Apple posted big profits yesterday and their iCloud service was one of the biggest winners.
AppleInsider is reporting that iCloud usage has jumped to 85 million subscribers. Sign-ups for the service have far out outpaced device sales.
During the conference call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said, “iCloud is off to a great start with more than 85 million customers signed up as of today. With iCloud, customers can store their music and photos and documents and keep their personal information and content in sync across all their devices, automatically and seamlessly.”
The numbers don’t come from just new users signing up for the service, but also from MobileMe, Apple’s old data storage system, users.
AppleInsider states that iCloud is much more convenient than Apple’s previous two attempts at storage with .Mac and MobileMe which forced users to sync data manually across all platforms. The prior services also featured a clunky interface and users had to pay for storage. iCloud lacks all of those with its free easy-to-use interface.
“It was a fundamental shift recognizing that people had numerous devices and they wanted the bulk of their content in the cloud, and easily accessible from all the devices,” CEO Tim Cook said.
The service launched in October 2011 and as we reported then, iCloud synced users’ contacts, calendar and mail across all devices. It also allowed users to store personal data and purchased apps so they could access them across all devices.
Cook went on to say that iCloud is not just a product, but a “strategy for the next decade.”
