Apple Expected to Charge for Cloud-Based Music Storage Service

[kas23]

I don't really know what the BFD is with the hype around these music locker services. These services are nothing new (not that Apples does anything new), they have been around in smaller scale the past few years. Problem is, it took too long to upload music, the streaming quality was average at best, and they were too expensive.

I'd like to see how Apple would improve on these services. They will integrate into the iPod UI. That is great. Possibly better upload times (or no uploading at all). But the benefits end there. Cellular connection are slowing at a quicker rate than cellphones are becoming faster. And now we data caps?

Is anyone on here going to delete all the music on their iPhone to be able to pay $20 per year to regain a subpar stream of there very own music? And at a detriment to their limited data amount? Am I missing something??

 

[Small White Car]

I'm sure some of that is going to the music companies.

Take heart, though. This might not be bad news. What if we learn that this is a part of MobileMe and it's MobileMe that's changing to $20 per year?

Impossible? I dunno, I think charing $99 per year to sync iPhone data wirelessly is impossible for Apple to maintain. This may be their chance to gracefully deflate that balloon.

Is anyone on here going to delete all the music on their iPhone to be able to pay $20 per year to regain a subpar stream of there very own music? And at a detriment to their limited data amount? Am I missing something??

Again, this may be wishful thinking, but I can imagine Apple strong-arming carriers into exempting this service from their data-cap-measuring systems. Apple sure would like that. Do they have the power to make it happen, though? Maybe.

 

[Spooner83]

wow, this is awful, ****ing capitalists apple. This is why I'll use soundcloud and NOT apple cloud.

 

[MacManTexas56]

If there is one thing Amazon doesn't need to worry about - it's the lawyers, they got plenty of them!

Plus, even if they charge a bit more to recoup the costs - they have huge advantage in that a) they are already there and b) they aren't cloud n00bs with one freshly baked data center close only to the US

And who said anything about Apple devices? Apparently, not many people are concerned about that one

every cheap phone you get on your carrier has android installed. it's not really a fair comparison when all the cheap phones that people get free already include that OS. it's not really preferred....

 

[PCClone]

Entitlement? No offense as many feel the same way. I just don't understand how some can realistically expect such a product/service to be free for how new it is.

Seriously, if you can't afford the 20 bucks, should you have anything other than a trac phone?

 

[lshaner]

Whoever has been saying that any of the future Mobile Me + Cloud stuff would be free is probably just projecting wishful thinking anyway.

Apple's Cloud is a natural extension of Mobile Me, but I don't have any fantasies that any of it will be free -- and as an Apple Stockholder, I would be upset if Apple was spending all that money "out of the goodness of their hearts" ... they need to continue to GROW and that means the costs should not only be recovered, but would hopefully be a source of at least a little margin.

 

[Vegasman]

Can you point me to were you are getting your 2TB hard drives for free?

You need the local drive anyway. Are you saying you will delete all your songs from your local drive once you put them in the cloud? Now that seems impractical.

 

[MurphyM]

The ways this has been described don't sound much like Apple. I guess they could build it into iTunes in some fairly fluid way, but still. There has to be more to the data center.

Nor do I see how the data center could allow people to upload non-purchased music. Too much required space, just look at your library size and do the math. iTunes has a massive user base.

 

[Icaras]

I don't know about other countries, but I've noticed so many people in America just expect almost everything to be free these days.

I mean, seriously? It's getting a little tiresome.

 

[Kaibelf]

Be sensible

How in the world would $20 a YEAR be too much? You are talking about streaming music from a company that goes to great lengths NOT to sell your information to others. If you're too cheap for that, then use free Pandora and have your whole life story sold off to people for god knows what.

 

[bpfesq]

There will be a new product coming out for those that want a free product. It is called The Obamacloud. It will be free to everyone that is on foodstamps, social security and Medicare. The Chinese will underwrite the debt from the startup costs. The product will cost $25000 a month for those rich people because they can afford to subsidize everyone else and they should be willing to pay their share.

Unfortunately, it won't be available until December 2012 because they will need to make sure you voted for the entitlement party first.

Please keep partisan diatribes full of hyperbole and nonsense out of this forum. It's invaded too many aspects of our lives already--so please, give it a rest.

 

[0815]

I don't know if I should laugh or cry ...

People are freaking out because of a service that is 5.4 cents a day
People are calling their days ruined because of a service is $1.6 a month
People are crying foul because of a service for $20 a year

Get real people - no company owes you anything for free. If you are cheap and won't pay, just don't sign up - but don't run around crying claiming that you deserver everything for free.

