Apple to Release Mac OS X 10.6.9 with iCloud Support

Mac users stuck on Snow Leopard may be glad to learn that Apple is not leaving them behind with iCloud, the upcoming suite of Internet services set to replace MobileMe.

There is new evidence that Apple will add iCloud support to the predecessor of OS X Lion. It seems that Snow Leopard users will get iCloud support in the form of a regular maintenance update.

A developer running OS X 10.4 Tiger who updated his MobileMe account to iCloud noticed that a .Mac preference pane in Tiger said something about iCloud requiring a computer running Mac OS X 10.6.9 or later.

According to a screenshot provided to MacRumors (displayed above), Apple says: “You will no longer be able to sync with this machine because you've upgraded to iCloud. iCloud requires a computer running Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.9 or later for contacts, Calendars and Bookmarks.”

Apple has never disclosed the minimum system requirements for iCloud, but the company does note that certain features depend on OS X Lion.

“Some features of iCloud require iOS 5 on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), iPad, or iPad 2, or a Mac computer with OS X Lion or a PC with Windows Vista or Windows 7 (Outlook 2007 or 2010 recommended),” Apple says.

As simple as it sounds, iCloud stores users’ content and wirelessly pushes it to all their devices.

And by content, Apple means everything from the music you buy on iTunes and the photos you take with your iPhone, to the books, apps, and documents you have stored physically on one of your devices.

Even email, contacts, and calendars gets synced across all one’s computers and iOS portables, without the need to manually drag and drop files from one place to the other.