Apple clarifies its plans for cloud music storage

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Apple clarifies its plans for cloud music storage

Apple has clarified its plans for using cloud-based remote music storage, according to a new report. Citing several music industry executives, the Financial Times reports that Apple is now planning to use its cloud storage to allow iTunes Store users to back up their music collections and access them from any Apple device. According to one person with knowledge of the company’s plans, Apple doesn’t want to undermine the market it currently dominates for digital music downloads, instead likening its plan to “insurance.” Although no launch date for the service is mentioned in the report, it is noted that Apple’s offering will face competition from a similar service from Google, and from music streaming service Spotify, which is said to be nearing a deal with Universal Music that would give it the support of three of the “big four” record labels and could ultimately lead to a U.S. launch this summer.

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Comments

1

I honestly don’t see them allowing me to store a copy of my 1TB+ iTunes library on their server.

Posted by Galley in Greenville, SC on February 24, 2011 at 9:14 PM (PST)

2

From what I have been reading, this new service will only apply to items purchased through iTunes. While that is still a move in a positive direction, it does not come close to making my music collection accessible through the cloud. I have gigs upon gigs of music that I ripped from my existing CD collection. But I am not complaining. It is still better than nothing.

Posted by Mitch on February 25, 2011 at 4:54 AM (PST)

3

I would suspect it would be iTunes purchases only (Got keep the music industry happy).

They don’t need to actually store “your” music, just pointers to a master library.

Posted by Don on February 25, 2011 at 5:06 AM (PST)

4

Yeah, I’m sure such a service would only work for content purchased from the iTunes store.
While such a thing would be nice, what I’d really like to see is a built in, feature for iTunes that would let you stream your collection from your computer over an external network.
I know there are a few apps that will let you do this now, but I have come to find they are inelegant solutions, that don’t mesh seamlessly with iTunes.

Posted by Miranda Kali on February 25, 2011 at 7:48 AM (PST)

5

The problem is that I have a ton of music that isn’t in the iTunes Store.

Posted by Galley in Greenville, SC on February 25, 2011 at 8:44 AM (PST)

6

@Mitch,

Are you saying you’d expect Apple (or anyone else) to actually store your music collection, not purchased from them, on their servers, using their bandwidth and disk space - for free?
Just want to clarify your expectations and ask to share your recreational substances, depending on the answer

Posted by sb on February 25, 2011 at 8:56 AM (PST)

7

@sb,

I was not really expecting such a thing. Which is why I stated that I was not complaining.

But, with that said, I would like to see them evolve to something within iTunes/Apple TV/AirPlay/iOS that allows you to stream your entire library. They are doing it on the personal network scale with AirPlay. Now if they could integrate that into a WAN scheme. Like Miranda said in #4, there are some apps that provide this exact function. But they are simply not as elegant as most of Apple’s own built in apps can be.

Just some more wishful thinking on my part. I am sure the music and movie honchos would $&@* a brick before they would give Apple the leniency needed to pull that one off.

Posted by Mitch on February 25, 2011 at 9:32 AM (PST)

8

The ability to store iTunes music (and videos) could be pretty sweet. It would be interesting to have playlists tailored to particular devices with different capacities. So, you could have a playlist for a nano, and another for a Touch, but both pointing to the iTunes in the cloud. This also, of course, encourages more iTunes purchases

Posted by Singlestick on February 25, 2011 at 10:17 AM (PST)

9

@ Mitch,
Fair enough. I think we can extrapolate that this will happen someday (streaming via cloud)
We have to give Apple credit, they do lead the pack. Maybe not always to everyone’s liking, but who else is doing it better?

Posted by Sb on February 25, 2011 at 12:30 PM (PST)

10

The potential Apple cloud offering sounds intriguing to me, I would love to be able get at my iTunes content whilst away from home without having to leave my hime PC switched on. (which I would/will not do anyway as it’s not energy efficient and I think has other issues.)

Posted by Cyberman in nr Heathrow, London on February 25, 2011 at 1:43 PM (PST)

11

Streaming from the cloud might work for wired broadband, but no mobile carrier could deal with the additional load of a large fraction of its subscribers walking around streaming music all the time. Do the math.

Posted by xf on February 26, 2011 at 7:38 AM (PST)

12

Anyone on AT&T can tell you this won’t work, because of AT&T’s spotty and unreliable mobile Internet access.

Posted by Farnsworth on February 26, 2011 at 2:18 PM (PST)

13

@ Farnsworth, My AT&T mobile internet access isn’t spotty. I live outside Washington DC, and have great service. I’m just saying.

Posted by Kurt Foster on February 27, 2011 at 3:13 AM (PST)

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