iCloud, which was said to be conceptualized by the late Steve Jobs back in 1996 when he was still with NeXT, was formally released to the public yesterday and Apple fans can now experience the new cloud offering by upgrading your iTunes to version 10.5 before connecting your Apple device (iPhone 3G, 4, iPad 1 & 2, ipod Touch 3 & 4) so your device will be upgraded to the new iOS 5.  After upgrading your device, you just need to follow the instructions on your Apple device and you’re all set.  Users will have 5GB of storage for free, which they can upgrade to 10GB for $20/year, all the way up to $100/year for 55GB of storage. You can now start exploring the new features like iTunes in cloud where it makes your purchased item from iTunes be available in all your Apple iOS 5 devices, no need to sync to your Mac.

Users will also enjoy the new Notification Center where updates, messages and e-mails appear and can be accessed, even if the device is locked; Reminders, a mash-up of your calendar and to-do-lists; Twitter integration; Safari now offers better browsing features with the Safari Reader and Reading List for all the bookworms out there; and you can now track your friends’ whereabouts with Find My Friends feature as well as be able to track your misplaced Apple device and have the ability to lock or wipe data from your device remotely.

They are also prepping for the availability of movies in the iCloud which, like iTunes, once purchased, the movie will be available in all compatible Apple devices.  The service will be ready either by the end of 2011 or early 2012 as Apple is still finalizing talks with movie companies.

But not every feature is as awesome as it should be.  Take for example the Contacts, you can’t automatically import your friends’ contact details via Facebook and it doesn’t consolidate multiple entries for the same contact person, so if you have friends with multiple contact info, you’re probably going to have a long Contact list.  Also, though Photo Stream is a great way to automatically save your photos in the cloud, you can’t actually see your photos on iCloud, you’d have to use your iOS 5 device or a Mac using iPhoto or the Aperture app.  And the iWork feature is not really a great web app as it doesn’t allow you to view or edit documents.  To top it all off, iCloud on the web is not really compatible with most browsers as you need to download additional plugins just so you can use it.

A blog post written by  Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO in Box.net, a company that offers full cloud services, back in June downplays iCloud as it isn’t the cloud for all – as in not for everyone and not for a variety of purposes.  The biggest setback of the iCloud is that it is Apple-focused.  So if you don’t have an Apple compatible device, you don’t actually need it as there are a lot of cloud services that aren’t so discriminating.  Also, as workplaces allow personal devices to be used for work related purposes like file sharing, iCloud isn’t for enterprise use as companies cannot impose that their employees only use iPhones or iPods unless the company buys all their employees Apple devices, which is highly unlikely.  Another point that Box.net made is that the iCloud would just cause more problems for IT professionals as it would just add up to the various platforms they are already handling.

If you look at it, iCloud is great for solitary use or to outcast non-Apple users.  It’s more for personal use rather than for use in the workplace as you can’t actually receive, send or share files in your iCloud account to non-iCloud people.  And with that restraint, people would likely use other cloud services that are compatible with different mobile platforms.