Apple's announcement today of its new iCloud Internet storage service and updated operating systems for its Mac and iOS devices represent a dramatic move toward a world centered around Internet services, with PCs and mobile devices acting almost as equal clients in using those services.

Even though it was widely anticipated, the big news from today's announcement is Apple's new iCloud service. The new free service will automatically upload and store your information, like music and videos, to an Internet-based service, and then it will push the data to all your devices. This includes purchased music, apps, and books and also includes the old MobileMe services--contacts, calendar sharing, and mail services. Specifically, the service will keep your 1,000 photos on your device, and the last 30 days of photos in the cloud, while keeping these files permanently on your PC.

For music, you can look at your purchased songs and albums. You can also download any songs you've already bought to other devices, and it can automatically download any new purchases to up to 10 devices. The basic iCloud service will be free, including 5 GB for mail, and doesn't count photos or purchased music, apps, or books. To add songs you ripped from CDs or acquired from other services, the company has a$24.99 annual service called iTunes Match. It will scan your library and upgrade those that match iTunes' 18 million songs. Although I'm sure some folks will not like the idea of Apple scanning their complete music library, my guess is that a lot of people will just like the convenience of automatic syncing. Mac OS X Lion, the latest version of the Macintosh operating system, was said to have "250 new features," but to me, the most interesting changes are those that make the Mac work more like an iPad. This seems to be part of a trend of converging the user interfaces for mobile devices and PCs, much like Microsoft's Windows 8 demo last week. 

The most obvious part of this trend is improved multi-touch support, which brings the kind of gestures used on the iPhone and iPad to the Mac, so you can scroll though pages and drag items without using the mouse. Now, we've seen this idea before, but OS X Lion takes it further by enabling a "full screen" mode that removes the menus, scroll bars, etc. Again, there are a number of individual applications that already had similar features, but this makes it a standard for new applications and lets you just swipe the screen to move between open applications--not too dissimilar from what we've seen in WebOS or the BlackBerry Playbook.

A new Resume feature means that when you exit an application and then resume it, you go back to where you left off. An AutoSave feature will automatically save your work, and it includes automatic versioning, so you can go back to earlier versions. Similar features have long been a part of the iPhone and iPad, and while plenty of individual PC applications have had such features before, it's good to see these added to the desktop OS standards in a way that looks very easy to use. In addition, the Mac App Store is now built into Lion itself, including the ability to update applications.

Other features in OS X Lion include Mission Control, an update UI that lets you see thumbnail views of all your open documents organized by application and lets you create multiple "spaces" or virtual desktops. The concept is the same as in the earlier OS X models, but the UI seems nicer. And it has "AirDrop," which is essentially peer-to-peer document sharing, and new version of the Mail application with a conversation view (like Google's Gmail) and improved search. The new OS will be delivered through the Mac App Store and will cost $29.99 per account (not per machine) and is slated to be out in July.

Apple previewed the next version of iOS, the operating system for iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches. Known as iOS 5, it should be released to consumers this fall, but a developer version is available today. Here the biggest change is probably that it no longer requires a Windows or Mac PC to setup, manage, or update these devices. While today, you need to do this while your phone or tablet is physically connected to your PC, with iOS 5, you will be able to set it up from the device itself, get software updates directly from the Internet, and even sync your iTunes library over the air.

Other new features I'm particularly looking forward to trying are: the "Notification Center," which combines the notices from all of your applications in a central place; the Safari improvements, including tabbed browsing (finally); the Reading mode with a Reading List for stories you want to read later; the camera button on the lock screen (so you don't have to unlock the phone to take photos--a feature Windows Phone has touted); and the ability to use the volume control to snap pictures.

Other additions include better photo editing features in the Camera application; better formatting for the mail application; Newsstand, which aggregates new issues from any publication you may subscribe to; Twitter integration; reminders; a split-screen keyboard for the tablet (much like on the Windows 8 demo last week); more social features for the Game Center; iMessage, a new messaging system specifically for the iOS devices (which sounds like a competitor to BlackBerry Messenger); and AirPlay mirroring, letting you mirror the display of your iPad on your TV wirelessly.

In summary, we have Mac OS X now looking more like iOS, iOS devices now working more independently, and both synchronizing data to a cloud application. That's a big change.

Of course, the individual platforms will each continue to have different strengths. The PC or Mac with a mouse is still going to be a more precise than touching with a finger. A physical keyboard will likely always be better than an on-screen one. Desktops and notebooks are likely to have more local storage for a long time. A tablet will always be thinner than a device with a full keyboard, and a smartphone will always fit better in your pocket. Still, with mobile devices growing in popularity--Apple says it has sold more than 200 million iOS devices, including 25 million iPads--it makes sense that these devices shouldn't depend on being physically tethered to a PC.