I feared as much. According to The Telegraph (interviewing label executives and music analysts), iOS 5’s iTunes in the Cloud features won’t launch in the UK until 2012 at the earliest. The reason, as far as I can tell, is that people in charge of record labels are fucking idiots.

A music executive at one of the major record labels, who wished to remain unnamed, said: “Tentative talks have begun between the major labels and Apple in the UK. However, all talks are at the really early stages and no one expects to see the cloud music service live on this side of the pond until 2012.”

Because the one thing a new feature needs is for people to instantly hate it by being denied access; and the one thing record labels need is for people to think “screw you, then” and carry on downloading music for free, instead of paying for it. Well played, labels! After all, it’s not like you’re not making money hand-over-fist from iTunes already and therefore don’t want people to react against it by stopping them from getting iTunes in the Cloud, you utter, utter pillocks.

Mark Mulligan, vice president and research director at Forrester Research, said: “Apple’s cloud music service will not launch in the UK until at least quarter one of 2012. These types of negotiations take a long time… For one thing the UK arms of all the major record labels are biding their time and waiting to see how the service affects download sales in the US before they sign up to anything.”

Now, this isn’t the record labels talking, but if Mulligan is right on this, then I really despair. Here are some potential scenarios for someone who might like to use iTunes Match (which, presumably, would cost a typical user about £20 per year in the UK) and how it would impact on record labels.

1. Old git Craig. Craig buys all his music on CD, because he’s some kind of masochist who likes to wait for audio thrills. He rips CDs to his Mac. With iTunes Match, the labels already have money for the CD and would double-dip for the service. Winner: THE FUCKING RECORD LABELS.
2. Downloader Dave. Dave likes iTunes. Ever since it first appeared, he’s used the service, and he even ritually set fire to all of his CDs after downloading his first iTunes music track. Yeah, Dave is a bit of an idiot. Anyway, he downloads stuff from Amazon and Bleep, too, so has loads of digital music files. With iTunes Match, the labels already have money for the digital downloads and would double-dip for the service. Winner: THE FUCKING RECORD LABELS.
3. Criminal Bob. Bob is naughty. When a new album comes out he wants, he’s straight to his favourite BitTorrent tracker to download it for free, yelling slogans about freedom of information and evil record labels (but, curiously, not starving indie musicians, because, frankly, Bob is an uncaring thieving git). Bob also likes convenience, so he’s prepared to pay for iTunes Match to make his pilfered music more readily available. With iTunes Match, the labels have made NO MONEY for these downloads. OH NO! But, wait! They HAVE made money with iTunes Match, and out of dodgy downloads, no less! Winner: THE FUCKING RECORD LABELS.

So, as we can see from my highly scientific insight, here’s how much iTunes Match will affect downloads: not at all. Only that is actually wrong. SHOCK TWIST! And that’s because if people like Craig (which may or may not be a character based on the ‘Craig’ who happens to write this blog) have access to iTunes Match and find out how convenient it is to have a personal music collection streamable on demand, that might actually encourage more download sales. In other words, iTunes Match will make the record labels more money through people using the service and more money through people buying more downloads. It’s therefore only logical that the labels will do everything they can to stop the service escaping from the US, because, as we’ve seen, record labels are run by total fucking idiots.

UPDATE: Possible counter from Gary Marshall (paraphrased): this isn’t necessarily the labels’ fault, because Apple’s only recently started talking to them. It’s possible, but the PRS says the talks are at an early stage, not that the talks have only just started. Also, labels are known for blocking progress—there is precedent for stupidity. Most importantly, though, an unnamed music executive is the person who said 2012 for the service to arrive in the UK, which seems a long way off. The silver lining is iOS 5 isn’t out until the autumn, and so perhaps the delay will only be a few months, or maybe labels will stop being idiots and sort things more quickly. But 2012 could conceivably mean ‘December 2012’ as easily as ‘January 2012’. Regardless, it’s utterly in the interests of record labels and Apple to get iTunes in the Cloud into international markets as soon as possible, rather than for the record labels to hold music hostage, gambling on, presumably, Apple offering a bigger cut.

Oh, BBC. According to The Guardian, you really do have your head up your arse quite a lot these days. After spending quite a lot of time trying to axe 6Music last year (£9 million in funding in 2008/09, and the one place where loads of new and interesting music is played on British radio), it’s now decided that BBC3 is, for some reason, sacrosanct, despite costing £115 million per year to run.

