Apple's iCloud music service to scan, mirror iTunes libraries

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 63
    kerrybkerryb Posts: 270member
    I am walking down the street and decide for some reason to use the ipod part of my iphone. I am not satisfied with the 2000 songs on that device I just want the option to choose from 20,000 songs right?

    No. There is a point when the "wanting more" has got to end and we can take a walk without the desire to buy something.
  • Reply 42 of 63
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,728member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kerryb View Post


    I am walking down the street and decide for some reason to use the ipod part of my iphone. I am not satisfied with the 2000 songs on that device I just want the option to choose from 20,000 songs right?

    No. There is a point when the "wanting more" has got to end and we can take a walk without the desire to buy something.



    That's why I love hiking in mountains and listening to streams and the wind.
  • Reply 43 of 63
    technotechno Posts: 737member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    What if I have music in my library for which Apple doesn't have an iTunes license (Pro tip: I do.)? If they still plan to mirror it, there was no sense in Apple allegedly getting these new deals with the music companies for streaming.



    Which means this service won't be mirroring ANYTHING that iTunes doesn't already offer.



    Exactly! And in the long run they are hoping this will encourage people to replace their existing non-Apple-purchased tunes with newly Apple-purchased-tunes. I won't but I know people who will.
  • Reply 44 of 63
    technotechno Posts: 737member
    I am glad I held onto my 6Gb data package. I was so close to changing it after realizing I only use 200MB a month.
  • Reply 45 of 63
    pxtpxt Posts: 683member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kerryb View Post


    I am walking down the street and decide for some reason to use the ipod part of my iphone. I am not satisfied with the 2000 songs on that device I just want the option to choose from 20,000 songs right?

    No. There is a point when the "wanting more" has got to end and we can take a walk without the desire to buy something.



    I think streaming of audio/video all the time is kind of brawn over brains (software brains that is).



    I much prefer that 99% of the music I want to listen to is sideloaded via wifi when I'm in range of my macs.



    There is never a time when I am short of music to listen to and I use the star-ratings together with smart playlists to constantly rotate and rediscover my music.



    A couple of years from now, I won't be able to check in with AppleInsider while out on the move, as people will be streaming HD video movies onto their 3 inch screens all day - just because they can.
  • Reply 46 of 63
    pxtpxt Posts: 683member
    I think it would be interesting if the music companies allowed a kind of Genius Radio.



    You sideload your playlists as usual, but the genius function can drop in extra tracks, say one in five tracks, that you do *not* own. You can listen to the whole track and click BUY if you like it and maybe even LIKE/HATE, so the genius can get better.



    I'm sure I'd scoop up a few extra purchases that way and the closed nature of iOS should prevent piracy.
  • Reply 47 of 63
    futuristicfuturistic Posts: 599member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by magicj View Post


    And yeah, I'm not thrilled with the idea of putting my personal data on the servers of a company that doesn't tell you when your data gets stolen. As I said on a previous thread, if Apple forces you to use iCloud on the Mac (I don't think they will, but if they do) I'll switch back to Windows as quickly as I can.



    I seriously doubt Apple would force users/customers to use iCloud once it goes online. I suppose they could, but nothing in their history suggests they would. I'm with you on the personal data thing?everything I share with the outside world, i.e. e-mails, facebook stuff, blogs, etc., i assume is hence out of my control and could be commandeered, viewed, copied, whatever, by anyone with sufficient technical skill (I'm always surprised when people have this assumption of privacy when they go online). Hence, my personal stuff I keep separate from my "public" stuff. This goes for Dropbox, and eventually iCloud as well. I'd have no problem mirroring my iTunes library in iCloud, but I wouldn't store my private letters, journals, my many, many failed attempts at novel-writing , in Dropbox or iCloud.



    Quote:

    Anyway, the whole "cloud" thing is a red herring. I don't look at something and ask "Is this cloud or is it not". I ask "Is it useful to me or is it not". I'm not seeing anything in iCloud that's useful. I am seeing features I don't like due to Apple's poor privacy practices.



    Can you give examples of Apple's "poor" privacy practices? I think, compared with many others in the industry (ahem, *cough* Google *cough* Facebook), Apple have been remarkably well-behaved, and protective of their customers.
  • Reply 48 of 63
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PXT View Post


    I think it would be interesting if the music companies allowed a kind of Genius Radio.



