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So what does it mean for everyday users and music lovers?

A lot.   Here are three key pieces of info Jobs shared at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference this morning:

• “iCloud stores your content in the cloud and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices,” Mr. Jobs says.  So now, everything is synced without your having to think about it- music, photos, documents.  Contacts are stored in the cloud and pushed to other devices. If they’re changed on any device, they’re updated on all devices. Calendars work the same way.
• Users can have access to their whole library of photos, documents and music anywhere.  Unlike services offered by Google and Amazon, which require users to upload their music libraries, Apple’s new service would analyze the library stored on a computer and grant access to songs it recognizes without requiring an upload. Users then are able to listen to their music on compatible smartphones and computers, without copying the songs into each device’s memory.
• Everything will back up to the cloud daily, including purchased music, apps, books, your camera roll, device settings and app data.  Hardware inevitably fails, so this ensures that not only do you have access to your data, you won’t lose it.

At a high level, this changes everything.  The iCloud app would scan your music collection, match it up with what it’s own database and give you access to those tracks on any device anywhere.  No file transfer, no risk of lawsuits over files you may have gotten from friends along the way.  Similar to Amazon, the iCloud gives users 5GB worth of space for free and charges for more space in a subscription model.  By making music available in more places and on more devices, such services make it more valuable. They also encourage people to think of music as something they access, rather than something they collect and carry around with them. That’s an important step toward embracing a monthly subscription service that provides access not just to the tracks you’ve bought, but to millions of other recordings.   I tested the Google offering and it still needs work.  I use the Amazon offering and its pretty good- I’m able to download an album and play it from my PC or the phone- or in the car if I connect the phone to the AUX jack.  The only downside is the occasional buffering where I lose sound for 3-5 seconds or so.  Apple claims that its service is robust enough to overcome this issue.

Will the iCloud be the silver bullet that finally drags the music business into the 21st century?

Apple has signed deals with Warner Music Group Corp., Sony Corp.’s Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Group Ltd. and expects to sign a fourth with Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group this week.  The labels’ track record of handicapping new services with burdensome anti-piracy provisions and huge up-front payments isn’t encouraging. But Apple has a track record of making new music services work.  And these agreements will let Apple offer an easy way for consumers to
create and listen to their entire music collections without the time-consuming work of manually transferring or uploading songs.  Many in the music industry see such offerings as a key next step in the evolution of digital media, in which music, and eventually video, is convenient and ubiquitous.

Apple’s standing as the world’s largest music retailer and more than 200 million iTunes accounts give it clout that others have lacked.  Google and Amazon haven’t been able to agree on terms with the record labels thus far. If Apple can be the first to do so, that would further tighten its hold over its users, making it more difficult for Google and Amazon to lure them away.