Steve Jobs on cloud nine on Apple return

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs's much-anticipated return to the stage at San Francisco's Moscone centre has whetted the appetite of the company's army of fans and investors who hope it has found the next source of growth for the world's most valuable technology company.

Jobs, who has been on medical leave for months and last took to the stage in March to present the iPad 2, introduced the iCloud, a web-based service that lets consumers stream music they bought to any Apple device, pitting it against rivals Google and Amazon.

Expansion into cloud computing is seen as crucial if the company is to stay competitive with increasingly popular open-sourced software, such as Google's Android operating system, according to analysts and investors.

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The iCloud has the potential to make Apple's iTunes even more powerful, making it tougher for rivals to keep up.

Apple has been busy wrapping up negotiations with major record labels to secure licences for its iCloud service, which is also expected to include a revamped version of its little-known MobileMe storage service.

The licences will help Apple introduce scan-and-match technology that scans a user's hard drive and provides access to music found there from the company's own servers.

Currently, Google and Amazon require users to upload their library of songs.

Apart from iCloud, Jobs introduced software upgrades, including Lion, its Mac OS X computer operating system, and the next version of its mobile operating system.

Any appearance by Jobs, who survived a rare form of pancreatic cancer, is usually closely scrutinized by Wall Street, given that the fortunes of the $320 billion company are so closely linked with the co-founder.

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