The digital channel’s new controller, Zai Bennett argues BBC3 is required to enable people to “experiment” with talent and formats, in the manner its rivals cannot. In the old days, that’s what BBC2 was for. BBC1 was for big shows, and more niche stuff would be on BBC2. Still, experimentation is all well and good, so since I just still fall into the target demographic of 16-to-34-year-olds, I thought I’d try and list all the must-have television I can think of on BBC3. Here goes:

• Ideal (Graham Duff’s fantastic comedy about a small-time drugs dealer)
• Being Human (vamps versus werewolves in Bristol)
• Doctor Who repeats

That’s really it. And Being Human became inexplicably dreadful as of series 3, leaving Ideal, which could probably find a home on BBC2. Perhaps the forthcoming quality review will sort things out, but I find it odd the BBC is trying to justify saving a channel that’s increasingly full of exploitative crap like Freaky Eaters, Spendaholics, The House of Tiny Tearaways and Sex..with Mum & Dad, when it’s simultaneously arguing the channel’s survival is required to enable it to experiment in a way other networks cannot. Those shows are precisely the same kind of garbage 5, Sky and others do crap out.

Ben Brooks on Apple’s IAP subscriptions reversal:

This is actually a pretty big deal because […] I am pretty sure this means that Amazon can keep the Kindle app the way it is — they may just need to remove the link to the online Kindle store from the app. Though I am not 100% on this just yet.

The bold bit in the quote (my emphasis) is the one thing a lot of people are currently mulling over online. My guess: Apple will eventually either allow or tolerate a storefront link, but not a direct link to any particular single product or item that you can otherwise buy in iOS. It’s one thing to piss off Apple by saying “hey, buy that on our site for less money and stop Apple getting a cut” and another entirely to say “oh, by the way, our store’s over here, if you fancy browsing for a bit”. This is especially so when it comes to things like Kindle, given that Apple’s IAP infrastructure wouldn’t be able to cope with even a fraction of Amazon’s inventory anyway.

Interesting news from MacRumors:

Apple has quietly changed its guidelines on the pricing of In-App Subscriptions on the App Store. There are no longer any requirements that a subscription be the “same price or less than it is offered outside the app”. There are no longer any guidelines about price at all. Apple also removed the requirement that external subscriptions must be also offered as an in-app purchase.

The updated section 11.13 (now 11.14) of the App Store Review Guidelines now has no reference to content offered in the IAP having to be the same price or less than its price outside of the app. Apple now only demands apps not have a ‘buy now’ button that takes them outside of the app.

This is a smart move from Apple, not least with an Amazon touchscreen tablet rumoured to be on the way, from the one company that has the infrastructure and smarts to seriously take on the iPad in the areas where it matters.

In my tongue-in-cheek article about WWDC, I made some predictions about what would happen. I thought I’d go six-for-six, but Apple didn’t take down its store, so I got that one wrong. I was dead right, though, on the other points. Apple’s shares slumped for no good reasons, analysts crowed, idiots were disappointed at Apple’s updates and Lion features were dismissed as lightweight changes.

The most obvious prediction I made, though, was this one:

Also, iOS 5 will in some way include features that bear a little resemblance to things Android can already do. This will cause an Android-user smugness overload on the internet, countered by an Apple fan-boy whinealanche that will cause almost half of the internet to CATCH FIRE.

Sure enough, iOS 5 now contains a notifications system that isn’t complete shit and bears a passing resemblance to the one in Android. Boo-fucking-hoo, tech fans and pundits. This isn’t the first time Apple’s ‘innovated’ by looking around and filtering ideas through Cupertino’s Apple-o-tron, and it won’t be the last. Besides, remember how Android looked before the iPhone appeared? Yeah, that.

My favourite response, though, comes from the Microsoft mob, such as Tom Warren at WinRumors. He quotes some tweets by Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore, Director of the Windows Phone program, and mentions the similarities between Windows Phone 7 and the upcoming iOS 5. Now, I like Windows Phone 7 a lot, and it’s the first time in a long while Microsoft’s dared to do something really different. If the company had any sense, Windows Phone 7 would be renamed and used as the basis for Microsoft tablets, rather than the Ballmer Machine forcing Windows-with-a-skin into such devices.

