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Apple Acquires Streaming Music Service Lala Media

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MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,553
30,881


It appears the last minute reports of Apple's interest in streaming music company Lala media were true. Both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are reporting that Apple has indeed acquired Lala Media.

Lala is a four year old startup company that offers customers streaming music not unlike the popular Pandora music service.
Lala’s engineers have built a service that music enthusiasts say is very easy to use. Lala scans the hard drives of its users and creates an online music library that matches the user’s collection, making it painless (and free) for people to get their music in the cloud.
Click to expand...
Like Pandora, Lala's music is streamed from the internet rather than stored locally. This allowed users to listen to a catalog of over 7 million songs for free as a stream over the web -- much like internet radio. If you wanted to buy the right to listen to a particular song on demand an unlimited amount of times from the web, it would cost $.10. In order to permanently download the song to your hard drive or device, however, it would cost the more traditional $.79-$.89 per song.

Of the acquisition, Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plan."

Apple's interest in Lala sparks a number of possibilities for the direction of the company. Pandora's iPhone app, in particular, has been enormously successful by allowing individually tailored music to be streamed over cellular and Wi-Fi connections. It's natural to believe that Apple may offer a competing service for the iPhone based on this acquisition or Apple could also use the technology to bolster their iTunes Genius recommendations with personalized streaming music.

Article Link: Apple Acquires Streaming Music Service Lala Media
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2009/12/04/apple-acquires-streaming-music-service-lala-media/
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MikeCP

macrumors newbie
May 21, 2006
15
25
This has bad news written all over it. Lala is an awesome service, and I don't trust Apple's hands being involved.

Crap.
 
S

str1f3

macrumors 68000
Aug 24, 2008
1,859
0
MikeCP said:
This has bad news written all over it. Lala is an awesome service, and I don't trust Apple's hands being involved.

Crap.
Click to expand...

Why exactly? Because you can buy a song $.10 cheaper on Lala? There is incredible potential in this.

The NYT article is saying that they want their engineers but in a way that makes no sense. Why would Apple be shopping around a subscription package for movies and TV shows, but not for music?

It will be at least as good as the Spotify or Zune model where you can download free songs and possibly buy/win tickets to concerts with their deal with LiveNation. Chances are the multiple users can share the same iTunes account and split the monthly bill for unlimited streaming. Chances are also they will have playlists along with Genius/Mixes, iTunes LPs and iTunes DJ.

Lala's offerings would only have more potential with iTunes and may even help the struggling music industry. If this happens, movie and TV companies would feel a lot more comfortable getting on board.
 
E

EarSoundstist

macrumors newbie
Dec 4, 2009
7
3
Not really subscription music but much better!!! -Brilliant move Apple

I've been playing around with LaLa since hearing Apple was interested and it really is a brilliant business model. The key difference between LaLa and other streaming services is that you pay 10 cents per song for the right to keep it up on the cloud available for streaming from wherever forever. (They give you 25 of these for free to start - classic drug pusher tactic ;-) This gives you "ownership" and the song doesn't evaporate if you don't pay some monthly fee. (Of course if Apple is the one doing this you can be sure they won't go out of business anytime soon and take your music away) You also get the ability to preview any song or album in it's entirety one time which is really really useful for deciding whether you want to buy it or not. And the 10 cents counts towards the 89 cents download charge if you really want a copy for your hard disk. I can see this sort of model being used for far more than just music distribution.
They also make it possible to scan your hard disk and make copies of all the songs you already have available on the cloud for streaming for free. Pretty darn cool!!! Of course the information about what's in your collection is invaluable for marketing new music specifically to you. But iTunes does that already anyway so no real change there. LaLa had an iPhone app in for approval and agreements with google that let people play a song from a google search so I'm sure Apple decided to assimilate it before it became an even bigger deal.
 
S

str1f3

macrumors 68000
Aug 24, 2008
1,859
0
AidenShaw said:
LOL

In context, it was "the Cube was an epic ?".

I don't think that "win" is a contender! :D
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Cube was a work of art (in the Smithsonian I believe) and I'm one of the few who it didn't break on. My year-old 20" iMac, however, I'm taking to the Genius Bar tomorrow for a potential hard drive replacement.
 
jaw04005

jaw04005

macrumors 601
Aug 19, 2003
4,514
402
AR
I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple offers the Lala service for free to iPhone and iPod touch customers. That would be really cool and similar to what Nokia tried to do with their streaming music service in 2007.

http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1172937

Additionally, it would be nice if the iTunes music we purchase was available via iTunes.com (or whatever) similar to what Microsoft is doing with their Zune Marketplace. So now I can listen to my iTunes library at work, etc.

http://www.zune.net/en-US/products/zunepass/default.htm

And Apple’s PR chief Steve Dowling is such a tool. When CNET broke the story this morning, he gave the typical “We don’t comment on rumors and speculation.” response, then gives the story to WSJ and NYT later in the day.
 
