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One of my favorite things to do in the Battlefield series is take a helicopter, set C-4 all around it, get people get into it, and then take them on a… trip. Sometimes I bail so I can watch the turmoil unfold from afar. Sometimes, I’ll just stick it out and see the deed done in first-person mode. People don’t like to be the victim, but I get a laugh out of it.

X-Plane for iPad [$9.99], as well as the series as a whole for the iPhone and iPod Touch, has just been updated with a new system failures tab that simulates various woes that can lead to a sure and quick fiery explosion. It’s like creator Laminar made an update just for me!

It’s stupid-fun for me to set up some of the incidents. For example, earlier this afternoon, I set up a four-engine failure coupled with a bird strike. You can also go easier and set up easier problems to cope with, like elevator system, landing gear, reverser failures. You can also set up “unreliable” mechanical issues, though I think this is more for the serious bunch of X-Plane pilots out there.

X-Plane is an ancient series in App Store terms, but they’re good for what they are, which is to say, serious flight simulators. There is even an Apollo mission IAP option built into the iPad version I’m currently checking out!

Obviously, there’s more to the system failure options — good pilots will get a kick out of trying to right the ship, so to speak, and fight the aerodynamics of these issues.

What an update! Excuse me while I see what happens when you try to land with three tire blow-outs could with landing gear problems.

[Via iLounge]

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If you've ever played Spectromancer on PC, you know what you're getting into with Hothead Games' Kard Combat [Free, with in-app unlockables]. Not because it's been ripped off, mind you, but because the co-creator of Kard Combat is Richard Garfield, the man behind Spectromancer and the big daddy of TCGs, Magic: The Gathering.

The thing that sets Kard Combat and its progenitor apart from other card games is the complete lack of deck building. For some, building a carefully constructed deck designed to devastate your opponents is what the genre is all about, but I find it more of a necessary evil. I don't particularly want to spend all my money buying boosters, or spend hours agonizing over whether this card or that card is a better fit for my deck. If you feel the same, you'll find a lot to like here.

For starters, Kard Combat completely eschews the booster pack model. Instead, you earn your cards in the game's substantial single-player mode. There are four mages to take through the campaign, The Tower, each defined by an affinity: Death, Holy, Dominator and Machine. Whichever one you choose, your cards will be randomly chosen from four elements, Fire, Water, Air and Wind, and a fifth that matches your affinity. Each match, your deck is built out of twenty randomly chosen cards picked from those you've unlocked and spread evenly between the five categories.

When you face off against an opponent, you each get a field with six positions to fill. On your turn, you can play one card, which is either a unit that can be placed in one of those six positions, or a spell that affects you, your opponent or his cards directly. Units face off against the cards placed directly across from them. Each card has a mana cost, and you have a pool of mana for each category of card – this mana starts out at random levels and increases by one point each round, barring any cards that modify your mana growth. Both players have a pool of health, and the loser is the one that runs out of health first.

There are two ways to unlock cards. You can play through the Tower, which is free for the first few levels and can be opened up with a $0.99 in-app purchase for each mage (or $2.99 for all four). Each opponent you defeat on your way up the tower gives you a new card or an item. If you'd rather just hop straight into multiplayer fully armed, you can unlock all the cards, mages and items with a one-time purchase of $9.99.

Kard Combat has asynchronous multiplayer through OpenFeint. Strictly speaking, this means you can walk away and take your turns whenever you want to, but most of the community seems to play as though this is a synchronous game. There's nothing to stop you from playing in real time, and with such a fast, strategic game, you'll probably prefer it that way.

That's a lot of technical stuff, but the technical stuff is pretty important here. You know what else is important? The art. The card art in Kard Combat is pretty great, in a moody, gothic sort of way. Unfortunately Hothead has chosen to only let you see it in tiny little boxes to keep the game's file size low. Since the game's interface isn't much to speak of (it's functional, but with an unpleasant 90s-retro-gothic style), and the art is so small, the whole thing is a bit bland to look at. The sound design is also underwhelming, leaving us with a somewhat uninspiring package.

