Apple iCloud moves out of beta

The iCloud, Apple Inc.'s long-awaited cloud-based storage service, received what could be its final update Wednesday (Manila time) - the removal of its "Beta" tag. Enthusiast site MacRumors said the iCloud.com website was updated with a new login screen, and the service now shows icons in the background. "(But) iCloud.com, itself, still seems restricted to developers for the most part. There have been sporadic reports of non-developers being able to upgrade, but it seems you must have created one in iOS 5," it said. The iCloud was expected to Wednesday (US time) alongside iOS 5 and Mac OS X 10.7.2, Apple's respective operating systems for mobile devices and Macintosh computers. Apple had released iTunes 10.5 on Tuesday in preparation, it noted. A separate article on The Next Web said iCloud is allowing all MobileMe users to transition their accounts to iCloud, but signing up for new accounts is still not available. "Although current MobileMe users can transition their accounts to iCloud right now, they will have to wait for a few hours for the launch of iOS 5 and a software update to Mac OS X Lion in order to use iCloud with their devices," it said. — TJD, GMA News