AidenShaw

AidenShaw

macrumors P6
Feb 8, 2003
18,667
4,676
The Peninsula
str1f3 said:
Cube was a work of art (in the Smithsonian I believe)
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Why type that without at least trying to verify it?

It's MOMA, which has a lot of interesting looking stuff that utterly failed in the market.


robertnq said:
Didn't the Cube evolve into the Mac Mini??? Take that off the failure list lol
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Not really, the cube died, and a few years later the mini appeared.

Other than being headless, the Mini and the Cube have few similarities. (CPU, disk, graphics, memory...)

The Mini is a screeenless MacBook without a battery - reformed into a square.

The Cube has one thing in common with the latest Imacs, though, they also suffered from embarrassing cracks...
 
S

str1f3

macrumors 68000
Aug 24, 2008
1,859
0
jaw04005 said:
I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple offers the Lala service for free to iPhone and iPod touch customers. That would be really cool and similar to what Nokia tried to do with their streaming music service.

Additionally, it would be nice if the iTunes music we purchase was available via iTunes.com (or whatever) similar to what Microsoft is doing with their Zune Marketplace. So now I can listen to my iTunes library at work, etc.
Click to expand...

That's what many are hoping for or at least free to MobileMe users as Apple seems to have patented. There is simply too much good music to keep up with in the latter half of this decade to dedicate space on your hard drive or pay for. It is simply too expensive unless you torrent.

Contrary to what others may think, including maybe Steve himself, streaming music will become a necessary option for a multitude of factors. I think a reasonable subscription plan, with iTunes especially, would drastically decrease piracy in Western countries because it's so heavily used and works with an iPod. I can even imagine them putting in wi-fi on the nano to solely access iTunes online.
 
LethalWolfe

LethalWolfe

macrumors G3
Jan 11, 2002
9,370
124
Los Angeles
techfreak85 said:
newton?
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The Newton's only failure was being ahead of it's time.

robertnq said:
Didn't the Cube evolve into the Mac Mini??? Take that off the failure list lol
Click to expand...
The time gap between Cube and the Mini negates any sort 'evolution' IMO and the two machines are in completely separate markets. The Cube was supposed to be a higher end 'Ha-ha, I've got money' showcase type machine and cost nearly $2k when it first came out. The Mini, on the other hand, is more like the econo-Mac.


Lethal
 
K

klrobinson999

macrumors 6502a
Dec 28, 2008
566
334
Imagine having access to all of your music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, and - yes - magazines and books, anywhere, anytime. Accessible via desktop, laptop, phone, pod, AppleTV, and tablet....at home, at work, and on-the-go. From your primary residence, to your vacation getaway, and the even plane trip in-between.

I think that's what's going on here.
2010 is going to be the year of the cloud.

get your $$$$ ready!
 
S

str1f3

macrumors 68000
Aug 24, 2008
1,859
0
AidenShaw said:
Why type that without at least trying to verify it?

It's MOMA, which has a lot of interesting looking stuff that utterly failed in the market.
Click to expand...

Well I'm out and kind of partying and didn't feel like verifying the actual museum it was at. The only reason I'm checking in is because the story has important ramifications and I'm a geek. Does it really make a difference which museum it was in? I added the "I believe" in case I was wrong.




AidenShaw said:
Not really, the cube died, and a few years later the mini appeared.

Other than being headless, the Mini and the Cube have few similarities. (CPU, disk, graphics, memory...)

The Mini is a screeenless MacBook without a battery - reformed into a square.

The Cube has one thing in common with the latest Imacs, though, they suffered from embarrassing cracks...
Click to expand...

The Cube, in terms of external design, is a predecessor to the mini. The mini was without the inherent engineering flaws that plagued the Cube. Both were developed by Ive if I'm not mistaken.

That being said, the Cube is the most beautiful computer ever built and I feel lucky that I'm one of those who never had it break down before its time was up. From what I hear the Cube it still very sought after on eBay til this day.
 
L

lowonthe456

macrumors 6502
Oct 27, 2007
438
0
I agree with "jaw04005". Since I cannot tether my iPhone to my mac at work and listen to it's music, a streAming option like thus would be helpful to me. Very interested in where this goes...I like that they aren't resting on their laurels and are again expanding the service.....

Let's hope for a subscription MOVIE service!
 
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