As Apple introduces iCloud, what’s on the horizon for consumers?

Cloud computing is all the rage in the tech and media industries right now, even though the term itself dates back to the 1960s. While the era of the personal computer fostered a reliance on our own gadgets for our computing needs, today’s current cloud services encourage us to shop pieces of our daily computing activities out to the servers of various tech companies.

Popular cloud-based email programs (like Yahoo or Gmail) and other online document tools (like Google Docs or Dropbox) have crept into our online activities so gradually that most users barely realize that much of their data are already in the cloud. A recent study shows that over 69 per cent of Americans have used some kind of cloud service, even though many of them were not aware of the term “cloud computing” or what it meant. In other words, it’s not that what Apple announced Tuesday was particularly new. But, as with the iPod and music, Apple’s foray into the cloud will be a significant step in mainstreaming the idea and the practice of cloud computing, particularly with respect to personal media like music and photos.

At the heart of the push toward cloud computing lies a powerful metaphor. Clouds, on bright summer days, are big white fluffy things that fill the sky. The cloud is an idealized portrait of what we expect from our information: it should be always there, wherever we are.

However, the cloud metaphor conceals as much as it reveals. One of the most critical distinctions of cloud computing is that our software programs, data and media no longer necessarily reside on our personal machines. They exist out there, in the cloud. In the case of media, this raises obvious comparisons to radio, cable television, movie rentals, or other arrangements that rely on broadcasting, subscription or rental rather than outright ownership. So why should we be concerned?

Streaming, subscription and other cloud services enter their users into service agreements that rent music out for a certain fee or under certain conditions. Compared to music formats, music in the cloud allows service providers remote control over a user’s library and makes our media dependent on the service in question. Media delivered via the cloud becomes what technology scholar Jonathan Zittrain calls “contingent,” where goods and devices are rented rather than owned, and subject to instantaneous revisions that are often beyond the control of consumers.

Amazon’s recent “recall” of George Orwell’s novels on its Kindle e-book readers is just one of many examples of the negative consequences of this contingency. After discovering that it had sold e-book versions of 1984 and Animal Farm without the proper rights, Amazon remotely erased copies from users’ devices. Consumers were understandably annoyed. Although Amazon later admitted the move was wrong, its actions show how transient and unstable digital media are when they are governed by remote connections to the cloud.

The move to the cloud will also have implications for how we think of, and relate to, our media collections. Part of the appeal of a music collection, or any collection, are the traces collectors leaves behind as they make decisions about their library. Questions about what to keep, what to get rid of, what to show off, what to hide, in what format, etc. all reveal something about the collector. Even in the case of digital music, users still need to invest time and effort into tagging songs, organizing them within folders, etc. In the cloud, many of these activities disappear or are provided by service. Music collections are instant and pre-selected. They are not compiled and tended to over time. Users are either part of a service or not. Digital collections in the cloud are digital in the purest sense. They are a one or a zero, an on/off switch rather than an individually selected expression of one’s own personal relationship with music.

As in the past, Apple will nudge users toward its vision of the future by reminding them of the past. From what we know of iCloud so far, songs, photos and other media will still reside on your computer or your device as well as in the cloud. This will permit (supposedly) seamless syncing across all your devices, but you’ll still “own” a copy of the media you’re consuming. This may reduce contingency and may still provide a level control over your collection.

But whether we’re ready for this new kind of relationship with our media – well, that’s still a bit cloudy.