Since WWDC on Monday, we’ve been getting a couple of emails asking us when iCloud will be available for consumers outside of the US of A. Right after the big announcement, Apple pointed out that iCloud would only be available to people living in the US while it was still in beta. We still have no idea what Apple deems as a beta, and like we said previously, we really hope they don’t have the same beta standards as Google.
The Telegraph is reporting that people outside of the US, and in particular living in the UK, won’t be seeing iCloud, and more specifically iTunes in the Cloud, until 2012 at the earliest. According to Emma Barnett, the Telegraph reporter, “A spokesperson for the Performing Right Society, which ensures that composers, songwriters and music publishers get paid for their work, told the Telegraph that negotiations with Apple about ensuring rights in the UK had started but were at a ‘very early stage.'”
Oh boy, this might be a while.
If you recall, The iTunes music store brought with it a lot of negotiating from one country to another as Apple began rolling out the stores around the globe. Additionally, when Apple announced that television episodes were coming to the iTunes store back in 2005 – 2006, it took a very long time for countries like Canada to get access to the show catalog on iTunes, and even then selection was extremely limited. Canada didn’t get its first TV shows in iTunes until 2007, a full two years after the announcement. We may be in for the same kind of wait with iTunes in the Cloud, and other specific iCloud functionality.
Hopefully it doesn’t happen, but it could be a very long time before we see iCloud losing its beta tag, and rolling out to other countries.
Article Via The Telegraph