But looks aren't everything, and thankfully Kard Combat makes up for its weak points with a great personality. It's a fun game, and the lack of deck-building means it's easy to get into — even for card game newbies. The single-player campaign has three difficulty modes, so you should be able to find a challenge no matter your skill level, and the multiplayer is both functional and well-balanced. Our forum users are pretty into it, too. Kard Combat has a bright future ahead of it, and Hothead Games has given every indication the plan to keep it growing for a long time to come.

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Crescent Moon's Aralon: Sword and Shadow is one of the App Store’s meatier games, so it often demands a meatier price point. If its standard price of $9.99 is too much for you to swallow, I think you’ll dig this news: the game, which is a Universal app, is now just $4.99. That’s, like, a total of five dollars of savings! Think of all the things you can buy with the money saved!

In case you didn't know, Aralon is one of the most advanced RPGs on the App Store. A convenient analogue is the Elder Scrolls series, which generally boasts the same attributes: first-person perspective, somewhat deep spell combat systems, tons of quests, and an open-world. We reviewed it awhile back, so give that a read if you’re interested in learning more.

A new update, by the way, has hit since we last talked about Aralon. The latest version has hammers and maces, as well as 'specialty' IAP items. Several bug fixes, including the crash bug in Uthu’s Fortress, have been fixed, too. Not too bad for a free update.

In other Crescent Moon news, the studio has given us a few new screens of Pocket RPG, which development for appears to be going well. We're told that the game will launch alongside an update that adds "target assistance" (read: auto-aim) for casual players and includes notable refinements and tweaks to the overall product. Neat! Now, check out those screens I mentioned earlier:

Pocket RPG launches this Thursday, July 14th.

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Some of the App Store’s best simulation racing games have received a price slashing as the US prepares to celebrate its independence with drink, food, and things that blow up and make pretty colors. For the third or fourth time only, the Real Racing series is up on the sale block, each title receiving an 80 percent to a 30 percent cut from standard price.

• Real Racing – $4.99 → $.99
• Real Racing HD – $6.99 → $1.99
• Real Racing 2 – $6.99 → $4.99
• Real Racing 2 HD – $9.99 → $6.99

You’ll not be wanting for a Grand Turismo-like experience on your little touch devices if you decide to grab one of these, as we’ve written in our respective reviews for these two outstanding iOS racing jams.

If you’ve somehow missed Flight Control HD, well, that’s on sale, too. Firemint dropped the price from $4.99 to $.99 for the next 48 hours alongside the Real Racing series. The PC and Mac version of the title on Steam is also on sale, if you’re interested in that.

Sales are kind of a big deal right now. If you're in the market for an EA, a Com2Us, an Adult Swim Games, or a Gameloft game, hit up our posts for each. EA is blowing everyone out of the water by having its entire catalogue up for 99 cents, but there's other attractive deals out there from these aforementioned publishers.

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EA doesn’t kid around when it comes to App Store sales. During Christmas 2010, the publisher offered up much of its catalogue for 99 cents. It’s doing the same right now in celebration of the US’ Independence Day, and I’m guessing it’ll net similar results: total App Store chart domination.

Around 90 of EA's titles have hit the 99 cent floor with this sale. Just below, we've listed the ones whose prices were slashed in honor of this holiest of holidays. The blurb in front of each game isn’t specific on the dates the sell will run, so buy now if you’re into anything the publisher has. And there's a lot to like here — Dead Space, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and older (but still quality) titles like Mirror's Edge are all being featured.

