With Apple’s iTunes in the Cloud service in over 115 countries, the Cupertino, California based company is consistently looking to expand. On Wednesday, Apple added movie support to the iTunes in the Cloud service for 11 new European countries.

The new countries include, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Users in these countries who previously downloaded content from the iTunes Store will be able to re-download all of it.

Other updates to the service include the availability of TV shows in France, as reported by French site iGen. TV show availability on iTunes in the Cloud has seen a very limited rollout, with France becoming only the fifth country to have the feature after the U.S, Australia, Canada, and the U.K. Apple’s iTunes in the Cloud service was launched in the United States in June of 2011, followed by the addition of TV shows and movies in March 2012.

Apple has gradually added the availability of movies in a number of countries, bringing it to above 100 countries. Apple’s iTunes in the Cloud is very similar to its other services and even its products, in the sense that it is not open sourced for storing any type of file and that it stays within the Apple ecosystem.

{Via MacRumors}

Apple is looking to continue adding to Siri’s features with 9 more languages reportedly coming to the personal voice assistant, currently operating on the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5. Belgian site Apple Nieuws Vlaanderen noticed earlier this week that Apple had posted a job listing for Cloud Services Engineering Interns for those who can speak Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Korean, Norwegian, and Swedish.

On the listing, Apple noted this was for “delivering Siri in different parts of the world.” Currently, only Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish are not supported on Siri, however, may be in the next several months if Apple hires interns an improves Siri. Apple currently supports the following languages and will continue to expand to include more

• United States (English, Spanish)
• United Kingdom (English)
• Australia (English)
• France (French)
• Germany (German)
• Japan (Japanese)
• Canada (English, Canadian French)
• China (Mandarin)
• Hong Kong (Cantonese)
• Italy (Italian)
• Korea (Korean)
• Mexico (Spanish)
• Spain (Spanish)
• Switzerland (Italian, French, German)
• Taiwan (Mandarin)

With iOS 6, Apple has continued to improve Siri, adding in new features such as Sports scores, stats and information, as well as the ability to buy movie tickets, and even support for Passbook. By adding in new languages and more support for external applications such as Passbook and Yelp, Siri is becoming more integrated into the iOS ecosystem. During its initial release, many users complained that Siri was very limited and couldn’t interact with third party applications.

{Via MacRumors}

Following the transition from Apple’s paid MobileMe service to the free iCloud service, the Cupertino based company provided users with an additional 20 GB of storage as a thank you for sticking around as a user. These users were expected to be downgraded back to the standard 5 GB of storage after their free complimentary year expired.

Standard users receive 5 GB of free storage, and have the option to purchase additional storage as needed. On Friday, Apple emailed these customers and mentioned that they are once again extending the complimentary storage to September 30, 2013.

When you moved your MobileMe account to iCloud, we provided you with a complimentary storage upgrade beyond the standard 5GB that comes with an iCloud account to help you with the transition. Originally, this storage upgrade was set to expire on September 30, 2012.

As a thank you to our former MobileMe members, we will continue to provide you with this complimentary storage upgrade at no charge, for an additional year, until September 30, 2013. No action is required on your part. For complete details, please read this article.

Thank you again for using iCloud,

iCloud Team

Users will receive storage based on their payment plans under the MobileMe service, causing the complimentary upgrades to range from 10 GB, 20 GB, or 50 GB. Late last week, many users reported that they were experiencing storage boosts up to 25GB, which led to speculation that Apple may be rewarding its users for paying for MobileMe previously. It is likely that the date on these upgrades from last week were a glitch, with an expiration date of the additional storage set to September, 30, 2050.

{via MacRumors}

Apple discontinued MobileMe, the cloud service prior to iCloud and integrated in the emails as well as contacts and photos. Now, with iOS 6 beta 3, Apple appears to be transitioning users from me.com email address to iCloud.com.

icloud.com email addresses are now available for iCloud mail users. Users signing up for new Apple IDs, or enabling Mail on their iCloud account for the first time, will automatically receive an @icloud.com email address instead of a me.com email address. iCloud users with @me.com addresses that have been used with iOS 6 beta 3 will receive an @icloud.com email address that matches their @me.com address.

Although Apple discontinued MobileMe on June 30, users still have a limited time to access their data. This latest change may not affect users a great deal, although emails would now have to be sent to iCloud.com as opposed to a me.com address. Apple’s final version of iOS 6 is expected for release alongside the next generation iPhone 5  during the month of October, when all iCloud user accounts will be forced to make this change.

{via MacRumors}

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Apple Inc. (AAPL) have been competing in the ereader and tablet market for over a year now, since the iPad was introduced. On Friday, a report from Bloomberg mentioned that Amazon is now looking to introduce its own smartphone to take on the iPhone and some of the leading Android devices in the market.

