I remember when I got my first Android phone.  It pulled all sorts of info from my Google account, from contacts to photos.  By the time the Evo came out, Android device interfaces had begun to incorporate social networking accounts, pulling Facebook and Twitter updates and events into my contacts and calendar apps, and even loading the apps I’d already purchased from the Android Market.  And from the very beginning, Android enabled cross-app interactions designed around sharing content through one app or another, sending media across my social networks, and bookmarking items to cloud-based services like Evernote.  Now that Apple’s updated iOS and launched the iCloud service, I can do all of these things on my iPhone, MacBook Air and iPad as well.

It’s about time Apple caught up with many of the features that Android’s offered for well over a year now.  Apple devices are sleek with a penchant for the aesthetics of the user experience, and finding a way to unify all of that is a necessary part of Apple’s business moving forward.  The past few updates to Apple apps and operating systems have notably centered certain features around iTunes and the App Store, layering in media access for music, movies, books, magazines, photos and more.  With the updated iOS and the new iCloud, Apple’s clearly looking to add some fluid pragmatism to its devices.

This all centers around data back-up.  Thanks to Apple’s new data centers, the new Lion OS X, iOS 5 and iCloud will all have daily background updates and syncs for your important data.  The support is spread across all its apps, from Photos to Pages, even picking up apps (books, games, documents) where you left off.  The idea here is that devices are mere portals to Apple’s real service–the cloud.  The company wants to make your cloud experience the same on every device, even some Windows-based devices, with a sync option for photos in your Pictures folder.

iCloud turned out to be a major upgrade from MobileMe, which Steve Jobs admitted had several problems, noting how much they learned from the earlier cloud version during the demo at WWDC today.  Your messages, calendar, purchased apps  and even iTunes are all synchronized on a regular basis, at no additional charge.  One service you will have to pay for, however, is iTunes Match.  At $24.99 per year, iTunes Match will find songs you’ve ripped yourself, giving you full access to them in iTunes.  For songs iTunes can’t match, it will still support them as uploaded files.  It speaks to Apple’s goals around a music subscription service, softening at the DRM edges and even pricing out Amazon’s comparable offering.

Apple didn’t unveil any new devices this year, marking the first time since the iPhone first launched that a new generation wasn’t revealed at WWDC.  But it also demonstrates Apple’s current shift to the cloud, a transition several device-oriented companies are having to make as the consumerization of IT grows demand both inside and outside the walls of the enterprise (a trend we’re seeing this week at rivaling events Dell Storage and HP Discover).  Apple greatly improved several of its own apps with today’s update, seeking ways to better fit them into its existing ecosystem, while also matching, and in some cases exceeding features offered by Google, Microsoft and RIM (encrypted messages and other centralized messaging features).  Google’s been working in the opposite direction, looking for more ways to make an ecosystem around its apps (Google Docs, Gmail, Picasa, YouTube, Maps).

Even Apple’s Twitter integration, which begins with a single sign-on and spreads to several applications, including Photos and Safari for geo-tagging and website-sharing, speaks to Apple’s desire to maintain control over its software-based ecosystem, unifying its experience while trying to incorporate mainstream trends.  Apple’s reducing its reliance on developer apps to offer the features we’ve all been waiting for, though APIs for all its updated systems were mentioned at WWDC today.  New standards are being developed around the cloud marketplace, and we’ve reached a point where the technology and infrastructure can offer a great deal more than it could even a few years ago.  Apple will have to continually maintain and update its new cloud front (they’re already facing anti-trust suits in Europe), and find new ways of working with third party markets and developers, as these emerging standards will ultimately unify the many cloud platforms cropping up as a result of this new mobile world we live in.

image credit: By Paul Sakuma, AP