As for release dates...
According to
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/09/19/iclou...-september-22/ , Apple have announced to all iCloud beta testers that their backups will be wiped on Friday. They had earlier said they would do this before the service launched to the public.
Seeing as you need a mac running osx 10.7.2 (and, if the rumours are correct, 10.6.9), a device running iOS 5 or Apple's iCloud software running on Windows, it's easy to assume that all three will be released soon.
Traditionally, when Apple have launched major upgrades to iOS, it's been closely followed by at least one new i device.