Looking deeper, though, Warren’s list of similarities is a real mixed bag, some of which is a stretch, to say the least.

Apple has built a notification center into iOS 5 that’s very similar to Google’s Android operating system. The notifications are now displayed at the top of iOS and can easily be dismissed in a similar way to how Windows Phone 7 operates.

In this case, Apple has clearly created something that mirrors what’s working elsewhere. It’s an exaggeration to suggest this is a copy of anything Microsoft has done, though, given that the notifications have aspects of Android and webOS, in terms of form and function.

Apple has now built a split ergonomic keyboard into iOS 5. The feature is eerily similar to an identical keyboard that Microsoft revealed in Windows 8 recently.

I never realised Microsoft invented split keyboards. All of the virtual and hardware ones I’ve seen for years must have been figments of my imagination. (Commenter Ryan also points towards this site that showed the concept on an iPad.)

Apple has integrated Twitter straight into iOS 5. You can tweet directly from Safari, Photos, Camera, YouTube or Maps. Microsoft is also building in Twitter integration deep into Windows Phone Mango, the company has yet to demonstrate exactly how this will work however.

So Apple’s ‘copied’ a feature that Microsoft has announced but hasn’t demonstrated yet? Uh-huh, got it.

Apple revealed its own background download service for Newsstand. The new feature lets magazines and newspaper app subscriptions download automatically. Windows Phone Mango also includes a similar service that application developers can build into their apps.

Background downloads? Man, never heard of those before.

Apple introduced iMessage on Monday. You can send unlimited text messages via Wi-Fi or 3G from the iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch to anyone who has an iDevice. Windows Phone Mango has also introduced deeper integration of messaging services directly into the operating system.

Messaging services? Man, never heard of those before. (And, for the record, iMessage is one of the things I sincerely wish Apple hadn’t announced. It already has too many messaging services, and none of them have enough reach. If Apple really wants to do messaging, it shouldn’t be restricting people to talking to friends that only own Apple kit. FaceTime should be open. Text chatting—regardless of the system used—should work with as many protocols as possible, including Facebook.)

Jobs also unveiled the ability for iOS to automatically upload pictures take from iOS devices. The pictures go into Apple’s iCloud system and are available for viewing online or on other devices. Windows Phone 7 also has an identical feature and uploads the pictures to Windows Live SkyDrive

I’m not really familiar with how Windows Live SkyDrive works, so I’ll have to give Warren the benefit of the doubt on this one. To my mind, Dropbox is the system that iOS’s cloud stuff mostly apes, although iCloud in theory has a much more ‘Apple’ approach, removing complexity even further from the equation.

iOS device owners can now wirelessly sync their device over wi-fi to a Mac or PC. As long as the iOS device is connected to a power source, it automatically syncs and backs up any new content to iTunes. Windows Phone 7 also has an identical feature with the Zune client.

Wi-Fi sync is something iOS owners have been banging on about ever since there were things you could sync with iOS devices—in fact, before iOS was even called iOS. This isn’t something Apple has copied, this is something Apple’s finally got around to doing right, rather than ‘first’. See also: multitasking and copy and paste.

Apple has also changed the way the camera works. The volume + button now works as a hardware camera button

Just like on cameras with hardware buttons, which I’m fairly sure have been around for a while now. *checks Wikipedia* Yup. Turns out cameras have existed for at least a few years now.

and there’s even a lock screen shortcut to quickly allow iPhone users to take pictures. Both are identical features of Windows Phone 7.

I’ll give Warren this one.

I think any pundit or commentator would be crazy to insist that Company A doesn’t borrow or get inspired by whatever Company B is doing. What gets me is the hysteria regarding Apple in this regard. While Apple does slip sometimes in keynotes with its “we’re doing this first” shtick, this is rare; Apple typically goes for the “we’re not first, but we’re doing this best” angle. Even then, Apple’s not always right, but it is more often than its competitors. All I hope is that if Belfiore really is “flattered“, he and his team take Apple’s advances with iOS 5 to really kick Windows Phone 7 into gear and to another level. And the same goes for everyone involved with Android and webOS. Innovate, borrow, rework, recreate, redesign, until you have something that’s better than you could have imagined. If everyone does this, the smartphone and tablet market is going to be so much more exciting over the coming years than the desktop race ever was.