    That would be great!
  • Reply 49 of 63
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Firefly7475 View Post


    You really don't like the cloud do you?



    Is it the idea of all you stuff, anywhere, anytime that you don't like, or all you stuff... on Apple's servers that you have a problem with?



    What about the "private cloud" facilitated by something like an iHub/iCenter/iHome/iCentral/iMesh?



    MobileMe is $99 a year. Ironically that is almost exactly how much you would pay for a server hosting plan at Network Solutions. Bam! your own instant cloud. Includes just about anything else you can think of such as web server, etc. Not saying MobileMe isn't a good deal with the find my phone, back to my Mac and all. If you want just raw Internet storage for whatever reason, a hundred bucks a year isn't too bad.
  • Reply 50 of 63
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by techno View Post


    Exactly! And in the long run they are hoping this will encourage people to replace their existing non-Apple-purchased tunes with newly Apple-purchased-tunes. I won't but I know people who will.



    1. Why would I pay twice for music I already own?

    2. That's not what I was saying. I have music that Apple doesn't have in iTunes at all. I can't (idiotically) "repurchase" it from Apple if they don't sell it, and they won't stream it to me if they don't sell it.



    This is why NAND flash chips keep getting bigger; the cloud will always be a fringe tool.
  • Reply 51 of 63
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by magicj View Post


    I already have all my stuff with me, anywhere, anytime. And it works better and faster than that iCloud will work. Paying to do things via iCloud would be a downgrade to how I do it now for free. Why would I want to use public wi-fi or suck up minutes on a data plan to download my music when having all my music on all my devices is trivial? It takes significantly less time to sync than it does to recharge the battery, which you have to do anyway.



    There is a kind of debate on this forum which bugs the bejesus out of me. Its the "THIS FEATURE ISNT INTERESTING TO ME" crybaby rant. Its not about you. Apple is not producing something just for you.



    Quote:

    And yeah, I'm not thrilled with the idea of putting my personal data on the servers of a company that doesn't tell you when your data gets stolen. As I said on a previous thread, if Apple forces you to use iCloud on the Mac (I don't think they will, but if they do) I'll switch back to Windows as quickly as I can.



    The only data up there - which is new - would be songs you owned but hadnt purchased from iTunes (they have no need to scan songs you bought from iTunes) if you haven't already uploaded this info to genius. So that would be the song title. artist name etc. If you use genius, they already have it....



    In fact on that topic, since genius works with non-iTunes purchased material so will this. For a lot of people this will work out of the box.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    1. Why would I pay twice for music I already own?



    see?





    Quote:

    2. That's not what I was saying. I have music that Apple doesn't have in iTunes at all. I can't (idiotically) "repurchase" it from Apple if they don't sell it, and they won't stream it to me if they don't sell it..



    Apple will probably stream any music to your iPhone which you own, and it recognises.



    This is more for the iPhone than the iPod. For those of you who use the iPod ( or the iPhone) for music mostly, and have 20,000 songs, well it may just recognise 5,000. For those of use with a few hundred songs, it will recognise all of em. Which means I save space on my iPhone for apps.



    Disadvantages are trips without wifi. Maybe there will be a temporary download option.
  • Reply 52 of 63
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    I bet this feature will allow people to play other people's music too - maybe at a greater cost.
  • Reply 53 of 63
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Fees for the service could also help labels "claw out some money" from pirated music, the authors noted. A separate report suggested last month that the rumored service could be free at first, but would eventually require a fee.



    If I am reading this correctly, it could be the biggest thing to happen to digital music since the iPod.



    They don't just let you stream high quality versions of songs you already purchased from iTunes, they let you stream high quality versions of any identifiable songs in your iTunes Library, even pirated ones.



    It has the potential to pull a lot of heavy pirates back in to the legal realm. The instant they pirate something, iTunes gives them access to a higher quality rip, with hires album art and professional metadata.
  • Reply 54 of 63
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ascii View Post


    If I am reading this correctly, it could be the biggest thing to happen to digital music since the iPod.



