Apple's iCloud.com website has gone live, offering access to the company's new cloud portal. However, unless you have iOS 5 or Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2 you won't be able to sign up yet.

iCloud offers 5GB of storage for several applications, including iTunes, Mail, Calendar, Contacts and Photo Stream, and can be accessed from any iOS device (as long as it has iOS 5), a Mac or a PC. Additionally, you can opt to pay £14 per year for 10GB, £28 for 20GB or £70 for 50GB.

iTunes Match, the service that scans your music library and offers high-bitrate alternatives streamed from Apple's servers, is still to be brought to the UK, presumably as there are license agreements still to be struck with the major studios over here. It is, however, already available in the US.

Unfortunately, for those who want to sign up, as previously stated you'll have to wait until Apple releases iOS 5 later today (12 October) or Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2, the initial setup needs to be done on either of those two devices. Afterwards, you will be able to access your iCloud account on iCloud.com via a PC, but only after it has been created.

Developers with the iOS 5 dev build can set up and access their iCloud accounts, and many are reporting how much of a cleaner, easier experience it is to use over other rival services. One source told Pocket-lint, "I'm sorry, but much as I love Google, iCloud is ace." He did add, however, "When Safari doesn't crash and f**k the whole thing up."

Keep checking with Pocket-lint for updates on when iOS 5 will go live today.

Will you be signing up to Apple's iCloud service? Let us know in the comments below...