• Battlefield: Bad Company 2 – $2.99 → $.99
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2 HD – $9.99 → $.99
• Battleship HD – $2.99→ $.99
• CLUE: Secrets & Spies – $4.99 → $.99
• Coconut Dodge HD – $1.99 → $.99
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert HD – $4.99 → $.99
• Dead Space – $6.99 → $.99
• Dead Space HD – $9.99 → $.99
• Draw Jump HD – $2.99 → $.99
• Dragon’s Lair 2: Time Warp – $2.99 → $.99
• FIFA 11 – $2.99 → $.99
• FIFA 11 HD – $9.99 → $.99
• Fight Night Champion – $4.99 → $.99
• The Game of Life HD – $6.99 → $.99
• Madden NFL 11 – $2.99 → $.99
• Madden NFL 11 HD – $6.99 → $.99
• Max And the Magic Marker HD – $2.99 → $.99
• Mirror’s Edge HD – $9.99 → $.99
• Monopoly HD – $9.99 → $.99
• NBA JAM HD – $4.99 → $.99
• NCAA Football – $2.99 → $.99
• Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit – $4.99 → $.99
• Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit HD – $9.99 → $.99
• Need For Speed Shift – $2.99 → $.99
• Need For Speed Shift HD – $9.99 → $.99
• Need for Speed Undercover – $2.99 → $.99
• PICTUREKA! HD – $4.99 → $.99
• Reckless Racing HD – $4.99 → $.99
• RISK -$2.99 → $.99
• RISK HD -$6.99 → $.99
• Scrabble -$2.99 → $.99
• Scrabble HD – $9.99 → $.99
• SimCity Deluxe HD – $6.99 → $.99
• Snood HD – $4.99 → $.99
• TETRIS – $2.99 → $.99
• TETRIS HD – $7.99 → $.99
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 – $4.99 → $.99
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 HD – $6.99 → $.99
• The Sims 3 -$6.99 → $.99
• The Sims 3: Ambitions – $4.99 → $.99
• The Sims 3: World Adventures – $2.99 → $.99
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon – $2.99 → $.99
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon HD – $4.99 → $.99
• Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 HD – $4.99 → $.99

Other studios are running sales, too. Gameloft, Com2Us, and Adult Swim have cut the cost of a lot of their libraries and even smaller developers are getting into the mood. Stick with us today and we'll definitely bring you that information.

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The name Spiderweb Software is a bit misleading, after all, it's mostly the work of one man, Jeff Vogel, who has for almost twenty years given us some of the most intricate RPGs on PC and Mac. Until now, at least, these were often an inclusive, old-schooler affair. But Avadon: The Black Fortress HD [$9.99] is one of the first to be easily approachable — it's also the first to hit the iPad.

You'd be forgiven if you've glanced at screenshots and balked at the idea of playing Avadon, it's not a pretty game. Visually, it falls somewhere in the '90s, pre-CD-ROM drive, which is to say it's an isometric RPG akin to something like Baldur's Gate, Ultima or even Fallout. It's filled with old-fashioned tilesets, hardly animated sprites and a locked camera that doesn't allow you to zoom nor rotate. While I'm getting things out of the way, I should probably also mention there is no musical score. The sound, when it does exist is hardly worth paying attention to and the amount of modern day polish slathered on here lays somewhere between murky and non-existent.

But none of that has anything to do with what makes Avadon a good game, because it's good based solely on the actual game, not the flair.

Avadon isn't as hardcore of an RPG as it might look on first glance and it's also considerably more approachable than Vogel's earlier games. You start the game by picking one of four pre-built classes and typing in a name. No complex stat sheets, no guessing what abilities you'll need and what you won't. You'll meet other adventurers along your journey who will join your party. You'll level up through your adventure, but it's done mostly through a small skill tree, not a vast collection of unknown abilities leading to more unknown abilities.

Combat is turn-based and works well, provided you enjoy turn-based combat. If you don't, consider this an ample warning. Depending on the difficulty level you chose, you'll need to concentrate on your strategy in different ways. There is, quiet literally, something for everyone here. A complete RPG-virgin can pick it up and walk through the game with little trouble on Casual, but the higher levels should provide adequate challenge for players of all backgrounds. Naturally, you'll pick up loot, outfit your team with different equipment and change around your stats. For the most part, this is all relatively self-explanatory, although the menus don't make things easy if you're swapping items between party members.

