Amazon preempts Apple with cloud-based music service for Web and Android - Page 2

I have an iPhone, not an Android, I just downloaded an album last week from a torrent site because I felt like it. I guess I should go wait in line for my Android phone since my methods of acquiring music are SO Android...

But really, what?

I don't know what Amazon is doing nor what Apple is planning, but I agree in general. Streaming your own content is no go for most of the world, for smartphones and tablets. 3G cannot handle it. WiFi at home... maybe, depending on the service. The demand for bandwidth is insatiable.

What *is* important though is to be able to get your songs from anywhere onto your device wirelessly. Like DropBox.

That is, streaming is less important than SYNCING.

A. Without connecting a USB cable
B. Without iTunes deleting your library
C. Without iTunes not allowing you to connect your device to more than one computer

I don't think Amazon has a "big swing" threat here in terms of global usage but Apple needs to iron out the iTunes tethering and iTunes convoluted sync. I've said before, I understand where Apple is coming from especially prior to the iPhone. But it is time for Apple to catch up with where they are now and FREE iOS from iTunes as much as possible.

It will be very interesting to see how the iOS 5 Cloud does it. There will be hits and misses.

And we're looking at people who now have 1GB to 50GB etc of songs and videos. That's a lot for the cloud to process, obviously you use some kind of "list" of what to wirelessly sync. Most people would get by on 10GB of sync. But the bandwidth to do that kind of syncing every month... Oh boy.

I guess it's not as easy for Apple as it looks. Steve is the probably the only guy who can put his foot down and give some real direction to this, IMO. Even he has struggled with iTunes for years and when being interviewed (at All Things D or something like that) has said that they "have to work better on it" when it comes to iTunes syncing .

But we got to start somewhere, right..?

They (Apple, Google and Amazon) believe the technology is sufficient right now, the war is moving on to the cloud. Amazon is doing better than Microsoft to see this coming, it already has well established on-line store and keen enough to foresee where the money will go..

Big tech companies have been known to make mistakes like this before in misidentifying what their users want though, and I don't think there is a market for this type of service yet.

It's one thing to put your files into a service like Dropbox where you can access them from your office WiFi , or even with photos, but the nature of music content means you want access to it on the move and I don't think any way other than offline storage works for this at the moment other than as a gimmick.

What's going to happen to peoples content that have paid for this service if it fails in a year or two due to lack of take-up? Hasn't this already happened with one of Microsoft's cloud-based services?

I like the sound of the Amazon approach, and suspect that Apple's is going to be similar.

Apple already have a copy of every song you buy from iTunes on their servers -- why make another copy in somebody's 'cloud locker'. Likewise, songs bought from Amazon do not use any MB from you locker.

But, I'm sure most people's music collections also contain large numbers of songs that they didn't buy from iTunes (ripped from CDs, or ahem elsewhere!), but are sold in the iTMS. So, rather than storing potentially millions of different rips of exactly the same track on the online lockers, Apple could make use of Genius' song fingerprinting technique to determine which tracks you have that can also be served up from the iTunes cloud.

That only leaves the more obscure stuff that isn't sold by iTunes -- most people probably don't have nearly 5GB of this stuff. Me -- I have quite a lot of unusual British nu jazz and techno (Warp records stuff, for example) that will probably mean needing 10-15GB!

Link the cloud service up with Airplay (for cloud streaming) and Home Sharing (for cloud sync) you've got a winning combination that'll work whatever type of network (wifi, 3G) you're on.

OT, but speaking of AirPlay, I recommend people try AirFrame (link). Allows AirPlay streaming between any iOS devices on the same wifi network. Very cool for streaming my iPhone 4 videos or photos straight to my iPad.

That idea alone is enough for Steve Jobs to pursue Apple to have its very own cloud-based music service / cloud locker; "Yer mine! Yer all are mine..!" (shout Steve)

You and I may laugh at it, but you know Steve Jobs, he is that kind of psychedelic CEO..

I officially hate all this "Cloud" BS.

Its just another way for companies to make you pay for a product you do not own.
At least with MP3 you had to download the track to play it and store it yourself. Thus backing it up in the process.

This idea that you are going to have to keep all your files on an over the air server somewhere and then access it via the internets... whether that be 3G or Wifi or however you access it.

So what happens for the customers that have bad 3G access or no access to wifi hotspots?

I have given up on the need to buy physical discs now but i still like to know that once i pay for something i own it. This cloud service does not guarantee this.

