Here are your Apple rumors and news items for Thursday:

Cloudy Skies: Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iCloud media storage service won’t open for business until later this year, but its competitors are already taking steps to undercut Apple in the “cloud” business. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), whose Cloud Drive and Cloud Player services debuted in March, is now offering unlimited music storage to users who purchase a $20-a-year storage plan, according to a report at Apple Insider. An extra twist of the knife was included in Amazon’s statement regarding the new policy: The Cloud Player now supports the iPad.

15 Billion Served: Another month, another sales milestone for Apple’s app store. The company said Thursday morning that the app store has totaled 15 billion downloads, suggesting that the influx of new iPad and iPhone users in 2011 is encouraging growth for the app store at an impressive rate. The press release crowing about the achievement includes testimonials from independent app developers, including game developer Epic Games’ Mark Rein and Callaway Digital Arts CEO Nicholas Callaway, the latter announcing new Martha Stewart and Sesame Street apps for Apple’s platforms.

iPhone 6: Forget the fifth-generation iPhone expected to come in September. It’s all about the sixth-generation iPhone, according to a Thursday report at The Wall Street Journal. While the two iPhones that Apple is expected to deliver at the end of the third quarter — a small cheap model and a high-end upgrade — are thought to be very similar in design to the current model, this report says that “people briefed on Apple’s plans” suggest that 2012 will bring a far more dramatic upgrade to the iPhone. The one new feature mentioned is a new charging method. This might be where Apple’s wireless charging technology might get implemented.

As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here. Follow him on Twitter at @ajohnagnello and become a fan of InvestorPlace on Facebook.