joining a closed social network with limited utility. If Ping could bring something new to the market, however, the tune could change. Imagine if you could "Ping" a friend, or send them a link to a favorite song that they could listen to, all the way through, for free. Imagine if Ping were a service, rather than an iTunes feature, as accessible in a Web browser as it is through iTunes. In this scenario, Ping is more accessible and adds both social and practical value to the iTunes snippet. It also capitalizes on the name: today’s lexicon already includes "Ping." If Apple were to do something innovative with this term—for which they have a trademark—they could redefine it and own it. That in itself could give Ping—and iCloud—some spring.

10. The Long-Lost Subscription Service

We already know that Apple has inked deals with Warner Music Group and at least one of the remaining three largest music labels. With all four in the fold, iCloud could allow customers to buy music from any device anywhere, or, more importantly, access music that they’ve already purchased, from any device, anywhere. With all the stakeholders at the table, I want to see Apple fulfill one of the longest running iTunes rumors: a subscription service. One of the key rationalizations for the pay-per-song model was that customers wanted to own their music. However, now that customers are comfortable with cloud-based storage, why wouldn’t they be comfortable with a full-featured subscription service? Take Netflix. Or Hulu. When it comes to media, compatibility and convenience trumps ownership. I’m not saying iTunes has to do away with the per-per-song model, but why not, if you’re already building a cloud-based service and negotiating with the big four, give customers one more way to play?