It's the story that really matters here more than anything else, it's what's going to keep you going through the night. That story bends to your will and your actions and like the best RPGs, you're not always aware of it when it's happening. The core of the narrative comes from you enlisting as a Hand to the Pact, a high-horse power created by a group of nations bent on protecting the good of itself and its people from a fortress called Avadon. This doesn't just mean they protect the borders, it also means they'll burn down villages, kill helpless creatures and lock people into prisons.

As with most of Vogel's games, the writing in Avadon is well done and sprinkled with enough wit and humor that you don't feel oppressed by the seriousness of it all. Within a few hours you'll have a good grasp on the Avadon's structure, the religions, your fellow fighters and a number of the NPC groups. You'll also start getting the sneaking suspicion the Pact and Avadon aren't all they're cracked up to be.

As you play through the game's 20-30 hour campaign, you'll start to notice how your actions are affecting the larger story, from minor quips in dialogue or descriptions to fully-fledged moments that couldn't have existed had you not done something earlier. The dialogue options aren’t the color-coded morally simple choices of modern RPGs, nearly every time you need to respond to a situation it will sit somewhere on a gray scale between good and evil and you'll never know for sure if you're making the right choice. The plotline is basically linear, save for a fair share of side quests, but you still feel like you're having an affect on the world, for better or worse.

The translation to iPad is relatively fluid. I had a few crashes and memory errors while playing, but nothing that set me back too much. The touch screen works well for this type game, although you'll occasionally accidently move your characters around when you mean to fight because you'll tap on the wrong part of the grid. The item screen, as mentioned earlier, is a bit unwieldy with a touch screen and requires an excessive number of taps to get to business, but you'll get used to it. If you've played Spiderweb's RPGs before, you'll know what to expect, but Avadon is considerably more linear and less open than much of its previous work. That's not a bad thing in this case; it's a good entry point into a deeper RPG for iPad players and a great throwback to people who've been playing for a long time. It's streamlined, yes, but not to the point where you feel like you have no control. You still have to read signs to get directions, take note of what people say and remember (in your head, not in an objective screen) where you're going and why you're going there.

Avadon: The Black Fortress HD might take a little while to sink in, but if you get enmeshed in the narrative and the world, it's hard to walk away from it. It's been a long while since I accidently stayed up all night with a game, but Avadon managed to do that without even bothering with fancy visuals or voiced dialogue. It's not going to be a game for everybody, but if you're weary of spending the completely fair price of $10 on the iPad version, I'd suggest checking out the demo for the PC or Mac versions. The experience is similar, although the iPad version will occasionally run into some frame rate drops and has a lower resolution. If you're a fan of '90s RPGs and have been craving something that doesn't hold your hand or guide you along on the iPad, this is the perfect game for you.

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Want to know why you’re not seeing a lot of Take-Two label games on the App Store? That answer resides in a new Forbes interview with CEO Strauss Zelnick. When the conversation turned towards iPad and iPod games, the business-first-man whipped out the phrase “economically meaningful.” When used in a negative light like he did in the talk, it means, “not making the kind of money we want.” In short: the cold reality of business is why.

“We’ve tried a bunch a things. We tried Chinatown Wars [$9.99 / HD] for the iPhone, and we’re thrilled that we did it, and it was creatively successful. At the price point for which we can sell on the iPhone, it is not going to be economically meaningful,” he said.

To keep this in focus, Chinatown Wars started out as a Rockstar Leeds Nintendo DS project. The App Store version is a port with a few bells and whistles. The original DS title did not perform up to expectations, either.