What a load if crap!
When did this CLOUD thing become the new IT FEATURE?
Really folk this is nothing but a gimmick. Everyone is trying to outdo the next guy with some feature they tout as a game changer. Amazon in this case is pimping the cloud as a way to lure people into their music service. Music that they don't own but are given a license by the record industry to distribute. And this high and mighty talk about how thier consumers are dying for this is BS. That is a corner office managerial talking point. Keep saying people want cloud and they will beleive they need cloud.The tactic works in politics!

I think you guys are missing the point of these cloud services. The 'locker' is just another way to access the music you already own. You'll have the MP3s/AACs on you local drive (if you wish), but copies accessible via the Internets. That way you can get access to the music that you own from anywhere. No one is saying this music can only be stored in the cloud -- otherwise what is the difference between this and any of the number of streaming services like Spotify?

This is about access, not ownership.

I can already do this with a great app called Audiogalaxy. Plenty of others can do it too: ZumoCast, StreamToMe, etc. Works great! No need for these monthly fees...

I bet you can, but does it work when you have no WiFi or 3G signal?

I don't agree with your comments. If Apple are delaying their entry to the "cloud" its for a good reason, while others go running in without looking ahead. Akin to a swimmer diving into a river that they have never swum in before, beware of trees and rocks etc.
Apple building the NC data centre is not to store tobacco from the NC harvest, its there for a reason. Its like a jigsaw puzzle, just wait and see how Apple slots all the pieces together, in the correct manner, unlike it's clueless competitors.

And when Apple announces an extremely similar service later this year, it will be the greatest thing in the world. Really, go look at any of the comment sections for any time where an Apple cloud music service is rumored. You won't see all the negative comments that Amazon's service is getting.

Maybe it doesn't interest you, but apparently a lot of Apple fans are interested in a similar service. Well, unless it's from Amazon; then it's automatically crap.

See I don't only disagree (see my 1st post), but agree with you on this.
Yes that a%$# wipe is one c___, and probably one of the most odious carbon-based life forms on this planet, hopefully his cells have undergone mitosis the maximum 23 times and all life will soon expire.

Fortunately, Apple is not concerned with your impatience; they will provide cloud based access like no one else can and render the existing technologies irrelevant.

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Here's another perspective:

Amazons Cloud Music Move Isnt Earth-Shaking

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I think they listen closer to the Apple rumors and try to beat them to the punch. These companies watch these sites to get their ideas and try to beat Apple to the punch on their announced products.
That really sucks!

First, these services really need to take an open approach to hosting data. Why sign up for a music only type of locker? We want open data services that can store all we have.. music, videos, documents, everything and, just as importantly, use the front end (browsers, apps) that we already have.

Cloud needs to be seamless.

Second, these services need to think realistically about data limits involved. These 5 or 20 GB kind of starting data limits make it seem like they're not serious. The cloud is supposed to be limitless to the consumer so stop telling us about limits and start getting functionality right and limits removed.

Third, get rid of draconian policies that allow database admins unfettered access to our files. That runs risks most business and individuals aren't comfortable with.

Will Amazon's new service work without WiFi or 3G?

Here are 11 of the worlds largest data centers as of April 2010. You'll note Microsoft runs 4 of them - I have a feeling they saw this coming...

I suspect the Apple data center will be about far more than this.

Why so many negative comments about an Amazon service none of you have used? FWIW, if you want to give it a spin just for giggles, it is MAC and Safari compatible, and will even let you upload your iTunes music purchases. Just no go for iOS devices, which should come as no surprise given Apple's attitude towards competing services. Perhaps it's not ready for primetime. . . or perhaps it is. Other than a single forum post from one solitary member giving it a try, everyone else is just guessing and bitching with no evidence either way.

Did you drop it in iDisk, so you can stream it to your iPhone?

I think I'll upload some more AC/DC and a TV show to watch tomorrow at lunchtime on my iPad.

Apple has had this for YEARS and I can use it in Australia.

iDisk part of MobilMe.

I'm not sure that's the case this time. Amazon have been doing cloud services for a very long time now and this fits in with their Appstore for Android announcement more than anything to do with Apple.







There are two services. Amazon Clouddrive (storage of all document types) and Amazon Cloudplayer (which allows music streaming).

The big difference here is the ability to stream music though. The Clouddrive service itself doesn't look very interesting at all.

