...wonder if we will see a LaLa app supporting streaming over WiFi
it's already in the que awaiting approval. They also have developed Blackberry, Android and Palm Pre apps that I am sure now will go away.
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Apple Acquires Streaming Music Service Lala Media
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it's already in the que awaiting approval. They also have developed Blackberry, Android and Palm Pre apps that I am sure now will go away.
All recorded music is "lossy" compared to live music. But I agree that mp3s (even at the highest setting) downgrade music to much and many red book tracks are barely listenable. However, there are excellent recordings distributed as 16/44k. So I'm setting this as my entry level to buy streamed music instead of buying physical media or bits to store in my devices.
I'm a bit biased here, but our startup is building http://audiobox.fm . too bad we're little late in this business, but at least we will have international access, no transcoding of your music, etc, cannot reveal more
Frankly, something doesn't seem right here. How can anyone make money on a service that allows you to stream an individual song of your choice anywhere and anytime and "forever" for a total cost of ten cents? The bandwidth and the infrastructure to support unlimited streaming has to cost something and the music companies probably don't want to sacrifice a potential $0.80 to $1.30 sale for something that would have to be less than ten cents per song. Does anyone think that Apple would subsidize this and lose money on every song? I don't think so.
Thus, I suspect that LaLa was losing money hand over fist and whatever service Apple may develop from this purchase it won't be anything like it is today. Maybe they'll do a yearly/monthly subscription or perhaps charge something like ten cents per song per rental period rather than having no time limit whatsoever. However, ten cents for unlimited and perpetual streaming of an individual song just isn't going to happen (at least not without added costs, limitations, or associated advertising).
Thus, I suspect that LaLa was losing money hand over fist and whatever service Apple may develop from this purchase it won't be anything like it is today. Maybe they'll do a yearly/monthly subscription or perhaps charge something like ten cents per song per rental period rather than having no time limit whatsoever. However, ten cents for unlimited and perpetual streaming of an individual song just isn't going to happen (at least not without added costs, limitations, or associated advertising).
Well, if you live in the UK you've got Spotify and there's not much wrong with that (except for not carrying the Glee volume 1 soundtrack lol).
Wirelessly posted (SAMSUNG-SGH-A821/1.0 SHP/VPP/R5 NetFront/3.4 SMM-MMS/1.2.0 profile/MIDP-2.0 configuration/CLDC-1.1)
I would love the ability to listen to my purchases over the air. I would happily pay an aditional 10c per song to have that ability. How many people download songs from iTunes and forget to sync them over right away to their portable devices?
I would love the ability to listen to my purchases over the air. I would happily pay an aditional 10c per song to have that ability. How many people download songs from iTunes and forget to sync them over right away to their portable devices?
I signed up for Lala a while ago and really never caught on to it. In fact, I still haven't used any of the 50 credits they made available to me.
However, with Apple now having purchased it, I wanted to see what all the hype was about and decided to take a look at it again. It's ok but the music mover thing sucks. It missed on a few of the song matches and played entirely different songs/artists than the one in my iTunes library. I like the idea of having my library online because then I could listen to my music on any computer but I don't feel like listening to every track to verify it's correct. Is the music mover a hit/miss for you guys too or are you all avoiding uploads all together?
However, with Apple now having purchased it, I wanted to see what all the hype was about and decided to take a look at it again. It's ok but the music mover thing sucks. It missed on a few of the song matches and played entirely different songs/artists than the one in my iTunes library. I like the idea of having my library online because then I could listen to my music on any computer but I don't feel like listening to every track to verify it's correct. Is the music mover a hit/miss for you guys too or are you all avoiding uploads all together?
I think Apple would be smarter by creating custom streaming stations, where people can choose the songs they want (and don't already own, or maybe do) to stream, and then Apple streams it to them, like a radio station, and changes a daily fee.
I don't know why so many are happy about this. I love Apple hardware as much as the next around here, but I can see no good coming from this purchase. Will Apple keep LaLa's lower song prices? Doubt it. Even if they want to the music labels will ask Apple to renegotiate. Will Apple allow users to listen to an entire song, not just a random 30 sec. snippet? Not likely.
So again, why is everyone happy about this? Apple will likely take LaLa's backend and incorporate to iTunes and then shut LaLa down. So for consumers this is not a good thing.
So again, why is everyone happy about this? Apple will likely take LaLa's backend and incorporate to iTunes and then shut LaLa down. So for consumers this is not a good thing.
Here's why -- think about how iTunes can be enhanced with LaLa's technology.
I believe Apple will incorporate LaLa into iTunes and offer the option to be able to keep a "copy" of your music library in the cloud so you can stream it anywhere you are -- at the office, on your iPhone, etc. And since Apple can designate that their iPhone apps can run in the background, this will be a better app than things like Pandora, which drop the stream as soon as you close the app (unless you've jailbreaked...).
This may be how Apple solves the problem of having iTunes libraries attached to one primary computer, but easily allowing access to all of your devices anywhere (not just on the same network). And if they are able to add video to it, it may be Apple's way of not having to offer a home media server that a lot of people would like to see (since the cloud would replace it, and you'd only need a slimmed-down Apple TV to receive that content on your TV.
