It’s been two weeks since iOS 5 and iCloud became available for developers and to be honest I’ve been busy playing with iOS 5 and haven’t seen much of iCloud until now.

The first thing I remember was the setup, after installing iOS 5 it prompted me to enter my Apple ID and enable iCloud. After that, the only thing I tried was backing up my devices to the cloud, which still freaks me out a bit, since everything is in a hard drive in the sky. The process was very seamless, turned on the option and it just worked, or at least I think it worked. After the first backup, you can go deeper into the settings and select which app’s data you want to keep and which ones you don’t.

The second feature I noticed was the cloud icon in iTunes store which shows up on apps you have purchased on a different device, which brings me to the next point. Now both music and app store show a “purchased” category, where you can see your entire purchase history, it even has a “Not On This iDevice” tab to make it easy to see what your missing.  Tap the cloud icon next to the song or app and your iDevice immediately starts downloading. You can download previously purchased songs and apps, even if you bought them on another iDevice or iTunes. Yeah, it’s kind of a pain in the ass, which is what Stevie was saying “keeping all our devices in sync is driving us crazy.”

This next feature will make synchronizing a cinch. In the new iTunes 10.3 and the latest non beta iOS 4.3.3 devices, you can turn on Automatic Downloads for music, apps, and books. With this option on, anything you buy on one device, say your iPhone, will automatically appear on your other devices (Mac, iPad, etc.), keeping all devices in sync. The only problem I see is you might not want to have every app on all your devices, but that’s easily solved by deleting it from the device you don’t want it on.

What else is cool? Photo Stream, it just works. Take a picture with your iPad and it shows up on your iPhone, what else do I need to say? Well, actually I think it would be even cooler if it allowed me to share a stream or photo album with other users, now that would be awesome!

Things I haven’t been able to test: Documents in the cloud and calendar sharing. I can’t seem to find the way to share a calendar with another iCloud user. As for Documents in the cloud, Pages didn’t prompt me to use iCloud for storage like was seen during the Keynote and there’s no sign of the feature in the app. So I don’t know, maybe they haven’t enabled that feature yet?

In response to Lauren Carlson‘s Can Apple iCloud make it rain in the Enterprise? From what I’ve seen and what we know of the way iCloud is setup, my answer would have to be not yet. Unless you are, at the very least, able to share documents with other users through iCloud, it won’t be adopted in a business environment. This is something that undoubtedly will come, if not from Apple, from third party developers now that the iCloud APIs are available.

What do I think so far? Honestly, I’m still processing. It’s hard to asses something when I’ve only seen half of it, but what I’ve seen so far, I like…

(via @shawnblanc)

Apple PR:

Apple Corps, EMI and Apple® today announced that the Beatles, the most influential and beloved rock band in music history, are now available for the first time on the iTunes Store® (www.itunes.com). Starting today, the group’s 13 legendary remastered studio albums with iTunes LPs, the two-volume “Past Masters” compilation and the classic “Red” and “Blue” collections are available for purchase and download on iTunes® worldwide as either albums or individual songs. Fans can also get a special digital “Beatles Box Set” featuring the “Live at the Washington Coliseum, 1964” concert film, a worldwide iTunes exclusive which captures the Beatles’ very first US concert.

For the 3 of you mega fans that don’t already own all their albums, you can now get them on iTunes.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

See the PR note here

Download iTunes 9.2

Apple is now allowing developers to sell free apps with the ability for “in app” purchases, which was previously not allowed. This opens the door for some interesting uses, such as ebook readers. Other uses could be to replace the lite version of apps with a free version and have users pay for extra levels, tools, etc. with in app purchases.

Tomorrow is the highly anticipated Apple fall event… The invites sent out last week hint that it will be, as usual, an iPod event… But what can we expect? New iPod touch with camera? Discontinuation of the iPod Classic? How can Apple fill an entire event with just introduction of a new iPod? There has to be something else…

AppleInsider is predicting, besides the new iPods, an improvement of the App Store along with a new version of iTunes. They also mention the possibility of TV rentals on the mobile devices.

What do I think could make this event more exciting? Maybe introduction of the long awaited subscription based iTunes? They did recently approve the Spotify App across the pond… But then again Apple doesn’t approve apps that would “replicate” a function they offer as a first party, so that’s possibly ruled out… The tablet computer? I don’t think we will see this until next year, the invite pretty much says it all “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it”… So “rock and roll”… What could this mean? How about this, Steve Jobs saying “One more thing… The Beatles catalog is finally available on iTunes!” Now, that’s what I would call excitement, I’m getting giddy like a school girl just thinking about it… Yes, I’m a Beatles fan… Got a problem?

What do you think will happen?

Arstechnica is confirming the event Apple has scheduled for September 9th… As the invite indicates it says “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it.” Which lead me to believe there won’t be announcement of the highly anticipated tablet. Now what I want to know is… Will we see The Beatles catalog in the iTunes Store?

I just read a post from TUAW where they point out something I didn’t realize. The rumored Apple event is scheduled for September 9th, which incidentally is the same day The Beatles’ new remastered library is dropping, not to mention the Rock Band game (which I’m still on the fence about… on one hand it’s cool that new generations will get to know the amazing music from the greatest band ever… but playing them on plastic instrument? I dont’t know… Yeah, I’ve got issues…  but that’s another post).

Traditionally the fall event is to announce new iPods or changes to the line. Announcing the availability of The Beatles catalog in such event would certainly make sense. Let’s hope the Apples can put their past differences aside so we can finally see the Fab Four ushered into the digital era. Like they said over at TUAW “That would be even better than an announcement of a Mac tablet.” Ah… one can dream…