If You Use All Your iCloud Storage, Apple Sends You This Email

Anything that YOU make counts to the storage. A few scenarios.
1. I buy Infinity blade (a universal app) on my imaginary iPhone and I don't have it on my imaginary iPad. So I click "redownload." They're not storing anything with apps, music, or movies that they don't already store. It's just a second download. (It can also be configured to automatically download onto the iPad without me doing a thing, but that might fill up storage quickly.)
2. I take a photo. Apple stores it on their servers for 30 days, and I don't have any used storage yet.
3. I make a contact. That uses storage, because apple doesn't already have a copy of that, like they do for apps.

Backup doesn't count your apps. If you restore your iPhone from that backup, then it uses your contacts, etc. but it just registers that you have an app, and doesn't store the actual app.

what exactly counts toward the 5gb quota? is it your phone settings, email setup, contacts, calendars etc.... Or is it music, books, movies, podcasts etc... Or both?

if it's the latter then I would imagine most people will fill up their quota really fast.

No, Steve made it clear that music, photos, videos and the like do not count. Basically, any content that can be re-downloaded from the servers to your device, doesn't count.

Think of iCloud as more of a syncing service rather than an online storage solution.

So does it save only the last backup?

I was wondering the same. I assume it’s just the current state that’s saved, no history/versioning. But what about docs in modern iOS 5/Lion apps that have their own versioning? I’m assuming old versions are Mac-only, but I’m curious.

Regardless, if you do have a Mac/PC, you get a backup there, too (which can even be wireless and automatic). And if THAT machine is backed up with versions/history (as is completely automatic with Apple’s Time Machine software any old external HD or Time Capsule) then it seems that would give you some history-rollback ability: you could retrieve an old backup from any date, and restore the old version via iTunes.

What I want MOST of all, for both local and iCloud backups, is the ability to restore just ONE app’s data. (Say a game crashes and resets my 50 hours of progress... I’ll want to restore that game’s data from backup, but not revert all my work in other apps.)

... and mail sent to me.com email addresses will get bounced.

The good old days of "your inbox is full" are back?

Unmatched music does not count into 5GB, that limit is 25000 songs. See iCloud fineprint #2

5GB limits only applies to for mail (me.com), documents, Camera Roll, account information, settings, and other app data.

_Matched_ music doesn't count against your limit, because Apple isn't going to store it anyway; when you download it, it comes straight from the music store. _Unmatched_ music needs to be uploaded, Apple has to store it, so it counts against your 5 GB limit.

I doubt that number includes anything you've purchased from Apple. This would include photos, videos, documents, settings, and anything else your app lets you upload NOT apps, music, movies, and podcasts. That just wouldn't make sense.

They're already stored on their servers. Your "sync" would just need a reference to their server to download that podcast, app or song when you sync again.

Maybe the $100/yr I've been paying for MM (which included 20 GB of storage) can now be put towards iCloud storage. If so, is it out of line to expect my $100 to garner more than 20 GB of storage since all the other "features" of MobileMe look to be "free" under iCloud?

While aspects of iCloud certainly sound interesting, the devil is always in the details. And in my experience, when Apple (or anyone, for that matter) holds out on the details, it is rarely for the benefit of the end user. In Apple's case, it's typically to avoid an avalanche of bad press from not-so-positive user reaction. You can be sure Steve shared only the details that were sure to get users excited. Now, we sit & wait for the other shoe to drop.

How many dollars per GB is the question. These GBs will turn out to be extremely cheap though, seeing how most media (photos, music ..) do not count towards the storage limit.

It better not be $99 to buy up to 15GB additional storage.

So...why doesn't this article reveal the pricing options? This is what I'm curious about.

Apple hasn't released that information.

I'm still on the fence about this whole iCloud thing. I like the MobileMe sync services for the most part as I prefer for Google to not have ALL of my info. I know I will certainly utilize those services, but I dunno about all of my docs going up to the cloud and down to my iPhone and iPad.

Can you create separate iCloud accounts that all have the same iTunes username? If not, it is a definite no go. My wife and I don't want each other's MBP's to be in sync with each other for documents, but it would be great if we could just sync the pictures and music. However, I would like to pull up documents from time to time on my iPad and iPhone...but I can already do that with Carbonite. If the speed on this thing is as slow as iDisk, then forget it...

You can have separate iTunes accounts and separate iCloud accounts.
But this will be a little more work then having one for both.
I'm using my main itunes account for purchases and my separate iCloud account for backups on my iPad as you can't use you MM account at this moment under the developer preview.

I can download all previously purchased apps and songs and it will let me use iCloud to back up to with the two different accounts.

However all my sons iTunes purchases and downloads are under my iTunes account since he is only 10 and anything he downloads from the stores will automatically synch to my other devices unless I turn this feature off.

One of us is going to have to start from scratch with a new iTunes ID to get this all sorted out, and I will have to lie about his age as you have to be 17 to have a iTunes account if I choose it to be him.