iCloud, Apple’s cloud based portal, has become available today. To access the service you will need to sign in using an iOS 5 device or you can head into Lion System Preferences if you are a Mac user with at least OS X Lion 10.7.2.

As an initial offering iCloud provides 5GB of storage space for storing information from mobile devices. The data stored can include electronic mail, calendar, contacts, photos and iTunes although you can increase the service storage space up to 50GB for around £70 per year (there is also a £14 per year 10GB add-on).

One of the major benefits of the iCloud platform is that it can provide automatic synchronisation of information across your supported devices.

Apple iOS 5 is planned to be released sometime today and you will need to upgrade your devices to the latest OS version before you can access and benefit from iCloud. Also today, to support iCloud, the latest version of iTunes, version 10.5,  has been made available which introduces new features including iTunes in the cloud, and Wi-Fi Syncing.

To learn more head over to Apple iCloud.