By Jason Snell

November 12, 2015 10:00 AM PT

Upthere emerges from the cloud

Note: This story has not been updated for several years.

Remember Bertrand Serlet? He led Apple’s software development for many years. He was that soothing French-accented voice who led off many years of the post-Keynote “State of the Union” session at the Worldwide Developer Conference.

Anyway, Serlet, along with other former Apple people like Roger Bodamer, Chris Bourdon, and James Dempsey, are all working at a new startup called Upthere that recently exited “stealth mode” and is now shipping its first beta products.

Upthere is disengaging its cloaking device by offering Upthere Home and Upthere Camera, and both are available for Mac, iPhone, and Android. Upthere Home is a searchable cloud-data organizer and sync service. Upthere Camera is a cloud photo library with sharing features.

The world is littered with cloud-based startups. What makes this one interesting is the Apple pedigree: There are a whole lot of people who used to work at Apple who are now making “a new kind of cloud computer.” Apple’s not well known for its savvy when it comes to cloud services; I’m curious to see how well these former Apple employees (who seem to have not worked in the area of cloud services when they were at Apple) do at the task.

In any event, you can sign up for the Upthere beta starting now.

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