WWDC sneak peek: Don’t let iOS 6 blind you to the real action in iCloud

I usually hold my nose at Apple rumor stories since 99 percent are simply made up or otherwise false. As Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in mid-June approaches, we’re getting the obligatory rumors of an iOS 6 reveal, as well as the perpetual rumors of both a 7-inch iPad and a completely new design for an “iPhone 5.”

The 7-inch iPad ain’t gonna happen. Although Apple might conceivably refresh the iPhone design this fall and show it at WWDC, it won’t be for the sci-fi tech the rumormongers are speculating over, such as liquid metal and rounded glass. (I am betting on a four-inch screen and an LTE 4G radio.) And new Intel Ivy Bridge-based MacBook Pros, probably including an Air-like thin version, are all but certain to debut at or before WWDC.

Still, it’s very possible we’ll hear about iOS 6 and the next iPhone at WWDC. Apple has regularly used the conference to unveil new versions of iOS and often to showcase new iPhones, so that speculation has a basis in history. As part of that, Apple would likely reveal its own mapping capability to replace Google Maps — Apple advertised the engineering positions some time ago, so of course Google Maps will be replaced at some point.

But my tea-leaf reading suggests that even if we see iOS 6 and a new iPhone, the real emphasis at WWDC will be on iCloud, which spans iOS and OS X. It’s a consumerization technology that will affect everyone, more deeply than a new iPhone model or MacBook model would.

The constellation of iCloud components is coming together We already know that the forthcoming OS X Mountain Lion supports a new iCloud capability called iCloud Documents, which lets apps open and save documents directly in iCloud.

iOS 5 apps such as the iWork suite already do that, so bringing it to OS X is a no-brainer — except the OS X Mountain Lion approach integrates iCloud into the formal file system, making iCloud usage much easier and thus more common. For iOS 5 apps, iCloud integration with their Mac counterparts is tenuous and nonobvious, as any iWork user can tell you. That’ll change in OS X Mountain Lion, and don’t be surprised to see it become even more prominent in iOS.

With the new iCloud Documents capability, I expect we’ll finally see new releases of the iWork suite — Pages, Keynote, and Numbers — that have remained essentially unchanged for three years and are showing their age. iWork on iOS integrates with iCloud well, but the integration is invisible on OS X. Your iWork documents already sync from your Mac to your iOS devices, but getting them the other way is a dark art that requires opening a hidden iCloud folder on your Mac. Either at WWDC (or in the run-up to it) or at the release of OS X Mountain Lion, I fully expect a new version of iWork for OS X that puts iCloud Documents front and center.

I suspect we’ll see other iCloud services debut at WWDC, as Apple continues to develop iCloud from what started as a syncing waystation to a platform in its own right spanning syncing, storage, and services. For example, Apple has alerted users that the iWork.com beta website for document sharing will go dark on June 30 — you have to know this will be part of iCloud 2.0. Apple has also invested in photo album and printing services for its iPhoto, which recently got an iOS version. You can expect photo sharing and distribution to be rolled into iCloud as well.

Game Center, which is Apple’s cloud-based service for comparing game play across multiple users via leaderboards and other tried-and-true community gaming techniques, may also find its way into iCloud as a component. It may even expand into true multiuser game-playing. Game Center debuted in iOS 5 last year and will be in OS X Mountain Lion this summer — yet another cross-device, cloud-based service that would make sense as part of the greater iCloud platform.

The WWDC theme, I predict, will be just that: iCloud as a platform that spans the whole Apple universe and will become an integral part of the iOS and OS X experience, as well as extend them into the Web.

Casting a dark shadow: iCloud as Apple’s AOL For users, this integration will very likely continue in Apple’s “it just works” tradition. For developers, it further enmeshes you in the Apple ecosystem, almost in the way that America Online did in its heyday. Case in point: OS X apps can use the iCloud Documents APIs only if they are sold through the Mac App Store.

The App Store tie-in is a further sign of Apple’s intent to create a closed platform. OS X Mountain Lion by default will only let you install apps from the Mac App Store, although you can change that setting to include apps signed by Apple and any apps. There’s a safety reason: Malware can’t self-install under that new Gatekeeper function, just as there is a safety reason for requiring new Mac App Store apps to be sandboxed, so they can’t infect other apps. But this Mac App Store tie-in to iCloud also shows that Apple is intent on uniting its iTunes/App Store distribution platform and its iCloud content distribution platform.

The AOL analogy is an uncomfortable one. AOL helped the world accept the notion of going online when the Internet was a collection of arcane technologies designed for scientists and engineers. But AOL became a prison and everyone busted out to the free Internet, which had evolved to being usable by mere mortals.

Maybe Apple can straddle the two worlds, but not in as greedy and constraining a manner as AOL. After all, iOS is very open to Web apps and websites, so the App Store is not the only venue for getting the stuff you want. iTunes in OS X and Windows also lets you bring in music and videos from outside Apple’s iTunes Store, and iBooks on iOS is open to ePubs and PDFs bought elsewhere. And iCloud allows basic syncing of photos, bookmarks, contacts, and calendars with Windows users. Apple’s platform has doors to the rest of the world, even if the best stuff is available only to those who join the club.

As the iCloud platform becomes more clearly defined, we may get a sense of whether Apple will continue that duality to avoid the AOL fall from grace.

This article, “WWDC sneak peek: Don’t let iOS 6 blind you to the real action in iCloud,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Galen Gruman’s Smart User blog at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.