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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.

That's one thing I hate about the whole iOS situation.

To get an app accepted you have to go by Apple's rules.

Developers should be able to design whatever apps they want and as with the Mac App store. Developers have the option to include app in the store and make sure it meets Apple's requirements or sell on their own.

User has the ability to purchase and install apps in or outside of the app store.

MobileMe may be revamped and if so as a MobileMe user I would be able to take advantage. This won't help the people that don't use MobileMe though.
 
So let me understand this. You pay to buy your music, you pay to store it 'in the cloud' and you pay data charges (with ever decreasing unlimited data plans) to listen to it.

This has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.
 
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...

Lol, I didn't think that my statements would be very controversial, but apparently there are people here that do not quite have an eye for good design. Sorry.

Steve has spoken about Apple taking culture into their designs and products for many years. One example I listed is the beautiful new start menu in iMovie for iPad that is the marque of an old theater that even has the lights power up with authentic sound and visuals as the app opens to showcase your projects in a gallery of movie posters on the wall. Very creative and cultural!
 
Lol, I didn't think that my statements would be very controversial, but apparently there are people here that do not quite have an eye for good design. Sorry.

Steve has spoken about Apple taking culture into their designs and products for many years. One example I listed is the beautiful new start menu in iMovie for iPad that is the marque of an old theater that even has the lights power up with authentic sound and visuals as the app opens to showcase your projects in a gallery of movie posters on the wall. Very creative and cultural!

Wow, passive aggressive much?

Why on earth are you trying to pass off your idea off what 'good design' is on to others? Why are you criticising others for thinking that Amazon's design and UI is actually quite nice. If you want to be an Apple apparatchik, fine, but does insult me and others in the process.

And your last paragraph is ridiculous. Firstly, 'Steve'? Are you on first name terms with him? Laughable. Secondly, just because you think a faux-theatre veneer is 'cultural and creative' (hardly creative, something 4th graders have been doing for years...), it doesn't mean it ACTUALLY is. I mean let's get real, there's a nice polish on it and it looks pretty, but displaying movies as movie posters? Hardly a shocking revelation.
 
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).

I've been a MobileMe customer since iTools - I pay $5 per GB for a standard plan - and not that much of a discount for more. Amazon's price is is pretty much $1/GB if you buy more. Apple never really does price for volume - they will lower their prices (and have been across the board) but they never undercut their competition - the price is always a "gee that's a pretty good price for an Apple product" - almost never "that cheaper than a "Brand X"".

MobileMe sales are driven by the hardware - and the new "required" .me address for some items will further drive MobileMe upsells. It will never be priced to compete with services such as Amazon's, it will be priced as the most seamless way to integrate your apple products - at a premium - at lease for online storage. Sure, there are free ways to do everything MobileMe does, but MobileMe is plug'n'play.

And prices are actually going up for many cloud services - Mozy used to have unlimited backup space for home computers at around $5 a month per computer, but have gotten rid of that pricing model and are now no longer "unlimited" for home use.
 
ha

Prices way to high.. just buy an external hard drive.. even if you bought a ridiculously expensive fireproof one it would be more practical
 
This just makes me more interested to hear what Apple has come up with. I like the idea of "the cloud" but I'd definitely like to compare Amazon's with Apple's when it is announced in June.
 
So let me understand this. You pay to buy your music, you pay to store it 'in the cloud' and you pay data charges (with ever decreasing unlimited data plans) to listen to it.

This has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.

Obviously you do not consider all possibilities. Some people have unlimited data plans (or do not have time to listen to music to often so even the limited plan could suffice). Combined with free 5GB space, people have to pay nothing. Then there are people for whom hundred bucks is not an issue but convenience is. This World (outside Apple ecosystem) is all about choices. And if not enough people will find this service to be attractive, Amazon will close it. Without your telling them.
 
I hardly think $1 for 20 gigabytes of available anywhere storage is very unreasonable.

Maybe that rate wouldn't be bad, but if you read the article, that's not what they're charging. Beyond the initial free amount, its $1 per 1 gig, not $1 per 20 gigs. A terabyte per year is a thousand dollars a year. That's not too cheap. And this isn't including bandwidth usage, which is gonna cost money too, of course. Plus, what do you think, are these rates and bandwidth usage costs gonna be higher or lower in the future?

They (banks) aren't storing physical cash somewhere anymore, it's all just a line of electronic code that states what your balance is.

Well, it actually it still exists as money, but of course banks aren't storing it all in a vault- they're loaning it out to other people, at rates 10 to 100 times greater than the interest rate they are offering you for using that money- and they're using your money to make them money. I'm sure they could loan out money at much lower rates and still do fine, but that's what we're used to paying, so there you go. But anyway, back on track-

If you want premium content, you pay for it.

