APPLE fans last night welcomed the new iCloud service but said they would like a lovely box to put it in.
The cloud computing service is the first Apple launch in more than 250 years to not involve a plastic rectangle with rounded edges that costs at least £300.
Chief executive Steve Jobs said iCloud would make it easier to ‘synch’ music, photos and complex emotions between different devices but enthusiasts stressed they were deeply uncomfortable about using an Apple product that could not be seen by other people in coffee shops.
Stephen Malley, from Finsbury Park, said: “It should come with a plastic or brushed aluminium box, perhaps about an inch high and six inches along each side and with the Apple logo on top.
“Obviously it would be completely empty because the actual cloud is in the sky or something, but at least I would have my lovely thing.
“I’m willing to pay up to £750.”
He added: “Then, when I’m in the coffee shop, I will be able to notice people glancing at my new box and I can say ‘I see you’re admiring my iCloud’ and then I’d tell them not to touch it.
“Ever.”
Helen Archer, a retail analyst at Donnelly-McPartlin, said: “It is strange that Jobs has passed up the opportunity to sell people an empty box for £750. Perhaps the empty box will come with iCloud2.
“Then again the ‘cloud’ is perhaps the perfect Apple design concept – light, white and beautifully simple. It is everywhere above us. It surrounds us, it becomes us and we become it.”
She added: “So it’s a shame that the actual ‘cloud’ is a vast, humming warehouse filled to the brim with computers and would hurt like fuck if you tried to fly through it.”