“At the end of the day, we are interested in creating economic value, and what we intend to do is make something and sell it to millions and millions of people, and sell it at a high price. You don’t want to spend lots and lots of money to make something you are going to sell to a small amount of people at a low price.”

So, smart — thus, cold and non-consumer facing — business is, part of what’s gumming up the Take-Two / App Store works. Pricing specifically was touched on. Zelnick, naturally, favors boosted prices. When pressed, he seemed opened to the idea of a $20, $30, $40 tablet games — but provided that said game brings a “robust and engaging” experience.

“I don’t see why not. Tablets are ubiquitous. And tablets are a great game platform. And it’s the right sized screen. And you use the tablet to have an engaging experience. So if all of that’s true, I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to sell a robust product for the same price point. The reason the price point is currently lower for an iPhone app is it is used for five minutes, and not for a hundred hours,” Zelnick said.

There’s no little pretty bow to wrap this up in — Zelnick was non-committal about the App Store as a whole. The thing is, though, is that Take-Two exists to make money and there’s no doubt at all that the App Store can provide in this arena. The question we’re asking now is if Take-Two will scale back experiences to cater to lower prices or if it actually does plan to charge premiums for console-like titles.

[Via Forbes]

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If you happen to be one of those people that has yet to check out the phenomenal Real Racing series on iOS, Firemint is going to temporarily make it a lot cheaper for you to do so. From now through the weekend, every Real Racing title is now on sale in some capacity. Here’s a quick breakdown of the price drops for each one:

• Real Racing, $4.99 → 99¢

• Real Racing HD, $6.99 → $1.99 (iPad Only)

• Real Racing 2, $6.99 → $4.99

• Real Racing 2 HD, $9.99 → $6.99 (iPad Only)

If you maybe aren’t a big racing fan but have always been intrigued by the Real Racing series because of its technical merits, then picking up the first Real Racing for just 99¢ or the iPad version for $1.99 is basically a no brainer. Neither of these games have ever been this cheap before. While the sequel Real Racing 2 is definitely a step forward over the first game, Real Racing still has plenty of legs with a ton of races to play through and online multiplayer.

If you are a racing fan then chances are you have already picked up at least one of these titles, but if for some reason you have not then this weekend’s sale is a great time to check out the Real Racing series.

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While they weren’t technically the first to do it, Firemint’s Real Racing 2 HD [$9.99] was the first game to officially support full screen 1080p TV-Out on the iPad 2. After the iPad 2 dropped, it was discovered that a few other games also supported this already, but more of by chance and not necessarily as a specified feature. Now Real Racing 2 HD is making sure its the first game to announce support for one of the new features revealed for iOS 5 at Monday’s keynote.

When iOS 5 is released sometime this Fall, Real Racing 2 HD will support fully wireless TV-Out via the iPad 2 and AirPlay Mirroring with an Apple TV. Essentially, it will perform the same function as the TV-Out feature did using an HDMI cable plugged directly into your TV but completely wirelessly, though it won’t be displayed in full 1080p. It will still run in full screen, but the maximum resolution AirPlay Mirroring can output is 720p. However, that is a very small price to pay to be able to play Real Racing 2 HD on a TV using the iPad 2 as a controller and having it be completely wireless.

In short: I want this for every game ever. The Real Racing franchise has typically been at the forefront of adopting new and interesting features in iOS, and I really hope others follow suit. In fact, AirPlay Mirroring combined with gaming is incredibly similar to what Nintendo is touting as a huge feature of their new Wii U console that was unveiled at E3 yesterday. This gives even more credence to the talk that Apple is now a firm player in the console gaming market with AirPlay Mirroring as they increasingly try to invade the living room space.

I personally love it, and although there are many things the home consoles offer that iOS doesn’t, I absolutely feel there is room for my iPad 2 as a viable option when deciding what to play on my TV at home. We’ll keep a close eye on how this feature is utilized in other games too as we near the release of iOS 5 later this year.

