“iCloud is a big part of Apple’s ecosystem and it has a number features of which OS X can take advantage,” Jordan Merrick writes for Mactuts+. “In this guide, I’ll show you how to set up and begin using iCloud on your Mac, as well as the features and benefits it provides.”
“iCloud is Apple’s ‘cloud’ service that is available, free, to anyone using an iOS device or OS X Lion or Mountain Lion,” Merrick writes. “It originally started life as MobileMe (which started out as .Mac, which started out as iTools) as a paid-for email service and method to keep more than one Mac in sync with regards to certain data such as calendars and contacts. This meant you could add a contact to one Mac and it would appear on another Mac or iOS device if you were signed in.”
Merrick writes, “iCloud builds upon this and still provides an email service as well contacts and calendar syncing. The main difference is that iCloud is predominantly a free service that provides a 5GB account, with the option to pay an annual subscription to increase this, depending on the space required. iCloud builds not only an array of features designed to make using multiple devices much easier but also online storage of documents and pictures to make accessing them as easy as possible.”
Much more in the full guide here.