Excellent piece by one of my favorite bloggers/analysts, Ben Thompson, about iCloud and Apple:

For Apple, making something perfect behind closed doors is the exact opposite sort of approach that is needed for the cloud. Effective cloud services are all about iteration based on data from usage – the Google model – and that’s not the sort of approach that Apple values.

Apple, among the big companies, is the one that is less fitted to develop properly for the cloud. Most of the challenges come from its background. Also, as Ben pointed out, by its aversion to release service just good enough, and then iterate it to improve it. 

But maybe something is changing within Apple. With the increasing importance and added value of cloud services, we have seen Apple:

• Releasing public betas for OS X 
• Releasing public betas for iCloud 
• Releasing public iWork for iCloud as beta
• Relaxing its NDAs to allow the flow of information

Apple will never be Google when it comes to web services, but it has come a long way from the disasters of MobileMe (it worked perfectly for me though). 

Cloud is an interesting area for Apple, a place where it can only improve, starting from the next live event.