Since it has not been announced, how do you know there is anything better?
How much does this (not yet announced) Apple cloud service cost and what do you get?
This cloud service is not provided by Apple. It is provided by another big tech corporation. Click on samlogo (my registered user name), then click on Visit samlogo's homepage. The banner that mentions cloud player is on the right.
This cloud service is not provided by Apple. It is provided by another big tech corporation. Click on samlogo (my registered user name), then click on Visit samlogo's homepage. The banner that mentions cloud player is on the right.
This is not what I asked.
What exactly does Apple's yet-to-be announced cloud service cost and what exactly does it provide?
You have no idea so you cannot say the cloud service you are referring to is better.
I'm just wondering about any agreements that lala.com might've had when it comes to the whole iTunes digital music locker thing. I haven't heard much of anything related to Apple's purchase of lala.com in a while with regards to this topic.
I'm just wondering about any agreements that lala.com might've had when it comes to the whole iTunes digital music locker thing. I haven't heard much of anything related to Apple's purchase of lala.com in a while with regards to this topic.
I can’t imagine they had any IP that was worth what they paid and if you want the people behind it you can usually siphon them off for a huge raise and benefits that is much smaller than buying a company and paid in 2 week installments.
It makes me wonder if their licensing agreements are a major reason here. But if so, then why the new licensing agreements and how long was Lala’s agreements since Apple bought them 1.5 years ago. I understand their secrecy but it’s still annoying.
Data caps are on the order of 250GB/month. 20GB shouldn't seriously cut into that unless you stream a lot of video (in which case the 20GB would probably the the least of your worries).
I do believe you're off by a decimal point or three on your estimate of data caps, guy. ATT starts selling 3G service for the iPad at 250 MB not GB, monthly phone caps are closer to 2GB than 250 where they exist and your friendly neighborhood cableco is likely to start throttling you down at or before 5 GB according to most forum lore at least.
Ergo, in our "Cloud, ho!" approach to our data (which is clearly the wave of the near- to mid-future) - i.e., all our "stuff" everywhere, on any device, all the time - the pipe IS gonna be a (or the) significant bottleneck - and unless I'm wrong, a more costly component for most users than the cost of external storage.
At least I'm paying SugarSync $20.83/month ($250/yr) for for 250 GB of storage and sync - and it works on every geegaw I own or am considering owning - replicating some data to some devices as well as the cloud, but not to others, as I specify - and automatically moving phone pix to a computer while keeping them available over all devices. It also stores the last five versions of each file I'm working on, and keeps at least some of my deleted files around for a period I'm hazy on - and neither of these services counts against my cap I think. And if I'm on someone else's computer/device, I still have access to all that stuff - plus can work on it, change it and resync it - via the browser client. (PS - it did take weeks to upload it all at background rates, but per file access on the down is speedy.)
To me that's a hell of a value - backup + sync between PC's, Macs, iDevices (from all major companies, btw, not just Apple's) no more fear of losing all my years of writing, personal pics and music collecting (i.e., offsite, encrypted, multi-copied at multi-sites with "5 9's" reliability) - plus versioning plus not worrying or even caring which device which files were created on or originally stored on.
And it WILL stream MY music to any of my devices as well (altho' I"m not sure how it works since I haven't done it, and don't think it handles video). It further allows one to choose which parts of their library to sync to a phone or pod or pad for off-line access (and change 'em whenever you choose).
PS: I looked into many services - since I do move from computer to computer through the year (maintaining heavy duty desktops in two states, plus a notebook plus a phone) and found big differences. The two most hyped services, Carbonite and Mozy, are both much less flexible than this, and while the first thing I did was get a free DropBox account to play with, and it works as advertised, I didn't like that I had to put the files IN my DropBox rather than into the file structures I've built, whereas with SugarSync, I save my files where I usually do on both my Win and Mac machines, tell SS to archive those folders, and it then takes care of replicating them to and propagating them from the web with no further thought on my part whatsoever.
