Apple's Jobs to announce 'iCloud'

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs will take a break from medical leave to deliver the keynote speech at next week's Apple conference, the company said Tuesday.

Apple shares rose $5.49, or 1.6 percent, to $342.90 after rising as high as $344.09 earlier in the session on the news.

Jobs went on medical leave in January for unspecified reasons, handing over day-to-day control to chief operating officer Tim Cook. Jobs has remained involved in larger decisions at the company, and demonstrated the new iPad model at a news conference in March.

Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off Monday in San Francisco. The keynote speech will feature Apple's new Mac software, Lion, and the next version of Apple's iPhone and iPad software, the company said.

Music streaming?

Apple said the keynote will also feature an "iCloud" service, but didn't explain what the service will do. Apple has been in talks with all four major recording companies on a music service that will allow users to stream songs stored on remote computer servers, presumably to an array of portable Apple-made devices, a person familiar with the matter said recently. The person was not authorized to speak publicly on the deals and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Such a service would give users a wide array of music on-the-go, without having to worry about limited storage space and the need to physically connect different devices to transfer songs.

The June developers' conference has in years past been the opportunity for Apple to reveal the year's new iPhone model, ahead of a retail launch a few weeks later. But this year, analysts are speculating that the new iPhone won't arrive until the fall. Apple launched a version of the iPhone 4 for Verizon's network in February, and a June-July release of a new model could disappoint new owners of that phone.

The brief statement Tuesday did not mention any new hardware.