It is widely expected that Samsung will launch its own cloud service, S-Cloud, alongside the Galaxy S3 during its Samsung Mobile Unpacked event on Thursday 3 May. However, LG has beaten its South Korean rival by announcing its own cloud solution a full four days beforehand.
The beta version of LG Cloud will open for public use tomorrow, 1 May. And the company says it will be the first service that allows users to "manage and consume all types of content on three screens", including its Android smartphones, PCs and smart TVs.
It will be offered as a series of applications for each device, each available through Google Play or their respective LG SmartWorld app stores. The service then synchronises the content on your smartphone across all of your LG devices. Photos and video can be viewed on a PC or TV, or videos on a PC can be uploaded to the cloud to view on your phone, for example.
One clever aspect is that you don't have to worry about incompatible video, picture or audio files, LG has its proprietary Real-time Streaming Transcoding technology working away in the background so that they will be streamed to whatever device, without the user having to worry about installing codecs. The manufacturer says no other cloud service can make the same claim.
It also promises that 3D content can be played through LG Cloud, such as video taken using a LG Optimus 3D.
There are plans to offer LG Cloud in both paid and free flavours. Storage limits and prices will be announced when the service is released in each territory