SS is also notably cheaper for mass storage than DBox for the record.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mesomorphicman
1_ Could be good for people (like me) who have large mp3 collections, well over what the iPhone and iPod touch will hold. With this you could still listen to those songs and playlist from work, at someone else's home or while traveling.
2_ if you have an iPad also useful, and you're traveling or over someone's house and you want to watch a movie on your iPad, over a relatives house and want to show your photos, or more (#1 above).
3_ My only hopes are it allows you to store all your ALL your music and not just iTunes purchased songs, because like others most my music is not from iTunes. Of no use to many if it's only iTunes purchases. Secondly, hopefully this won't be priced out of range for most and a reasonably priced service, or at least tiered so we can pick. Something like $5.00-15/mth depending on locker size.
If Apple gets too cute with this - and the entire history of iDisk/MobileMe shows it to be one of the few areas of operation where they've never really gotten it - the new services could range from somewhat underwhelming to being a "Ping" level epic fail. (Yeah, yeah, Ping coulda' been a big deal IF it had integrated with fbook as Apple planned - but it didn't and it wasn't and it's not.)
And we don't really know whether they're positioning themselves to compete more/mostly/solely on the content serving side (like the Amazon digital music locker) and/or, since Mobile Me includes apps (or something resembling 'em), against the Google Docs/Windows Live type products and/or the big Time Machine in the Sky services like SugarSync, JungleDisk, DropBox, etc. - or some hybrid of two or three of these. That is, most people here are assuming it's the first of these three, but I''m not so certain. Apple's well aware of our desires to be able to get at all our junk in the "post-PC" era without thinking too hard about how or where, since they're the ones primarily responsible for helping to create the era so far.
If for example, this is primarily a music service and they're just going to put a marker on only songs I've bought from them, and then just redirect my play request to a single copy of the song on their server farm, first, there'll be holes all over my collection, and second, since my playlists are built largely on harmonizing the multiplicity and inaccuracies of genre names in the metadata, what is there will break the rest of my playlists to bits (so to speak!). So there's two deal breakers if this isn't about my files. (PS: and what if I've bought songs from iTunes and remixed/mashed-'em-up in say GarageBand? Again, no go.)
And if it's "all my stuff" backup, but only all my Apple-branded device stuff backup, since I already have a perfectly good version of that (as noted above) that's totally agnostic about Windows, Mac, Android, Blackberry, etc., I wouldn't even consider getting locked in, even tho' my main daily machine is always going to be a Mac.
And if it's "all my media content anywhere" we're back to where this post started - not only what Apple's going to charge and their stance toward DRM - but how constricted and costly the pipe to get it to us is going to be.
So I can see why this has been taking awhile. Plenty of variables and options and players to consider. And no lead-pipe cinch win this time, whatever they go with, simply because they put a "magical brand" on it. No way - the value add has to be clear and at least fairly compelling to get big user uptake given the competition and immaturity of the whole area.
This is a very good question. I think my library is about 50/50, so I am in a similar boat. Unfortunately my guess is that it will only work with purchased content. The way I envision it, is that we won't actually upload anything to the servers really. Apple will just do a scan of our libraries, and see what all we have purchased. We will then have access to stream this from Apple, like an unlimited rental model. But only for music they know we purchased.
Again, this is just my guess.
That's my guess too, but Apple doesn't need to scan your library for purchased content; Apple sold it to you, so Apple already knows what tracks you would (presumably) have the license right to stream.
Physically uploading your personal copy of a downloaded track doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Apple doesn't need MY copy to be able to stream that track to me; Apple just needs to know that I have the license right to stream a particular track and that I'm specifying that track to stream. A playlist would essentially be a combination of markers that tell the cloud server what tracks to stream and tracks that are actually stored on the device.
The streaming function would also makes it very easy for Apple to roll out an all-you-can-eat music subscription. I probably spend $5-$8 a month on music tracks, but I would gladly pay $10-$12 for an iTunes streaming subscription.