It also helps free them from always having to double the iPhone's storage capacity every year -- with the LaLa app integrated into the iPod app, you would only need <1GB dedicated to music on the phone for cacheing music for offline access (although I hope they would still give an option to select which songs/artists/playlists/albums are cached on the iPhone -- I travel internationally a lot and would want offline access at those times).
They may require a Mobile Me subscription to cover the cloud bandwidth cost though. They likely won't keep LaLa's pricing (although the concept of paying 10 cents for streaming and 89 cents to download to your library, and paying the difference to upgrade to a download for songs you stream first could be incorporated, although at a likely higher price for streaming only). But incorporating LaLa's technology into iTunes and Apple's ecosystem shows some great possibilities.
If nothing else, if Apple somehow implements streaming music onto my iPhone, it would be a reasonable expectation that it would run in the background. I would use Orb or Simplify almost exclusively so that my entire library is accessible but too often find I need to go check something else on the phone and then have to stop listening.
As for ownership vs streaming, I buy CDs and have slowly started to buy some albums digitally but there is a lot of stuff out there that is 25$ for a CD that I want to listen to that I would gladly pay 10c to "own" online (that's how it works, right? The 10c songs are yours, just not stored locally?) just so I could check it out - better yet, I could stream it for free (right?) and then if I REALLY wanted it after spend 10c I could still have the option to buy it.
I know very about Lala, but its model does sound better than monthly subs.
As for ownership vs streaming, I buy CDs and have slowly started to buy some albums digitally but there is a lot of stuff out there that is 25$ for a CD that I want to listen to that I would gladly pay 10c to "own" online (that's how it works, right? The 10c songs are yours, just not stored locally?) just so I could check it out - better yet, I could stream it for free (right?) and then if I REALLY wanted it after spend 10c I could still have the option to buy it.
I know very about Lala, but its model does sound better than monthly subs.
Apple could stop new signups (to focus on intergration into the iTunes store) and add their copyright info on lala.com
A lot of kool-aid drinkers around here. Lala is a great service. It's not going to make iTunes better, just make songs more expensive. And as for stream on the iPhone or touch, memory is easier to come by than battery life. You can't stream music long before your battery takes a hit. You can play from RAM for hours & hours.
Never heard of the service until now. If you're wedded to it, fine. But companies like that get scooped up on a regular basis. Besides, they were already in some financial trouble before the purchase.
iPhone Possibilities
This could be great news for iPhone; I imagine if Apple integrates this with iTunes that you will be able to stream music in the background.
This could be great news for iPhone; I imagine if Apple integrates this with iTunes that you will be able to stream music in the background.
I hope you're right. I loved lala.com just the way it was. I also love much of what Apple does, but I feel that the recent incarnations of the iTunes Music Store have left much to be desired.
If Apple offers us lala.com-type cloud steaming, though, I'll be pleased.
I'm mostly concerned about integration of this service on the iPhone. For as long as the app store has been open, people have loved Pandora and repeatedly begged to be able to run it in the background, but Apple wouldn't allow it. Now, they have their own streaming service, and let's say they integrate it into the iPod app, or give the lala its own app that is allowed to run in the background. Then Pandora is screwed. Seems kind of anti-competitive to me.
I guess this shouldn't be news to me though, this is Apple. They control everything.
I guess this shouldn't be news to me though, this is Apple. They control everything.
I thought it just got axed just to refocus the company. Apple printers got axed too, and that was supposedly very profitable.
That's fine, I just like to see a greater variety of services. At the very least, some way to try before you buy, I don't think a 30 second sample is enough. I do understand why the music industry doesn't want such a setup, some people might just record the audio.
First, you're making assumptions about other people. Assuming that other people would make the same choice as you is folly.
The music industry made it hard to do music rentals with CDs. But libraries did seem to manage it and it sounded like a popular service.
The next G4 PowerMac was $200 more than a Cube, not $800. And the model $200 more had dual CPU.
Either you are dripping with sarcasm or you're being overly fussy. You're not easy to accommodate, are you? If you're going to play impossible to please, you'll never be happy.
Yeah, it didn't even have a tweeter. It wasn't the carry-around sound system that was claimed to be (otherwise, why the battery pocket for a load of D cells?), especially with leaving the iPod exposed on top for being surreptitiously taken.
Don't forget the $100 leather iPod cases.
Apple has become evil and they are buying Lala to destroy. I never use iTunes to buy music because it is expensive and have no way to listen to a whole song before buying. Apple has become an evil empire because of people like me who don't mind getting shafted by apple periodically buying their overpriced products and recommending them to everyone I know.
Apple was interested in some specific tech, infrastructure, people, etc., not in "destroying" anything.
In fact, it looks like it was LaLa that approached Apple after figuring out they couldn't continue on their own.
I'm not sure what you mean by "evil", aside from the term being incredibly juvenile when applied to anything but elves, uncorns and witches.