    They don't just let you stream high quality versions of songs you already purchased from iTunes, they let you stream high quality versions of any identifiable songs in your iTunes Library, even pirated ones.



    It has the potential to pull a lot of heavy pirates back in to the legal realm. The instant they pirate something, iTunes gives them access to a higher quality rip, with hires album art and professional metadata.



    Sorry, is this humor? I can only see pirates moving further from paid content if this is to be the case.
  • Reply 55 of 63
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    Sorry, is this humor? I can only see pirates moving further from paid content if this is to be the case.





    Well most kids have pirated something. They now get to listen to "their" music at any time without worrying about space constraints on the iPhone. So why wouldnt they pay?
  • Reply 56 of 63
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ascii View Post


    If I am reading this correctly, it could be the biggest thing to happen to digital music since the iPod.



    They don't just let you stream high quality versions of songs you already purchased from iTunes, they let you stream high quality versions of any identifiable songs in your iTunes Library, even pirated ones.



    It has the potential to pull a lot of heavy pirates back in to the legal realm. The instant they pirate something, iTunes gives them access to a higher quality rip, with hires album art and professional metadata.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    Sorry, is this humor? I can only see pirates moving further from paid content if this is to be the case.



    I?m with Tallest Skil here. I don?t get how that will reduce piracy and help the music labels.



    I also think there is a big piece of the puzzle missing. It?s easy to read the name of a file, but that may not be what the contents. It?s also easy to read the meta data and compare it to the file?s size to determine the contents are accurate. This is what Dropbox and Apple?s TimeMachine uses.



    The difficult part comes from a paid-for CD that you ripped, some with iTunes or different versions and some though another app. These could be slightly different, even if they have the same bit rate, which is not likely the case for many.



    This makes me think the only files you can have represented on the cloud are ones you?ve bought from iTS. Can anyone think of a secure way that customers can have all their music synced despite where it came from? I can?t.
  • Reply 57 of 63
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    Sorry, is this humor? I can only see pirates moving further from paid content if this is to be the case.



    No, not humour.



    They would still pirate the song but they would spend all their time actually listening to Apple's version and paying them for it. The studios go from getting nothing to getting something.
  • Reply 58 of 63
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by asdasd View Post


    Well most kids have pirated something. They now get to listen to "their" music at any time without worrying about space constraints on the iPhone. So why wouldnt they pay?



    ...why WOULD they?



    You're telling me that Apple will let me listen to a high-bitrate (pause so myself and the lossless crowd can snicker), fully metadata'd, streaming version of any song in my library?



    Okay, so I'll just pirate 1kbps versions that only have their song and album titles as metadata so that iTunes can find them. I'll have a free 100,000 song library on my computer that only takes up 200 megabytes that I can listen to in great quality simply by streaming from my iDevice that is plugged into my stereo system in my own home, sitting right next to the computer with the crap files on it.



    Seriously, Apple won't be letting people listen to anything other than iTunes-purchased music. If they were, there would have been no need to get "new licenses" from the music studios.



    Aaaand since you wrote the following as I was typing that...



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ascii View Post


    No, not humour.



    They would still pirate the song but they would spend all their time actually listening to Apple's version and paying them for it. The studios go from getting nothing to getting something.



    OH. Streaming music as a paid service. I kind of see what you mean now. But now it becomes useful/sensible/sane ONLY for the pirated music crowd.



    For those of us who pay for music, the question becomes: Why the frick should I pay monthly to listen to music I already own and can put on my iDevice?
  • Reply 59 of 63
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    The difficult part comes from a paid-for CD that you ripped, some with iTunes or different versions and some though another app. These could be slightly different, even if they have the same bit rate, which is not likely the case for many.



    Yes, it will be technically difficult to identify some songs. But there are programs now that don't rely on simple metrics like file sizes or hashes. There are programs that can identify a song by "listening" to it.
  • Reply 60 of 63
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    For those of us who pay for music, the question becomes: Why the frick should I pay monthly to listen to music I already own and can put on my iDevice?



    Well, exactly. But the service is not aimed at you it is aimed at pirates.



    Edit: well I suppose it could be useful to you if your library is too big for your device. But I don't think that's a realistic scenario, the way flash prices drop every year.
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