The 5GB of free space is nice but the added features of other free online storage services (e.g. document sharing and collaboration, online document/spreadsheet/image editors, web photo albums and integration with social services etc) like Google Docs/Picasa (2GB free) , Box.net (5GB free) and Windows Live Mesh (25GB free) put Clouddrive to shame.

Well apart from Apple announcing iTools in 2000, that is.

Cloud streaming service, Apple has had it for years, I can drop music into my iDisk and play it from the iDisk App on my iPhone or iPad.

It's like Apple TV a "hobby" Apple has been dabbling in for years.

What Amazon is "introducing" isn't greatly different to iDisk.

That's the point I'm making, any of these cloud based music services are hopeless without the mobile infrastructure

If you look back over Apple's history you will find that, although Apple is seldom first to enter a market, it is usually the best and that the rest usually wind up chasing Apple. I expect nothing to change in that regard, this time.

As well. I think what "might" be slowing things down this time is a lack of cooperation with the music execs. It's no secret that they, in their limited ability to think, would like to "break Apple's stranglehold" on them. Another example of not seeing the forest for the trees.

I'll try it, oh yeah I'm in Australia, guess I'll have to stick with iDisk, at least MobileMe is available here.

a lot of us are on android phones and have ipads or Mac's. this is awesome since there is no need to buy a phone with more than 8GB of storage. i'm going to start uploading some of my itunes playlists to amazon soon to listen on my $20 HTC Inspire. i was going to look into Doubletwist to sync my HTC with itunes, but no need now

love my ipad 2
might get a Mac this year
but there is no reason to spend more than $50 on a smartphone this year. i would have bought the HTC Aria for free, but it didn't support Froyo and Flash last month.

I just said this in the latest post but seems relevant here too: Apple's new cloud service is not about streaming music (although that may be a part) it is IMHO going to be a slew of services including voice recognition, Siri based artificial intelligence and search, a Apple mapping services linked to all of this and probably language translation services amongst many other things. I predict the end of Apple's use of anything Google although that will be the user's decision.

@Hill60: Then you have a valid excuse

nvidia2008,..... You'll have to help me out here as I'm not "highly mobile" and as such am not as informed on this subject as I should be. My question to you is this. If it's possible to have iTunes allowing you to connect your device to more than one computer, or a file sharing program like dropbox, which, if I understand it correctly, would allow you to "share" audio files between multiple computers ..... wouldn't that just encourage "piracy" to flourish? If this all works how I imagine it to, then I can understand the content providers reluctance to cooperate. What am I missing here (except some of my previously used brain cells).

Don't understand all the hate against Amazon. They are providing a free service that can be used on Macs, not just for music but any kind of docs/pics/etc. Plus it doesn't hurt Apple at all, they're not even coming to iOS devices. What's the problem?

30% of the cost of a free app isn't much revenue for Apple.

I suspect they would approve it if submitted properly. They allow the Kindle app for example. Apple gets "nothing" out of that either, except that it makes their platform more compelling.

I've got over 10GB of Apps.

Nova 2 and Metroview GPS take up over 2GB between them and I've got 240 more.

We are not there yet. Having cloud access for media is nice extra to have. For my ipod to sorely rely on cloud media would be treacherous thing.

I am still getting my iphone 5 whenever it comes out. It was never about the storage(o boy, don't I contradict myself!).. app and the look and being apple..

Have to politely disagree with you there: it is about sales. No one will create one of these services out of the goodness of their heart. The idea will be that by giving away a storage option the user will use the online store of their storage provider -- in this case, Amazon.

Will this be a good strategy? You tell me. I'm an old guy compared to many of you, so I'm skeptical about introducing a third party into things. I use AirPlay . . . a lot, as well as Remote. But a cloud service?

But many you -- that is, younger people -- may not feel that way, and don't mind having your music and video tied to a cloud environment. You tell me.

All I know is that the first time the cloud service was down for any reason when I wanted to use it I would be livid. The acceptable error rate for a business like this is zero.

I don't think you're getting what my beef is with the cloud services... it sounds great in theory, but good luck trying to stream your music without it continuously buffering unless you never leave inner city areas with 3G coverage...

true

i also have slacker plus and use the caching on my wife's iphone, ipad and my HTC phone. and my 64GB ipad has a lot of music on it that i use my car's USB port to listen to.

this is for the times you don't want to or can't pull out a computer or ipad to listen to.

apple does the same thing. release products with limited but working features and add on later. amazon will add to their service as time goes on and they see how people use it.