iCloud to be unveiled by Jobs 6/6

“HEY YOU, GET ON MY iCLOUD”: That’s the gist of the announcement Steve Jobs is expected next Monday at the Apple Developers Conference in San Francisco (see 5/31 item below). Sources have told the Wall Street Journal that Apple has signed deals with Warner Music, Sony Music and EMI for an online storage service and expects to close UMG this week. These deals will allow the company to offer an easy way for users to listen online to their entire music collections on any device, without the time-consuming work of manually transferring or uploading tracks. “Many in the music industry see such offerings as a key next step in the evolution of digital media, in which music, and eventually video, is convenient and ubiquitous,” Yukari Iwatani Kane and Ethan Smith write. “Apple wouldn't be the first company to offer such a service, but its standing as the world's largest music retailer and more than 200 million iTunes accounts would give it clout that others have lacked.” Breaking with longstanding tradition, Apple confirmed that Jobs will unveil iCloud as well as new versions of Apple's mobile and Mac operating systems. (6/1a)