The WWDC is approaching and new rumors related to the iCloud service and Mac OS X Lion are starting to appear. Those from Appleinsider they got information indicating that Apple may offer certain iCloud features for free to those who purchase Mac OS X Lion. It seems that for these users Apple would have prepared certain functions of iCloud similar to those of MobileMe, but the audio streaming service will not be among them. Those who update to Mac OS X Lion will probably benefit from the possibility of uploading their photos online, hosting a website or having an email account, all for free. The online streaming service required the conclusion of agreements with US record companies and the costs of these agreements will be borne by the users. It is rumored that iCloud will replace MobileMe, but the $99 price will be kept for everyone and those who buy a subscription will also benefit from the online streaming function.
People familiar with Apple's plans indicated to AppleInsider that at least one of those secrets is expected to be that at least some of the services included in iCloud will be offered for free to Mac users who make the upgrade to Lion. iCloud is expected to replace the company's existing MobileMe service, which offers e-mail and remote file storage, along with syncing of bookmarks, contacts and calendar events, at a price tag of $99 per year.
That price tag may remain for users who do not upgrade to Lion, or for Windows users. But it is expected that the cloud services will become free to Mac users who run the latest version of Mac OS X.
Mac OS X Lion could be offered by Apple at a promotional price to convince as many users as possible to switch to the new operating system. The final price of the system is not yet known, but considering that Apple could distribute Mac OS X Lion through the Mac App Store, we could witness a price drop thanks to the elimination of expenses generated by physical sales. In general, Apple asked $129 for the new versions of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard being the only exception considering that the purchase price was only $29. It is not known how much Mac OS X Lion will cost, but Apple seems to be preparing a very aggressive pricing policy in order to attract as many users as possible to its platform.
It's possible that the lower price could also be tied to purchasing Lion through the Mac App Store. The company already does this by selling its professional photography software, Aperture, for $79.99 in the App Store — a price more $120 lower than the $199.99 Apple charges for a boxed copy of Aperture 3, and even $20 less than the $99 Aperture 3 Upgrade.
Whether Apple will choose to go with the same sub-$30 pricing of Snow Leopard when Lion goes on sale is unknown.
