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Amazon Launches Cloud-Based Storage Service and Music Player
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I wonder if Amazon just tried to rush this to beat Apple and Google.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Amazon-faces-backlash-over-rb-3699819521.html
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Amazon-faces-backlash-over-rb-3699819521.html
I like the competition, and the cloud concept is definitely promising, but I don't think this is a solution I want. Call me pessimistic, but I don't want to rely on another entity for access to my own information. I don't want to store all my music and movies "in the cloud" and hope there is no complications. Rather, what I want is to be able to access my home computer via the cloud, but if all else fails, it's still saved on my home computer, not some remote server I can't access
OK, thanks, that's good news. In this case it's tracks from a CD I own, but since I rarely buy CDs any more this will be less and less of a problem!
and the Verizons and ATT of the world will be happy to charge you if you bust your data cap.
The idea of cloud storage is that you have another copy of your data on external servers with much more bandwidth and server maintenance and backup than you can manage at home. Then you can access that cloud from a multiple of devices that may or may not have the local storage space for all that data.
I routinely use 3 different laptops (have access to 5) and 3 mobile devices. I've backup up my content at home on multiple external HDD (the bigger AC powered 3.5" drives and more portable 2.5" drives). But to get my content on my devices I was forever syncing and resyncing having to pick & chose what content I wanted to access on the device.
Amazon's music cloud allows me to create one backup resource for my music on an external server farm. They worry about maintaining the HDD and connectivity to the net. I can access my music and playlists on my memory-challenged mobile device or that netbook I only take along on trips and always forget to sync.
Since adding Dropbox and Evernote to my arsenal of tools I've been able to eliminate the need to carry around USB HDDs entirely. I can work on projects with whatever computer I happen to be using.
The reason for sour grapes here (I suspect) is that Amazon beat Apple to the punch. Apple's been sitting on Lala for 2 freaking years!!!! To take music with you syncing is mandatory and storage space comes at a premium on Apple devices. Even the new Home Sharing features of iOS 4.3 pale in comparison to StreamToMe and a DYNDNS account.
I love Amazon's move. I routinely chose them for music downloads over iTunes anyway due to better pricing. And best of all Amazon will be taking on the music industry's insane demands that consumers have multiple licenses to listen to their own music!!! Someone's gotta take RIAA down to reality or else we'll all get sued for 75 trillion dollars just for making copies of our own music files.
I think people forget it was Amazon that successfully pushed for DRM-free digital music. Before then everything you bought was by subscription or made invalid if you switched HDDs and forgot to back up your licenses. Including the vaunted iTunes library.
I really do like the concept of having an enormous amount of online storage, immediately accessible from anywhere.. but ultimately I see this as an issue of me having to pay someone else for granting access to things I already own.
Do you like paying a fee to your bank when you take out YOUR OWN MONEY from the bank? Your bank says its because its a "convenience", which of course it is....but when I have to pay them money to get something that is mine, I have a problem with that.
Remember when television was free? We just had to put up with advertisements, and for that, we got free TV. Now many people pay 79 bucks a month or more to get cable or satellite TV. Time have changed. Now we are paying alot of money just to get tv, something that once was free of charge. Oh, yeah, and we still have ads. Funny how that works.
Of course companies like Amazon and Apple are not in it for your convenience, they're in it because if everyone eventually has all their files stored online in the cloud, there's TONS and TONS of money to be made- for ever. If I have a computer, phone or music listening device with ample amounts of storage space, these companies don't make any money off of me after I purchase that music from itunes or wherever. (And if I have cds or blu ray movies, they don't make any money on me at all). This cloud concept provides some convenience, but more importantly guarantees a steady flow of income for these companies for many years to come.
Flash memory storage capacities are growing yearly.. and prices are continuing to drop. Now companies are starting to ship secure digital cards with capacities of a staggering 128 GB on a tiny compact flash card! Ultimately I think most people will be able to have enormous amounts of files locally on their own phone or portable computer.
Do you like paying a fee to your bank when you take out YOUR OWN MONEY from the bank? Your bank says its because its a "convenience", which of course it is....but when I have to pay them money to get something that is mine, I have a problem with that.
Remember when television was free? We just had to put up with advertisements, and for that, we got free TV. Now many people pay 79 bucks a month or more to get cable or satellite TV. Time have changed. Now we are paying alot of money just to get tv, something that once was free of charge. Oh, yeah, and we still have ads. Funny how that works.
Of course companies like Amazon and Apple are not in it for your convenience, they're in it because if everyone eventually has all their files stored online in the cloud, there's TONS and TONS of money to be made- for ever. If I have a computer, phone or music listening device with ample amounts of storage space, these companies don't make any money off of me after I purchase that music from itunes or wherever. (And if I have cds or blu ray movies, they don't make any money on me at all). This cloud concept provides some convenience, but more importantly guarantees a steady flow of income for these companies for many years to come.