A smartphone would give Amazon a wider range of low-priced hardware devices that bolster its strategy of making money from digital books, songs and movies. It would help Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos — who made a foray into tablets with the Kindle Fire — carve out a slice of the market for advanced wireless handsets.

Amazon has one of the most popular ereaders out on the market, the Kindle and is also leading the industry with some of its other products, including its cloud services and tablet computer, the Kindle Fire. The report mentions that Amazon is set to acquire a portfolio of patents that would allow the company to take steps in competing directly with some of the top competitors.

The rumored smartphone would likely borrow certain aspects of the Kindle Fire, including features such as purchasing books, magazines, and newspapers from Amazon’s store as well as using Amazon’s Cloud Drive as external storage. Amazon currently operates services that control a considerable portion of the digital content available online. By introducing a smartphone alongside its tablet and pairing with its online content, Amazon could very well present the iPhone with a serious competitor in the smartphone market.

{Via MacRumors}

With the introduction of iCloud during last year’s WWDC conference, it was clear that Apple was taking a new path with their offering of cloud services. Steve Jobs, who was CEO at the time of the introduction, admitted that the MobileMe services offered up as cloud features were definitely not the best product that Apple had offered its users. Since then, Apple has gradually been winding down operations associated with MobileMe, making the normally $99 a year service into iCloud.

iCloud offers users an initial 5GB of free storage and then begins to charge based on GB of storage. Earlier this year, Apple gave users the option to remove their files and even offered discs of the Snow Leopard software through MobileMe accounts for users to make the transition to iCloud as smoothly as possible. Apple is still allowing users to transfer their files from iDisk and images from Gallery, but is doing so on a final notice, as the website now displays a red sign that reads, “MobileMe is Closed”.

Apple is offering users the option to transfer their iDisk and Gallery files because both of those features as well as iWeb publishing did not and will not carry over to iCloud. Apple’s replacement for Gallery is likely the new PhotoStream feature and iDisk is being replaced by the variety of storage options offered in iCloud.

The Cupertino company has yet to mention a specific date as to when MobileMe would be permanently shut down, but it will likely be shut before the public release of iOS 6.

{via MacRumors}

On Thursday, Google announced that they are bringing their popular Chrome browser as well as their Cloud service, Google Drive to iOS. Following the announcement, Google released an iOS app, condensing a number of features from the full sized browser and packing them into the app. Some of the main features brought over include incognito mode and tab syncing across devices.

The browser, although being entirely developed by Google still relies on Apple’s WebKit-based engine, which is required by Apple’s SDK. Google Chrome for iOS seems like the perfect addition to Apple’s successful iPhone, however, according to a report from NextWeb, the one setback of the app is that users cannot use Google Chrome as the default browser on the iPhone.

The biggest hurdle that Chrome features, of course, is that it cannot be set to be the default browser on iOS devices, a capability that Apple also reserves for Safari. So, while you can use the browser to your heart’s content, it will not be the default handler for any URLs clicked. That’s a huge hurdle to overcome.

Google’s Chrome Browser is great for users that also use the Chrome browser on their computer and want an easy way to transfer their bookmarks or want to be able to access their computer settings on their iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Alongside the Chrome browser, Google also released a Google Drive app, the cloud service the company introduced several months ago. Both the Chrome browser and the Google Drive app are currently available in the App Store.

{via MacRumors}

Apple Inc. (AAPL) recently launched a new TV ad called “Harmony” which in 30 seconds highlights iCloud service for iOS and OS X. AAPL has been posting a series of iPhone 4S ads which show the all-new voice assistant Siri and the much improved camera and now with the latest ad the focus has turned to iCloud.

iCloud automatically stores music, photos, apps, calendars, contacts, documents and keeps all your iCloud enabled devices in sync. When Apple introduced iOS 5 during WWDC 2011 Steve Jobs took to the stage to talk about iCloud and repeatedly said, “it just works”. The new TV ad in a similar theme conveys that iCloud is “Automatic. Everywhere.”

The ad begins with the all-new welcome screen in iOS 5 which gives you an option to use iCloud and then goes on to show an album being purchased on iPhone 4S which then shows up on iPad 2 and MacBook Air. Then photos, calendar, app purchases, contacts update and iBooks are all shown to sync between different devices.

With the introduction of iCloud users can not only keep their iOS devices in sync but can also backup to the cloud, set up the device without connecting to iTunes and with iTunes Match they can upload their entire music library to the cloud.

iCloud is a free service available on devices running iOS 5 or higher however, if you need to add more space for backup then you could purchase additional storage right from your device.

