TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Apple released a press release today announcing Steve Jobs will be presenting at WWDC, and that they will unveil iCloud, along with Lion and iOS 5.

Pre-announcing products isn’t typical for Apple, and I can only figure they did so to get people talking about iCloud, which is a great way to get people’s minds off that their isn’t going to be a new iPhone model announced. Apple must be more than a little concerned that people are expecting a new iPhone and want to change expectations before the event.

It also suggests, as I predicted in March, that iOS 5 is a very significant update to iOS. Android and Windows Phone 7 both outclass iOS in some ways,1 and Apple needs to jump back out ahead.

As far as iCloud, beyond the music streaming service and a revamped MobileMe, what I’m really hoping for is a framework for syncing data across iOS applications. Developers shouldn’t need to roll their own web service every time they build an application that requires syncing. That’d be a huge advantage for the platform.

1. Android’s notification scheme, primarily. Windows Phone 7′s completely re-thought UI also puts pressure on Apple to advance iOS, because WP7 feels more subtle and refined than iOS in areas. [↩]