Comments
Since it has not been announced, how do you know there is anything better?
How much does this (not yet announced) Apple cloud service cost and what do you get?
This cloud service is not provided by Apple. It is provided by another big tech corporation. Click on samlogo (my registered user name), then click on Visit samlogo's homepage. The banner that mentions cloud player is on the right.
This cloud service is not provided by Apple. It is provided by another big tech corporation. Click on samlogo (my registered user name), then click on Visit samlogo's homepage. The banner that mentions cloud player is on the right.
This is not what I asked.
What exactly does Apple's yet-to-be announced cloud service cost and what exactly does it provide?
You have no idea so you cannot say the cloud service you are referring to is better.
I'm just wondering about any agreements that lala.com might've had when it comes to the whole iTunes digital music locker thing. I haven't heard much of anything related to Apple's purchase of lala.com in a while with regards to this topic.
I can’t imagine they had any IP that was worth what they paid and if you want the people behind it you can usually siphon them off for a huge raise and benefits that is much smaller than buying a company and paid in 2 week installments.
It makes me wonder if their licensing agreements are a major reason here. But if so, then why the new licensing agreements and how long was Lala’s agreements since Apple bought them 1.5 years ago. I understand their secrecy but it’s still annoying.
Data caps are on the order of 250GB/month. 20GB shouldn't seriously cut into that unless you stream a lot of video (in which case the 20GB would probably the the least of your worries).
I do believe you're off by a decimal point or three on your estimate of data caps, guy. ATT starts selling 3G service for the iPad at 250 MB not GB, monthly phone caps are closer to 2GB than 250 where they exist and your friendly neighborhood cableco is likely to start throttling you down at or before 5 GB according to most forum lore at least.
Ergo, in our "Cloud, ho!" approach to our data (which is clearly the wave of the near- to mid-future) - i.e., all our "stuff" everywhere, on any device, all the time - the pipe IS gonna be a (or the) significant bottleneck - and unless I'm wrong, a more costly component for most users than the cost of external storage.
At least I'm paying SugarSync $20.83/month ($250/yr) for for 250 GB of storage and sync - and it works on every geegaw I own or am considering owning - replicating some data to some devices as well as the cloud, but not to others, as I specify - and automatically moving phone pix to a computer while keeping them available over all devices. It also stores the last five versions of each file I'm working on, and keeps at least some of my deleted files around for a period I'm hazy on - and neither of these services counts against my cap I think. And if I'm on someone else's computer/device, I still have access to all that stuff - plus can work on it, change it and resync it - via the browser client. (PS - it did take weeks to upload it all at background rates, but per file access on the down is speedy.)
To me that's a hell of a value - backup + sync between PC's, Macs, iDevices (from all major companies, btw, not just Apple's) no more fear of losing all my years of writing, personal pics and music collecting (i.e., offsite, encrypted, multi-copied at multi-sites with "5 9's" reliability) - plus versioning plus not worrying or even caring which device which files were created on or originally stored on.
And it WILL stream MY music to any of my devices as well (altho' I"m not sure how it works since I haven't done it, and don't think it handles video). It further allows one to choose which parts of their library to sync to a phone or pod or pad for off-line access (and change 'em whenever you choose).
PS: I looked into many services - since I do move from computer to computer through the year (maintaining heavy duty desktops in two states, plus a notebook plus a phone) and found big differences. The two most hyped services, Carbonite and Mozy, are both much less flexible than this, and while the first thing I did was get a free DropBox account to play with, and it works as advertised, I didn't like that I had to put the files IN my DropBox rather than into the file structures I've built, whereas with SugarSync, I save my files where I usually do on both my Win and Mac machines, tell SS to archive those folders, and it then takes care of replicating them to and propagating them from the web with no further thought on my part whatsoever.
SS is also notably cheaper for mass storage than DBox for the record.