Flash memory storage capacities are growing yearly.. and prices are continuing to drop. Now companies are starting to ship secure digital cards with capacities of a staggering 128 GB on a tiny compact flash card! Ultimately I think most people will be able to have enormous amounts of files locally on their own phone or portable computer.
Lol, there are no sour grapes at all, my point was that I don't want large online backup, I want a big dumb pipe to access my own things on my own computer. Like I said, maybe I'm just pessimistic, but I want to rely on an outside source as little as possible. With all the experience I have with information gathering, I just personally want to allow as little info farming of me as possible
The kindle and the ipad will be the winners in the tablet wars. They offer different experiences. The kindle is really nice and it is truly different than the ipad. The rest of the competition are ipad knock offs. Apparently the xoom is bombing. Samsung's tablet is not selling well. Of course there are those that will bring up whether Jobs misquoted the Samsung CEO. but who cares really? The truth is the samsung tablet isn't even close to selling the numbers Apple is. THAT is the real issue. Jobs knew it and so used the quote. All the back pedaling from samsung was just that. The original quote was the truth.
So that storage unit you have filled with couches and tennis rackets and old baseball cards... that should be free as well?
Let's be reasonable here. They have to buy drives (multiple drives, because clearly they need redundancy and backup) to put your music on and they have to pay for the bandwidth to pipe it out to you. I hardly think $1 for 20 gigabytes of available anywhere storage is very unreasonable.
No, of course not... but that's different. They aren't storing physical cash somewhere anymore, it's all just a line of electronic code that states what your balance is. Why should anyone have to pay for that? And before you tell me that digital music is just 1s and 0s too, you're right - and that's why Amazon gives you 5 gigs free. If you want more, obviously there's a cost involved. They can't support millions of customers each wanting a terabyte of storage for nothing.
Nothing has changed. Over-the-air broadcasts are still available for free. It's called an antenna. They may seem quaint, but Best Buy still sells them. If you want premium content, you pay for it.
Well first of all, if you buy a Blu-ray disc from Amazon, they're still taking their cut. So saying they make "no money at all" from that is inaccurate. But again, they are offering you physical storage space that is available 24/7 from wherever you are. Why would you expect that to be free? That's just a ridiculous mentality. The prices they're asking aren't very expensive, either. How much do you spend on your cable bill every month? Your phone bill? People just think it's ridiculous to spend money on music because avenues have popped up where you can get it for free. (Why buy the CD when I can just watch it on YouTube?). Just because something is available somewhere for free doesn't mean it's worthless. Amazon is providing a service. That service comes with a fee. If you don't think it's worth it, don't buy it... but I think your expectations are pretty misplaced.
Sure they can. That isn't the point of this, though. I have 2 computers at home, a laptop, a phone that has storage, a DVR, even my Xbox can store music files. But what a pain in the ass it is to share between them all. Do I want to use up 80 gigs of my laptop's internal drive just to take all of my music with me when I travel? Do I want duplicate copies of everything I own on all of these different devices just to make sure the one thing I'm looking for at any particular moment is there no matter what? Good grief, no. Yes of course I will keep A backup of all of my files on a local system - I'm not trusting anything ONLY to the cloud - but now there's a way to access my music (or any other kind of file, for that matter) wherever I go, quickly and easily. Sure, it's not much different than dropbox except that it's cheaper and less complicated. How nice to be able to visit my parents, or go on vacation, or be at a friend's house, log on to their computer, and have my entire music library instantly available at my fingertips. It makes a lot of sense to me.
Actually, MobileMe is great at syncing services but it is beyond bad when it comes to cloud storage. Amazon has great network of data centers around the world and pipes that will deliver. Apple has lousy iDisk which is dead slow and therefore almost useless for many functions. I hope this truly pushes Apple to release FAST cloud storage service with MobileMe. With its current pricing MobileMe should delver at least 50-60GB of fast storage space on top of the sync services. I truly hope that Apple is not planing to release a cloud "locker" when we need a "vault".
Only a few people here mentioned the bandwidth issues.
Cloud storage is a great idea but will only work if we have unlimited flat rates to access it. You have to pay for storage, but then you need to pay for access either thru you 3G cap or the ever increasing ISP caps.
ISPs are cracking down big time with people using stuff like Netflix around the clock.
I can't see how any of this mobile stuff will get better with AT&T and t mobile going together. Feels like the aol per minute days.
Cloud storage is a great idea but will only work if we have unlimited flat rates to access it. You have to pay for storage, but then you need to pay for access either thru you 3G cap or the ever increasing ISP caps.
ISPs are cracking down big time with people using stuff like Netflix around the clock.
I can't see how any of this mobile stuff will get better with AT&T and t mobile going together. Feels like the aol per minute days.
No offense taken, but seriously how is the web interface to my digital locker so offensive?
screenshot.
