A hint at Apple's "cloud" strategy
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- iTunes Home Sharing - allows iOS 4.3 users to play music, movies and TV shows on an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch® from their iTunes library on a Mac® or PC over a local Wi-Fi network. [...]
I don't think Apple is going to cut the Mac out of its iTunes ecosystem. If they enable iOS devices to stream content directly to and from their North Carolina data center, there's no need for a Mac (or pc) as the home "digital lifestyle" hub.
So how can Apple keep the Mac in the loop? By keeping it at the heart of the home "hub." At home, you can use iTunes Home Sharing over your Wi-Fi network. And in the future, when you're out of the house, you might be able to use your 4G iPhone or iPad connection and IPv6 to connect to your Mac at home to stream content. (Of course, the full 4G won't be rolled out until 2013 at the earliest. This will be the "real 4G" not the "3.9G" LTE networks we are seeing now.)
So what is the massive NC data center for? Probably not for storing everyone's iTunes / App Store / iBookstore content. My guess is that it will host MobileMe after it becomes free. Not a big deal for current MobileMe subscribers, other than the $100 a year we won't be spending on it.
But if/when MobileMe is free, and is enabled on all iOS and Mac OS devices by default, there will be a long-term massive increase in the number of subscribers. Apple could even make MobileMe free for all 200 million iTunes subscribers. That would instantly, hugely, increase the MobileMe subscriber count.
Apple got burned when they tried to roll out iPhone 3G and iOS 2.0's push notifications simultaneously. Push was a near-total disaster back in 2008, and it was only enabled for Mail, Contacts, and Calendar. And one thing that Apple never does (any more) is to make the same glaring mistake twice. That's why they're spending so much money and time on that NC data center.