1_ Could be good for people (like me) who have large mp3 collections, well over what the iPhone and iPod touch will hold. With this you could still listen to those songs and playlist from work, at someone else's home or while traveling.
2_ if you have an iPad also useful, and you're traveling or over someone's house and you want to watch a movie on your iPad, over a relatives house and want to show your photos, or more (#1 above).
3_ My only hopes are it allows you to store all your ALL your music and not just iTunes purchased songs, because like others most my music is not from iTunes. Of no use to many if it's only iTunes purchases. Secondly, hopefully this won't be priced out of range for most and a reasonably priced service, or at least tiered so we can pick. Something like $5.00-15/mth depending on locker size.
If Apple gets too cute with this - and the entire history of iDisk/MobileMe shows it to be one of the few areas of operation where they've never really gotten it - the new services could range from somewhat underwhelming to being a "Ping" level epic fail. (Yeah, yeah, Ping coulda' been a big deal IF it had integrated with fbook as Apple planned - but it didn't and it wasn't and it's not.)
And we don't really know whether they're positioning themselves to compete more/mostly/solely on the content serving side (like the Amazon digital music locker) and/or, since Mobile Me includes apps (or something resembling 'em), against the Google Docs/Windows Live type products and/or the big Time Machine in the Sky services like SugarSync, JungleDisk, DropBox, etc. - or some hybrid of two or three of these. That is, most people here are assuming it's the first of these three, but I''m not so certain. Apple's well aware of our desires to be able to get at all our junk in the "post-PC" era without thinking too hard about how or where, since they're the ones primarily responsible for helping to create the era so far.
If for example, this is primarily a music service and they're just going to put a marker on only songs I've bought from them, and then just redirect my play request to a single copy of the song on their server farm, first, there'll be holes all over my collection, and second, since my playlists are built largely on harmonizing the multiplicity and inaccuracies of genre names in the metadata, what is there will break the rest of my playlists to bits (so to speak!). So there's two deal breakers if this isn't about my files. (PS: and what if I've bought songs from iTunes and remixed/mashed-'em-up in say GarageBand? Again, no go.)
And if it's "all my stuff" backup, but only all my Apple-branded device stuff backup, since I already have a perfectly good version of that (as noted above) that's totally agnostic about Windows, Mac, Android, Blackberry, etc., I wouldn't even consider getting locked in, even tho' my main daily machine is always going to be a Mac.
And if it's "all my media content anywhere" we're back to where this post started - not only what Apple's going to charge and their stance toward DRM - but how constricted and costly the pipe to get it to us is going to be.
So I can see why this has been taking awhile. Plenty of variables and options and players to consider. And no lead-pipe cinch win this time, whatever they go with, simply because they put a "magical brand" on it. No way - the value add has to be clear and at least fairly compelling to get big user uptake given the competition and immaturity of the whole area.
This is a very good question. I think my library is about 50/50, so I am in a similar boat. Unfortunately my guess is that it will only work with purchased content. The way I envision it, is that we won't actually upload anything to the servers really. Apple will just do a scan of our libraries, and see what all we have purchased. We will then have access to stream this from Apple, like an unlimited rental model. But only for music they know we purchased.
Again, this is just my guess.
That's my guess too, but Apple doesn't need to scan your library for purchased content; Apple sold it to you, so Apple already knows what tracks you would (presumably) have the license right to stream.
Physically uploading your personal copy of a downloaded track doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Apple doesn't need MY copy to be able to stream that track to me; Apple just needs to know that I have the license right to stream a particular track and that I'm specifying that track to stream. A playlist would essentially be a combination of markers that tell the cloud server what tracks to stream and tracks that are actually stored on the device.
The streaming function would also makes it very easy for Apple to roll out an all-you-can-eat music subscription. I probably spend $5-$8 a month on music tracks, but I would gladly pay $10-$12 for an iTunes streaming subscription.