Happy iOS 5 Day! Of course, today also brings another long-awaited arrival for both iOS and Mac OS X users in the form of iCloud, the next generation of Apple’s cloud storage and syncing initiative. While the service requires a number of updates in order to fully work, one of them -- the iCloud website -- is now open to all.

Apple has taken the iCloud.com website out of beta, which means any and all can now sign up for the service using their existing Apple ID. Of course, at the moment that won’t do much for you -- iOS 5 is required on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to make it work, and you’ll also need OS X Lion 10.7.2 on the Mac as well.

There have been scattered reports that MobileMe users have been able to successfully move their accounts over to iCloud, but when we tried it this morning the migration site was still stamped as a beta and referred to a number of developer-only components being required, so we’d recommend sitting tight until Apple pushes out the remainder of its updates today.

iCloud will also require an update to iPhoto to take advantage of Photo Stream syncing and new software for the second-generation Apple TV in order to enable AirPlay wireless streaming. Last but not least, we’re guessing there will be updates to the existing iWork suite -- both on iOS and on the Mac -- to make them work with Documents in the Cloud, one of the major sync components of iCloud.

The last two major versions of iOS were pushed out around 1pm EST so we’re guessing Apple may do the same this time as well -- so give your trigger finger a rest and stay tuned to MacLife.com for all the news as it breaks.

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