Rumors earlier in the week suggested that Apple Inc. (AAPL) was looking to roll out their iTunes in the Cloud services to its Japanese users, and on Wednesday, Apple did exactly that. This allows Japanese users to freely download previous content from the iTunes Store.

A report from 9to5Mac also revealed that AAPL included a number of other features to the Japanese iTunes Store, including iTunes Plus, 3G downloads, Ringtones, and Complete My Album. Apple has posted a What’s New page [Google translation] on its Japanese iTunes site, highlighting some of the new features:

– 3G downloads: Music downloads from iOS devices had previously been restricted to Wi-Fi only, but users can now access content over 3G networks.

– iTunes Plus: The Japanese iTunes Store now supports the DRM-free 256 kbps iTunes Plus format, up from the previous 128 kbps versions carrying usage restrictions. Labels will need to upgrade their content to the new standard, so it may take some time for all music to become available in iTunes Plus format.

– Ringtones: Music ringtones are now available for purchase in the Japanese iTunes Store.

– Mastered for iTunes: Rolling out on a worldwide basis, Apple is now featuring songs and albums that have been specifically mastered for the iTunes Store to provide the best sound quality for the format.

– Complete My Album: Users who previously purchased individual tracks from an album can now purchase the entire album for a discounted price based on a credit for their individual-track purchases.

With the latest update, Apple has not brought over almost all of the new features, except the iTunes Match service, currently available in only 37 countries. The iTunes Match service allows users to match or upload their entire music libraries to access from any iCloud-enabled device.

Apple has not commented as to whether they will bring over that service to the Japanese iTunes Store, but reports suggest that Apple is looking to bring over the service during the first half of 2012. A large part of Apple’s revenue stream now comes from Japan and China, only two of the countries in Apple’s Asian market.

{via MacRumors}

Apple has been experiencing heavy sales with the iPhone 4S, the company sold more than 4 million devices during the launch weekend. With the success of the iPhone 4S, Apple has been consistently releasing TV ads to get the word out about Siri personal assistant and other features.

On Thursday to follow up a number of other successful ads, Apple released two new ads, one called “Rock God”. The ad shows a teenager, one the target audience of Apple’s iOS products, using an iPhone to search a number of things from buying a guitar to searching music notes.

At the end of the ad, after playing guitar with a band, the teenager then tells Siri, “Call me Rock God” and Siri follows up with, “From now on, I’ll call you ‘Rock God’. OK?”.

Apple also released another TV ad called ‘Road Trip’ which shows a couple asking Siri for directions for a number of cities and restaurants, and driving to these locations, followed by another search on Siri.

Apple appears to be releasing ads targeting varied audiences and advertises Siri in almost all of its ads, except for the first string of ads released following the announcement of the iPhone 4S which highlighted the better 8 MP camera and Apple’s iCloud service.

Earlier today, Amazon launched an entirely new service that they had been working on, a web based iPad Kindle Reader called “Kindle Cloud Reader”. This new service allows users to utilize their Chrome or Safari browsers to access their Kindle eBooks. The Cloud Reader also supports the iPad version of Safari and successfully bypasses Apple’s subscription rules for apps.

Amazon can now implement any promotional feature for any book that they wish, without any regards to Apple’s rules, all the while earning 100% of revenue and still drawing on Apple customers. TechCrunch noted that the new feature is already up an running at http://read.amazon.com and that the feature is better than expected.

The iPad version is especially good because the store is fully optimized for the device. And you can easily switch back and forth between the store and your own library. It feels like a native app, but it’s not.

Apple has been receiving a lot of criticism about their new subscription rules, and companies are moving to entirely web based operations in order to sidestep Apple and retain all of their revenue.

Amazon recently complied with Apple’s rules by removing the Kindle Store button from their native application but with the new web-based solution the company work on its own terms without requiring any approval.

Have you used the new cloud-based reader? Do you still prefer the native app? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

{via MacRumors}

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) have devoted the entirety of their website’s front page to a large white area with clock-faces showing the time in New York, London and Tokyo relative to the time of 07:00 AM in California.

The wording above those clock faces reads thus..

Tomorrow is just another day.
That you’ll never forget.

And we are invited to check back tomorrow on Apple’s web site for “an exciting announcement from iTunes”.

Apple rarely dedicates its front page to anything trivial. Occasionally they will devote the page for Red Cross, or similar organizations appeals for genuine causes, like massive disasters. But other that that their next big new product is generally given pride of place there.

Many rumor sites are suggesting that this announcement must be linked to a “Cloud Service” of some kind. And that does seem like the obvious call to us too.

Will we finally get to hear what, at least some of the bandwidth that Apple’s new Data Centers are capable of pushing out, is for?

Any ideas? Give us your best predictions in the comments…