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Today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs kicked off the week of the 2011 World Wide Developer Conference here in San Francisco with his keynote presentation that outlined three major technologies the company will soon be rolling out: Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5, and the iCloud service.

Mac OS X Lion

Jobs and company began running through several of the 250 new features that will arrive with the forthcoming major update to Mac OS X, Lion (version 10.7). Among the many advances it will bring are deeper support for multitouch gestures, facilities to allow easy creation and management of fullscreen applications, and the LaunchPad system that makes for easier browsing and launching of apps — all of which bring Mac OS X's look and feel closer that of iOS.

Mac OS X Lion will be available sometime in July, exclusively through the Mac App Store as a 4GB download at a price of $29.99.

iOS 5

Jobs then moved on to iOS 5, beginning with a look at where we are. Since the original iPhone's 2007 debut, over 200 million iOS devices have been sold, in all, 25 million of which are iPads. There are presently 425,000 apps in the App Store, 90,000 of which were designed specifically for the iPad. And, since its debut less than three years ago, 14 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store, generating a total developer payout of over $2.5 billion.

Apple intends to grow those already impressive numbers with the release of iOS 5, a major update to operating system driving the company's mobile devices. This new release will bring over 1,500 new APIs for developers to work with and over 200 new features.

Senior VP of iOS Software Scott Forstall took the stage to detail ten of the more notable features that iOS 5 will bring.

1. Notification Center is a new component of iOS that acts as a central notification hub that can be swiped into view, presenting a list of recent notifications and the ability to jump to the application associated with each. Additionally, notifications will no longer pop disruptively onto the screen, but will appear at the top of the screen, taking the user to the originating app with a tap or fading out entirely if ignored. The iOS lock screen will also display a list of the most recent notifications, with a swipe across each taking you to the originating application.

2. Newsstand gathers the many disparate digital magazines and newspapers available on the App Store into one place and allows easy browsing and purchasing. Chosen items will be downloaded into the News Rack, which features an iBooks-like interface that shows the current front page as the item's icon. Background downloads will allow subscribed items to updated themselves for easy pick-up reading.

3. Twitter support has been integrated into iOS, providing single sign-on (no need to re-enter password every time an app wants to access your Twitter account) and a pop-up Tweet Sheet for applications that support the new components. Those with immediate support include Camera, Photos, Safari, Maps, and Contact, the last of which can pull twitter user photos and import them into iOS contacts to put simplify the task of putting a name with a face.

4. Mobile Safari is the most popular mobile web browser in use today; nearly 2/3 of all mobile browsing is done with it. New to Mobile Safari is Reader, which provides a clean, unified rendering of multi-page stories, generated from RSS information. Reading List is an Instapaper-like system that allows webpages to be saved to a list for later reading. And, finally, tabbed browsing support will allow for easier management of multiple sites at the same time.

5. Reminders is a type of active to-do list system that can setup a "geofence" and trigger reminders based on your geographic location.

6. Camera is getting an update that will bring optional grid lines for better framing, on-device editing like cropping and rotating plus red-eye reduction. The volume up button can also be set to trigger the shutter. Additionally, a camera icon will appear on the lock screen allowing photos to be taken quickly without unlocking the device.

7. Mail under iOS will be enhanced to allow draggable addresses, indentation control, message flagging, full-message search, left / right swipe to / from inbox to message, an integrated dictionary, and support for the newly expanded iOS keyboard that can be slid upwards to split out into two thumboards.

8. "PC Free" changes have been made to iOS to allow it, for the first time, to be fully used without the need to sync to any PC or Mac. Upon first power-on, iOS devices will display a Welcome screen, as opposed to a sync notice. Software updates will now take place over the air via WiFi, and incremental "delta updates" will allow more efficient system updates.