That premium content you're happy to be paying lots of money for is actually making the provider plenty of money on the back end too- remember cable and satellite television still has plenty of advertisements. Again, they could probably charge you a third of what you currently pay and it would still be profitable. (I'm just sayin'...)


People just think it's ridiculous to spend money on music because avenues have popped up where you can get it for free.

True, but for me, no, I actually buy my music and support the artists- I just think its ridiculous to buy my music and pay someone else over and over and over again, forever, just to be able listen to it.

I have 2 computers at home, a laptop, a phone that has storage, a DVR, even my Xbox can store music files..... 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.

80 gigs of music in a computer's memory doesn't actually "weigh" all that much. You can have all those files right there on your devices right now, unless you have terabytes of things to store. As storage continues to grow on computers, I think you'll find that the prices will be more and more appealing for larger and larger amounts of storage.

Look, I understand your points, and if you have multiple platforms that need to share and sync enormous amounts of files, that can be a challenge and the cloud would be convenient. But for the amount of music and photography and other files I have and the way I would store it and access it, I personally would rather just have all the files I need right there on my computer at my fingertips without having to pay someone to access it from a remote location. You're certainly free to spend money to access things you already purchased, but its not for me. To each their own.
 
just signed up. the whole process is actually really easy. i was up and running within seconds. i've been buying all my music from amazon for years now, and having the convenience of your digital music automatically sync'd up to your personal locker is great. it even scanned my 104GB music collection within 2 mins! pretty cool
 
Wow, passive aggressive much?

Why on earth are you trying to pass off your idea off what 'good design' is on to others? Why are you criticising others for thinking that Amazon's design and UI is actually quite nice. If you want to be an Apple apparatchik, fine, but does insult me and others in the process.

And your last paragraph is ridiculous. Firstly, 'Steve'? Are you on first name terms with him? Laughable. Secondly, just because you think a faux-theatre veneer is 'cultural and creative' (hardly creative, something 4th graders have been doing for years...), it doesn't mean it ACTUALLY is. I mean let's get real, there's a nice polish on it and it looks pretty, but displaying movies as movie posters? Hardly a shocking revelation.

Well newbie, it appears that you know it all, so as a professional designer of UI, UX, and products, I have nothing to offer you! :rolleyes:
 
Props

Props to amazon for taking the lead. If only dropbox would follow.

Q: Any word on integration with AWS/EC2 for the upgraded service?
 
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Prices way to high.. just buy an external hard drive.. even if you bought a ridiculously expensive fireproof one it would be more practical

Yes, plugging my hard drive into my phone is much more practical than having 20 GB of music streaming to the phone with almost zero setup...
 
The idea of 20 GB per year for $.99 or less for an album just can't be beat.

It is practically FREE for us when Amazon does their $2 music giftcard promo every year since some entire albums can cost less than $2. If you use Swagbucks, redeem $5 Amazon cards at 450 SB and the balance never expires like it does with the Amazon $2 promo.

Amazon + Swagbucks kick ass together! FREE music and cloud storage.
 
Great service. I purchase several albums from Amazon per year just because their promotional pricing is fantastic (Foo Fighters Greatest Hits is $3.99 and they gave me a $2 coupon too).

But an Adobe AIR Client for Mac? Really, Amazon? I'll wait to native Mac applications like Cyberduck support it.

Apple better get on the ball with this.
 
Only for a year. Fill up that 20 Gigs and a year later you can either empty it down to the free 5, or pony up.

Not if you buy your music from Amazon and have it saved to your cloud storage be default. All mp3 purchases from Amazon (so long as cloud storage is set as your default when purchasing) are stored free in the cloud and don't count against your storage limit. You can download it to your Mac/PC later (while leaving it in the Amazon cloud) and add it into your iTunes library on your local storage if you'd like.

This is actually a much better thing for me, as if I'm away from my home computer, I can still buy music, have it go to the cloud by default, and immediately have it available to both any computer that runs the cloud player and my phone without having to wait to go home and purchase through iTunes and sync a device.
 
Apple bought Lala

Apple bought Lala a while back. I'm expecting an Apple version of an online music locker soon. Micheal Roberston has had online music lockers available since the mp3.com days back in 2000 and again in 2005 with mp3tunes.com. It's amazing that we have had to wait 11 years for a big player like Amazon to do this. What is Apple waiting for?

Update 2013. Apple has iTunes Match and now iTunes Radio. Took awhile, but they are here.
 
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