Apple’s “Let’s talk iPhone” event revealed that the new iOS 5 will be arriving on October 12, and loads of puffy clouds will be floating along for the ride as iCloud launches on the same date -- and stay tuned, because iTunes Match will follow in late October.

Apple CEO Tim Cook led a parade of company executives in announcing the iPhone 4S today, which will be preceded by the launch of iOS 5 itself two days earlier, on Wednesday, October 12. That day will also be significant for the company’s mobile device owners, with iCloud also rolling out alongside it.

Senior vice president of internet software and services Eddy Cue followed the iOS 5 release date announcement by recapping iCloud, Apple’s new free service that replaces MobileMe. The company claims iCloud will store your content and wirelessly push it to all of your devices, including OS X Lion computers as well as iOS 5 devices.

iCloud is made up of a host of companion services, including iTunes in the Cloud for access to purchased music from any device, Documents in the Cloud for updating edits across multiple devices, Photo Stream for syncing up to 1,000 of your more recent iOS device snapshots to the cloud and backup & restore.

iCloud also expands on the free Find My iPhone feature by introducing Find My Friends, a service that allows friends to share their location with you for a limited time, including parental and privacy controls. So much for getting lost in the mall looking for your friends next time!

iCloud is free for 5GB of storage, and Apple is offering additional storage priced at 10GB for $20 per year, 20GB for $40 per year and 50GB for $100 per year.

Cue also reintroduced the company’s forthcoming iTunes Match feature, which scans your iTunes library and matches it against content on Apple’s servers. The service will be $24.99 per year when it goes live at the end of October, but only in the United States for now -- the company claims they’re hard at work bringing iTunes Match to other locales as well.

Apple’s “Let’s talk iPhone” event wrapped up this morning with announcements of a refreshed iPod nano and iPod touch, iOS 5 and iCloud arriving on October 12 and the new iPhone 4S hitting stores on October 14, with Sprint added as a third U.S. carrier and a 64GB model available for the first time at $399 with two-year agreement.

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