Apple's new operating system turns to cloud computing

June 6, Apple held a developer conference "WWDC 2011" in San Francisco, USA. CEO Steven Jobs's keynote address revealed Apple's cloud computing Services "ICloud", Smartphone "iPhone"/tablet "IPAD" operating System "IOS 5", and Computer "MAC" operating System "Lion".

Apple's WWDC conference keynote address has always been a concern for the world. Every year Apple chooses the opportunity to release new products such as the iphone, but this year there is no hardware release. As previously announced, Apple's WWDC Congress released only software systems and cloud computing services this year.

Two major changes brought about by icloud

The keynote speech meant two major transformations for Apple. The implication can be felt in jobs ' speech.

"10 years ago, the computer had a digital life, and Mac played its part. But it has evolved in recent years because of the evolution of electronic devices. Both the iphone and the ipad feature support for music, photos, and video. It's not appropriate to keep them in sync with Mac "so there's icloud."

This service keeps all information about photos, music, documents, presentations, emails, schedules, contact addresses, etc. on the Internet in cloud computing. The saved data is automatically synchronized with all devices such as Mac, IPhone, ipad, etc., and can be used by other Apple terminals of the user. Apple offered a "MobileMe" fee of 9800 yen a year, but this time the icloud will be provided in free form.

Another change is that iphone/ipad can be used without a Mac or a Windows computer. IOS 5 no longer has to connect to the computer, you can upgrade and so on. Prior to the purchase, Iphone/ipad needed to connect to the computer for "activation." In particular, data backup, operating system upgrades must be connected to the computer through the data line, start the management software "ITunes".

Mac is no longer the protagonist

The advantage of Google's operating system "Android" is that it saves user data for free, synchronizes with multiple devices, especially without having to connect to the computer. The weakness of Android,iphone is "the computer is indispensable".

For example, users of older groups who are not accustomed to computer operations are also interested in the ipad, but connecting computers to activate them poses an obstacle.

So far, the iOS system has undergone many evolutions, but Iphone/ipad has not been able to get rid of the location of "computer peripherals". Although "Computer" has been removed from the company's name "Apple Computer", the basic stance of "Mac is the main business" has not changed for Apple.

In this keynote speech, Jobs admitted that Mac was no longer the protagonist. With more than 200 million iOS terminals in the world, applications such as the iphone or ipad are becoming more and more, and the protagonist naturally becomes "cloud computing".

Apple used to position the iphone as "the easiest smartphone to use Google services." The iphone as the best mobile terminal to save personal data in cloud computing, such as Gmail and calendar, is well received by business people. At present, many Google's Android operating system mobile phones are emerging, can easily keep user data in Google Cloud computing, if the design of the mobile phone is constantly improved, operational improvement, then there will be many users from the iphone to switch to Android.

The most important thing for smart-phone users is to keep "personal data" such as a large number of emails, schedules, and contact addresses. Google offers a number of easy-to-use online services that bring together countless users of the world's personal data and are placed in their own cloud computing system, and their next step is to promote a terminal that can easily invoke data via Android.

Apple has promoted the concept of "easy-to-use terminals", but has not accumulated much in "personal data" services. itunes, which has a credit card account for 225 million people worldwide, is far less than Google in terms of mail, schedule management, and contact addresses.

If you want to keep an edge on your phone, the most important thing is "how to keep the data necessary for your users." The deployment of cloud computing is an option that Apple is determined to attack on the cloud computing sector that Google is good at.

Unique SMS

IOS 5 adds more than 200 new features. Steve Jobs ' keynote speech focused on ten items, including "IMessage", "Notification Center", "Twitter" and "reminders".

What makes the world's mobile operator frown is imessage. Based on this feature, the IOS 5 terminals can be convenient for text, photo mail delivery and chat functions, users like the use of SMS (SMS services) to operate the feeling. There are more than 200 million terminals in the world that have iOS installed, and many carriers sell the iphone. Using the mobile operator's SMS service to send messages is paid, and imessage is free. IMessage can be said to be Apple's video call service "Facetime" text message version, if the application of imessage is widespread, for the delivery of mobile operators to pay SMS services, will undoubtedly lose some of the revenue source.

notification function, Twitter linkage, etc. evolved

The Notification Center feature, implemented in IOS 5, enables unified management of notification information for each application and is easy to navigate. When you use a different application, a notification is displayed above the screen without interrupting the operation in use.

In addition, IOS 5 also reinforces the interaction with Twitter. Without using proprietary client application software, you can simply leave a message and share it with your friends while browsing through photos, maps, and Web pages. Also, the IOS 5 address Book can be stored in a Twitter friend's avatar. It can be said that IOS 5 reinforces the linkage to social networking (SNS) at the operating system level, which is closer to the Microsoft OS "Windows Phone 7" idea.

The Reminders service can record a variety of transactions with a hint function. Dates and places can be set up. If the site is set, based on the spatial location Information service, when the user walks to the site, can automatically prompt the corresponding transaction.

each

Apple's smartphone practices and ideas have long been emulated by other platforms or vendors. Competition is intensifying, and rival camps are constantly being differentiated in different ways.

The iphone, which is leading the smartphone market, has recently been overtaken by Android. This has forced Apple to learn from the strengths of other vendors and to improve its own shortcomings. IOS 5 is improved to be used without a computer, while strengthening the notification function and SNS interactive function.

Apple's "complementarity" of the new system has effectively enhanced the competitiveness of iOS 5 in the process of catching up with Apple, and has opened the gap with other platforms.

The official launch date for iOS 5 is said to be "this fall". At the same time as the new operating system is launched, the industry is speculating and looking forward to whether there will be new products to market, or whether the iphone model will appear. (China ccpit Electronic Information Industry branch compiled: Wang Xiwen)

(Responsible editor: Liu Fen)