As announced last week, Apple held a media event at their headquarters on 4 October.

Below is a brief update on all things Music, iTunes and iCloud. You can also read about all the other Apple announcements here.

The keynote was quite somber, I suspect the staff knew of the imminent loss of the wonderful Steve Jobs.

Music

The Apple iPod

• In 2001 the first iPod was launched, which Apple decrees “made music simple to enjoy again”
• The iPod is the No1 music player in world and holds 78% market share US
• More than 300 million iPods have been sold to date, with 45 million last FY (more than half of those being sold to customers buying their first iPod).
• Read my full update on the Apple iPods here

Apple iTunes

• First released in 2003, Apple iTunes store now has 20 million songs available.
• It is the No 1 music store in world
• A staggering 16 billion songs have been downloaded.
• Apple iTunes 10.5 is coming soon (free update).

Apple iCloud

Apple announced iCloud at their June media event. A basic recap of what iCloud is:

• iCloud syncs all your data as you download it (music, apps etc), or as create it (photos, docs etc) to each of your devices automatically.
• iTunes in the cloud – Previous app purchases can be downloaded to any of your other devices. You can also download all previous music, tv shows etc to other devices at no additional cost.
• Photos – photostream
• Docs (pages, numbers, keynote) free update in iCloud or $9.99 if you don’t already have it. Available 12 October
• Books
• Backup – daily
• Contacts & Calendar – updated on all for any change
• Mail – Advert free me.com account pushed to all devices.
• Unlimited free storage for music etc, plus 5Gb for mail docs and back-up.

Find my Family & Friends

Similar to the “Find my iPhone” app previously released for iPhone iPad, iMac etc, Apple has now announced “Find My Friends”.

Find your friends and family by GPS location, this app appears similar to check-in, but you only share with specific individuals if and when you like.  You can share temporarily or always share. For example if you are at the beach, you can invite friends to share location so that you can find each other throughout the day, but have your location share end by say 8pm that evening – then it will turn off automatically.

Parental restrictions available, so you can set up to have your children’s location shared with you always (and they’re unable to turn that off!

iTunes match

Music must be in iTunes library for the match. (So CDs would need to be added first).

iTunes Match $24.99 / year if you want it to match & download your songs from iTunes (quality etc)

• iCloud is available 12 October
• iTunes Match end Oct (US) – with other countries by year end

Apple Event Keynote

Anyone wishing to watch the Keynote video in it’s entirety, can do so here -> Apple Keynote Oct 2011