Apple to launch cloud services offering

Steve Jobs set to announce iCloud at next week's WWDC event

Apple has announced that it will launch its own cloud service to rival those of Google and Amazon, at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) next week.

The service is expected to be called iCloud, after Apple bought the iCloud.com domain name in April this year.

The company has remained tight-lipped about what the service will offer, and has so far referred to it simply as a "cloud services offering"; it is not yet clear whether the iCloud will be a music streaming tool, or a wider cloud service for storage, such as Amazon's EC2 service.

Present at the show will be CEO Steve Jobs, expected to make only his second appearance at an Apple event since going on leave for medical reasons. Apple's shares rose three per cent on news that Jobs will be delivering the keynote speech at the conference

Apple will also showcase the latest version of its Macintosh operating system, Lion, as well as an upgraded version of mobile system iOS.