苹果推出云计算服务iCloud

旧金山时间6月6日，美国苹果公司推出在线存储云服务iCloud。其主要功能是在用户对使用苹果iOS系统的移动设备进行充电时，系统会自动将用户的文档、购买的音乐、应用程序、照相簿和系统设置等进行云端备份，再自动推送到用户的所有设备，用户在苹果的智能手机、平板电脑和台式机上都可以同步获得这些内容。每位用户目前可以获得5G的免费存储空间，从苹果购买的音乐、应用程序和电子书不占用免费空间，收费的大容量云存储方案将在今年秋季推出。

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, returned from sick leave to announce the company’s new cloud storage service, iCloud.

The free service syncs users’ content - including emails, apps, documents and music - on an online server so that it can be accessed on a computer or a mobile device.

Speaking at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, Mr Jobs said iCloud was Apple’s “next big insight”. He told the audience that for a long time people had synced all their content with a computer but this process was broken.

小编注：insight 一词的中文释义是“洞察力”，观其英文解释为"The capacity to discern the true nature of a situation; penetration." 及 "The act or outcome of grasping the inward or hidden nature of things or of perceiving in an intuitive manner." 乔帮主在此处称iCloud是Apple的"next big insight"，新华社将其译为：“下一个伟大的远见”。

He said that every device now contains music, photos and documents and “keeping all these devices in sync is driving us crazy”.

iCloud will ensure that a song or an application bought on a mobile device will automatically be available on other devices too. It also lets users sync their documents and photos between multiple devices.

The music storage part of iCloud has attracted the most attention in recent weeks. The free part of the service syncs music bought from iTunes but for an annual subscription Apple will also scan the music that you haven't bought from iTunes and add it to your iCloud service if it is in their library.

小编注：云计算（iCloud）这项服务的免费部分（The free part of the service）能将你从iTune上买到的音乐进行同步（syncs music bought from iTunes）。而对于购买了年订阅服务的Apple其他设备而言（but for an annual subscription Apple），也同样能扫描你尚未购买的iTunes音乐（will also scan the music that you haven't bought from iTunes），并且如果这些音乐在你的图书馆里，就可以被加入到你的云计算服务中心去。

Mr Jobs noted that Apple had tried cloud services before. He said that some would say: “Why should I believe them? They’re the ones that brought me Mobile Me."

He admitted that Mobile Me, the cloud service that stores photos, contacts, emails and calenders, “wasn’t our finest hour but we learned a lot.”

WWDC is the event at which Apple has typically announced the new iPhone but Mr Jobs began the event by saying he wanted to talk about “the soul” of Apple’s products, its software, before handing the presentation over to the company’s senior executives.

Apple announced iOS 5, a major upgrade to the operating system that runs its iPad, iPhone and iPod touch mobile devices. The new version includes deep integration with Twitter, the social network, and upgrades to the Safari web browser and a quick-start mode for the camera.

The company also gave details of Mac OS X Lion - the new version of the operating system that runs Apple’s desktops and laptops. The update brings more gesture-controls to Apple’s computers, based on some of the innovations that the company has made with its mobile devices.

小编注："gesture-control"这个词组已经有了比较通用的译名“手势控制”，专指电脑使用中不需要用鼠标、甚至不需要触屏，只需隔空滑动就可以完成控制的技术。

Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Gartner, said on Twitter that the auto-save feature was “reason alone to use a Mac”.

Mr Jobs absence for much of the keynote was noted by observers. John Gruber, a blogger and developer who has written about Apple for many years, described the speech as “the first Post-Steve” keynote.

Mr Jobs has been on sick leave from Apple since early this year but returned in March to announce the iPad 2. Yesterday, he took to the stage to the strains of James Brown’s ‘I Feel Good’.