Not that I'd normally be accessing my media via a desktop website. That's why Amazon also offer a nice and visually friendly app for your mobile devices.
I'm not going to give a full critique to Amazon's UI and UX design, but when you look at Apple's UIs and Apple's apps next to these Amazon one's do you not notice a major difference in simplicity, fit and finish, and polish???
I'm not saying you can't use the Amazon stuff, but Apple has powerfully demonstrated many times over now for years, that user experience and beautiful design ABSOLUTELY DOES make a big impact!
Take a look at the UI of iBooks, or the new iMovie and Garage Band, or Contacts, or all of the iWork apps on iPad, etc. etc. BEAUTIFUL UIs and very creative, cultural, simplistic and elegant! Also WebOS has some beautiful UI design.
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Hmm. This seems like a pass for me. I'll wait for Apple's offerings through MobileMe this year because I'll have the iPhone 4 or 5 on Verizon by the end of the year.
Then I can punt my piece of s*** Droid X to the curb. No more battery pulls and video that'll play NATIVELY ON THE DEVICE THAT RECORDED IT! Yes, the Droid X can't play it's own video back. Motorola's Droids Don't Do JACK.
Amazon's new service will be good, but just like its video streaming options, just a little too expensive. I'm sure it will be a great service for the Droids and the price will eventually go down. Maybe they should look into a data farm.
Then I can punt my piece of s*** Droid X to the curb. No more battery pulls and video that'll play NATIVELY ON THE DEVICE THAT RECORDED IT! Yes, the Droid X can't play it's own video back. Motorola's Droids Don't Do JACK.
Amazon's new service will be good, but just like its video streaming options, just a little too expensive. I'm sure it will be a great service for the Droids and the price will eventually go down. Maybe they should look into a data farm.
I don't see how Amazon's Cloud UI could be much better. It does follow Apple's UI, but hey, guess what? They're not Apple. Their UI IS very simple, I'd argue elegant and looks functional. As for a UI being 'cultural', you'll have to explain that one...
Who cares, you can download it any time to any computer. Talking as a new user of this service, who has used it. You buy music for less than iTunes. I got a free upgrade to 20 GB. Then when can down load everything in your cloud which is DRM free to any computer you're logged in to. I could not care less about the player. The way less restrictive cloud storage is a huge bonus. Yes I know MP3 is not as good as AAC if you're an audiophile and if you are then you're playing lossless made from CD or Vinyl. Amazon is a super simple and easy to use UI with far less restrictions than apple. Not knocking apple I have an iPhone4, iPad2 and 2010 MBP.
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US only? pity. i think it's a great idea to offer free bandwidth for the albums you buy on there, it's a shame there's no way of being able to check the previous albums you bought for and add them to the list as well.
personally I have rhapsody and anubis hooked up now. i can stream music to the sonos when i get home and download songs to the rhapsody app. do i OWN these tracks? blah blah, it does the job for me when i want to listen to new stuff I dont already own, or cant be bothered finding in the cupboards
personally I have rhapsody and anubis hooked up now. i can stream music to the sonos when i get home and download songs to the rhapsody app. do i OWN these tracks? blah blah, it does the job for me when i want to listen to new stuff I dont already own, or cant be bothered finding in the cupboards
Apple would block it because it gives preference to Amazon's MP3 store over iTunes. No point in even trying. Just wait, MobileMe revamp will make all of us happy.
MobileMe may be revamped, but the price will be higher - just to match Apple's image.
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The ironic thing is your data is probably safer in the cloud (where there is adequate redundancy in multiple geographic locations) than just simply sitting on your home computer.
Just like how the iPad's price is sky high?
Steve Jobs was quoted as saying recently that everytime they've priced for volume (i.e., priced low in the hopes of greater sales) they've seen success. When they haven't priced for volume, their success has been more attenuated. Now this was regarding media and the iTunes store, but there's no reason cloud services couldn't be the same, particularly given how competitive this sphere will be and the fact that there's no real marketing benefit to "premium" data pricing (as opposed to premium laptop/notebook pricing where higher prices can contribute to a perception of higher quality).
Any one had trouble using Safari? I had to switch to Chrome to get the upload to work, but I have a few Safari Extensions installed.
Cloud storage is cloud storage, so yes, Dropbox is the same thing.
+Dropbox: There is a desktop/mobile client that will allow more seamless syncing and pulling of files down. With Amazon's service you will have to manually go and download files you want from their service. Incidentally, Dropbox uses Amazon's cloud storage backend for their service.
+Amazon: Built-in music player that will play/stream your music. Its like Mougg or MSpot. Makes it easy to have your music anywhere without having to sync all the time.
Conclusion: This is Amazon's move to try and get you to start buying content from them and not Apple iTunes, Microsoft Zune, and other competitors. They are shooting for a one stop shop for music, video, apps, and other content. In that sense, good move. But we'll see what Apple has up its sleeve(hopefully), if there is an update to Mobile Me.