 

[MacManTexas56]

You need the local drive anyway. Are you saying you will delete all your songs from your local drive once you put them in the cloud? Now that seems impractical.

so instead you're going to store them all on multiple machines? what do you think the cloud is for? lol

 

[rmwebs]

I guess they could build it into iTunes in some fairly fluid way, but still.

Yay....more itunes bloat! They really need to ditch iTunes all together. It's turned into a piece of crap.

 

[PCClone]

Damn you Apple. You charged me for my iPad and iMac. I should get them for FREE!!!!!!

 

[gramirez2012]

$20/year is only $1.66/month. Can't be any more reasonable, if you ask me.

 

[rmwebs]

so instead you're going to store them all on multiple machines? what do you think the cloud is for? lol

You cant really call what Apple has a cloud. Clouds are designed to span across multiple geographic locations...Apple has 1 datacenter, and zero experience running a cloud service. MobileMe runs on collocated equipment in someone else's datacenter.

Amazon on the other hand are excellent at working with the cloud.

 

[aperry]

Raise a glass to the home server!

Many of us have been streaming our music for years.

 

[Icaras]

Is anyone on here going to delete all the music on their iPhone to be able to pay $20 per year to regain a subpar stream of there very own music? And at a detriment to their limited data amount? Am I missing something??

I'll delete all the music that I've purchased via iTunes that will be available on the cloud, yes.

With over 100GB of music in my iTunes library, i'll finally be able to make room for music I've purchased outside of iTunes while enjoying the music I have purchased in iTunes via the cloud.

Sounds like the best of both worlds to me. I can't wait to sign up for this.

 

[salmonstk]

I don't really know what the BFD is with the hype around these music locker services. These services are nothing new (not that Apples does anything new), they have been around in smaller scale the past few years. Problem is, it took too long to upload music, the streaming quality was average at best, and they were too expensive.

I'd like to see how Apple would improve on these services. They will integrate into the iPod UI. That is great. Possibly better upload times (or no uploading at all). But the benefits end there. Cellular connection are slowing at a quicker rate than cellphones are becoming faster. And now we data caps?

Is anyone on here going to delete all the music on their iPhone to be able to pay $20 per year to regain a subpar stream of there very own music? And at a detriment to their limited data amount? Am I missing something??

THIS IS NOT GOING TO BE ABOUT STREAMING. It is going to be about smart syncing media across Macs & iOS devices. You wont delete all your music on your phone or Mac BUT you wont have to have all of it stored locally to have access to all of it. This is going to be how Apple transitions Macs to Flash storage but still allows one to have gigantic iTunes and iPhoto and iMovie libraries. Same with phones and iPads.

 

[deus_ex_machina]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Seriously, can you do anything without Apple getting their cut? It seems odd that you would buy music from them then have to pay to store it. It's like earning your paycheck after income and state tax are taken out and then buying something with the money and getting charged sales tax on it.

Isn't that the way US commerce works now?!?!?

and this isn't something you're obligated to do - this is an optional service of convenience.

 

[notjustjay]

Oh look smart remarks without substance must be a fanboy.

It's not a smart remark, it's truth. You can stream your own media to yourself with a DIY solution but it will cost you for (a) the hard drives which are storing your media, (b) the upload bandwidth consumed by your home server, (c) the hydro costs of keeping your server running 24/7, and (d) the time it takes for any setup and maintenance.

Obviously many people have no problem paying these "costs" and would prefer them over a hard cash outlay (even $20/year), but that doesn't mean these costs don't exist and shouldn't be factored into the value proposition.

 

[irishv]

Improve web hosting options

I would happily pay the current fee for MobileMe if Apple offered some better options for hosting a website. Right now I pay for web hosting for a family blog and a flickr pro account. If I could host my wordpress blog on my idisk space with my own domain name, I would sign up right now.

 

[TurnerMan]

Make this a part of my current MobileMe $199 family subscription.

 

[Icaras]

I would happily pay the current fee for MobileMe if Apple offered some better options for hosting a website. Right now I pay for web hosting for a family blog and a flickr pro account. If I could host my wordpress blog on my idisk space with my own domain name, I would sign up right now.

You could always do this. I have my own domain name and host on MobileMe.

Though I haven't figured out how to use an email address using my domain name and have mail hosted via MobileMe. I wish they would add that feature.