Apple Puts TV Shows in the iCloud

Apple has quietly enhanced iCloud support for the iTunes Store, allowing users to re-download past television purchases and access them from iTunes, on Apple TV and within iOS devices.

In June, Apple rolled out iTunes and iCloud integration, which gave users the ability to download their music purchases onto other devices and to automatically sync new purchases across all devices.

The addition of TV shows means that movies are the only media type that are not automatically backed up to iCloud.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball discovered cloud support for TV shows when he installed an update for his Apple TV 2. The update also means that Apple TV users can now purchase TV shows, rather than just rent them. It also means that users can stream previous purchases from an Apple TV, without having to link up to a Mac or a PC. This instantly adds more versatility to the device.

As for iTunes and iOS users, the “Purchased” section of the iTunes store now carries a heading for “TV Shows.”

Our tests found most of the shows we have purchased from iTunes in the past, but it doesn’t look like the whole library is there. Let us know if you’ve purchased any shows that aren’t appearing in iCloud.

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Apple Launches iCloud Beta [PICS]

Apple has unveiled the beta for iCloud, the company’s new suite of media streaming and cloud-based services.

The new beta, which is available to all users with an Apple ID (update: some of our readers are having trouble accessing iCloud with Lion), features web-based version of Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Find my IPhone and iWork. They are accessible if you visit iCloud.com while using iOS 5 (available to Apple developers) or Mac OS X Lion. It does not include Apple’s cloud music services, including iTunes Match.

Apple also unveiled the pricing structure for iCloud. The first 5GB of storage on the service are free. An addition 10GB will cost $20, 20GB will cost $40 and 50GB will retail for $100. It’s a good deal more expensive than Amazon Cloud Drive, which gives 20GB of space for $20 and lets users store an unlimited amount of music for free.

We’re playing around with the iCloud beta now, and while we’ll have more to report, our initial conclusion is that the iCloud beta is a modified version of MobileMe. It includes similar interfaces, which isn’t a surprise. The addition of iWork support is a welcomed addition though, as is the simplistic and universal interface for all of Apple’s cloud services.

We’ve taken some screenshots of the beta and embedded them below. Check them out, and let us know what you think of the iCloud beta in the comments.

Mashable reporter Christina Warren contributed to this report.

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