9. Game Center has received several enhancements in this next version of iOS. Forstall indicates that there are over 100,000 game and entertainment titles in the App Store and, in an effort to further iOS as a game platform, Game Center has been expanded include user photos, achievement points, access to friends of friends, friend recommendations, game recommendations from Apple, and game downloads direct to Game Center. A framework for handling the behind-the-scenes back-and-forth needed by turn-based games has been provided as well, to eliminate the need for developers of such titles to handle everything on their own.

It was noted that in just nine months, there are 50 million Game Center users, while Xbox Live currently has about 30 million users after nine years of up-time, as a comparison.

10. iMessage lets iPad users get in on iPhone-style Message app texting. It's 3G and WiFi based, supports rich media, and works on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The system includes optional delivery and read receipts with messages pushed to all of your devices.

It was also mentioned that iOS 5 will support wireless mirroring of an iPad 2 screen to an Apple TV display, WiFi-based syncing with iTunes, and will bring all of the resources of Mac OS X's Core Image subsystem to iOS developers.

iCloud

The third piece of today's keynote puzzle is iCloud, Apple's long-rumored online data storage / retrieval system that's designed to make life much simpler for users of all Apple devices.

"Some people think a cloud is just a hard disk in the sky," Steve told the crowd. "We think it's way more than that." iCloud stores content (think contacts, calendar, photos, music), with wireless push to all devices. But the kicker is, it's completely integrated with apps. Everything happens automatically, invisibly. "It just works."

iCloud replaces MobileMe and its core apps — Contact, Mail, Calendar — with completely rewritten version made to store data remotely and sync it with all Apple devices, Mac OS X or iOS-based. But those are just three of the nine total apps that make up the iCloud system. The App Store app has been updated to show your full purchase history from any device, with a download from cloud button that allows such apps to be redownloaded on different devices without any additional charge. Moving forward, any app purchased on any device gets pushed out to all other iOS devices. The iBooks app now works in the same fashion, as well.

A Backup application wirelessly backs up all data on an iOS device to the cloud via WiFi — user data, camera roll photos, videos, books, apps, and music. If you purchase a new iPhone to replace an old, all data from the old device will sync down to the new unit.

Documents in the Cloud is Apple's solution to the complex and unnecessary nature of the filesystem on modern systems. As Jobs indicated, it "completes the iOS document storage story." This component of the iCould system allows applications to manage their own documents, syncing them to the cloud and down to all other devices. Support for Documents in the Cloud is already present in the latest versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote. iCloud developer APIs are forthcoming that will allow storage of full documents as well as simple key value data. Documents in the Cloud supports all iOS devices, Macs, and PCs, too.

Photo Stream brings photos to the cloud. Take a photo on any iOS device or import a photo into iTunes on a Mac and it is automatically moved to the cloud and synced with all other Apple devices, and the Pictures folder on Windows PCs. This allows viewing of your Photo Stream on any iOS device — including the Apple TV — or Mac or PC. Photo Stream photos are all stored permanently on Macs and PCs, with the most recent 1,000 stored on iOS devices. Photos will be stored in the cloud for 30 days, long enough for them to make their way to all of your connected devices.

iTunes in the Cloud brings easy syncing of your music across all devices. Any previously purchased music can be downloaded without additional cost on any Mac, PC, or iOS device. Any future music purchase automatically gets pushed out to all connected devices. For music not purchased through iTunes, but ripped from CD or gathered elsewhere, the iTunes Match service will scan your library and allow you to download tracks that are found, at 256 Kbit AAC quality. Any tracks that were not matched can be uploaded to the cloud for access from any device. The cost for maintaining iTunes Match titles in your iCloud library is $24.99 per year.

MobileMe, which was a $99 per year, subscription service is now dead. iCloud replaces it as a free service that provides all of the aforementioned along with a me.com email address and 5GB of document storage, not counting photos, videos, music, apps, or books.

Developers can download a beta of iOS 5 with iCloud support today, and the system will roll out publicly in the fall.

Apple has placed a video of this morning's complete keynote event online.

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