Apple iCloud launches as US-only beta

There's a lot of love and mutual respect between your Mac and your portable iPhone when that white USB cable gets involved. But what happens when it needs a holiday or goes missing entirely? Take a look at these screenshots of logins and icons, grabbed by Mashable, for Apple's new iCloud beta which went live today to US users with Mac OS X Lion and developers working with iOS 5.

There's no iTunes cloud services yet but Apple has given us an idea of what else iCloud has in store when we get it in the UK early next year. There's Mail, Contacts, Calendar and iWork support (Pages, Numbers and Keynote) so that all your emails and documents are available from any Apple device via the cloud.

This kind of cloud storage doesn't come cheap though – 5GB is free with an additional 10GB for £14, 20GB for £28 and 50GB for £70. Want to know if it's worth it? Read Need to know – iCloud.

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