Cult of Mac reports that according to their source, the next generation Time Capsule – Apple’s wireless router and hard drive combo will serve as the local hub for iCloud services to store data rather than directly uploading it to Apple servers from a computer or iOS device. According to the source, this new functionality will make your files and data available across all your devices and keep folders in sync, similar to Dropbox. Our source didn’t have any information about the hardware, but detailed how the Home Folder access system works. Files saved on your computer are backed up instantly to Time Capsule, which makes them available to remote Macs and iOS devices. If you make any changes on any computer, those changes are updated through iCloud and stored on your Time Capsule. The Time Capsule archives and serves up your files even when your computers are off. When you get home and fire up your desktop computer or laptop, the files are automatically synced across your devices. This service will also allow you to upload photos and videos from your iPhone or iPad to your Time Capsule. The media will be stored on the device and be made available for other devices to sync. iCloud is the “conduit” through which everything moves, the source said. “Your computer gets backed up to Time Capsule anyways,” said the source. “Now it’ll serve up your content when you want it, where you want it, right there on your iOS device.” A few day ago folks over at Ars Technica had also reported that the next generation Time Capsule may be powered by Apple’s A4 or A5 processor and run a version of iOS just like Apple TV 2G to manage the more advanced features. Our own source tells Ars that the revised hardware is believed to be built around Apple’s own A4 or A5 processor, and will run iOS much like the most recent Apple TV model. Though the idea of a local hub to store data makes sense, as uploading gigabytes or terabytes of data will take days to upload to Apple’s servers for some users (depending on their data connection), it needs to be seen if Time Capsule serving as a local hub will be a requirement for iCloud services or just a feature for users who buy the new Time Capsule. We’ve also heard rumors that Apple has signed deals with all the major music labels, which will allow Apple to store a single master copy of a song that will save significant upload time for the user and storage requirements for Apple. So Apple can simply scan the iTunes libraries on a Mac or PC and instead of uploading the copy from a users computer, give a user access to stream the songs (from the single master copy) directly from Apple’s servers, which would also mean that they would get access to songs in the highest quality – 256 kbps AAC audio encoding. So it remains to be seen how Apple plans to differentiate between the backup of such media content, application data and other files on the computer. MyService points out that Apple’s idea of local cloud network isn’t new as Steve Jobs had highlighted some of the benefits of it during a Q&A session at WWDC in 1997. You can checkout the video below of the Q&A session (skip to the 13:10 mark). Thankfully in less than 24 hours we’ll find out everything we want to know about Apple’s iCloud. We can’t wait to find out what Apple has in store for us. Let us know your thoughts about Time Capsule serving as the local hub for iCloud services in the comments section below. As usual, stay tuned for more news and info on the topic by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed. Authors: