i'd like to think anyone capable of purchasing a share in a company is also smart enough to not be concerned about this.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple-Owned Lala Media Shuts Down on Schedule
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
i'd like to think anyone capable of purchasing a share in a company is also smart enough to not be concerned about this.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)
I struggle to see who would want streaming, cloud-based iTunes. Storage is so cheap, why not just keep it all locally? I guess you could run out of room on your iPhone, but if that's the case, you've got a LOT of music, and I don't see apple offering 100 or even 50 gb of storage with an online service. Plus, do you really want to lose access to your music when you're away from wifi (laptop, wifi ipad, iPod touch) or out of 3g coverage?
I've never understood why google thinks everyone wants cloud-based everything, and I don't understand why apple is jumping on this bandwagon either. I much prefer having my data stored and secured locally. I have guaranteed access (no downtime, no lack of network connection) and no worries about who has or could get my data (this goes beyond just music). Cloud based means you can access it from anywhere, but so what. Do I really need access to my iTunes from computers other than the ones I own?
I struggle to see who would want streaming, cloud-based iTunes. Storage is so cheap, why not just keep it all locally? I guess you could run out of room on your iPhone, but if that's the case, you've got a LOT of music, and I don't see apple offering 100 or even 50 gb of storage with an online service. Plus, do you really want to lose access to your music when you're away from wifi (laptop, wifi ipad, iPod touch) or out of 3g coverage?
I've never understood why google thinks everyone wants cloud-based everything, and I don't understand why apple is jumping on this bandwagon either. I much prefer having my data stored and secured locally. I have guaranteed access (no downtime, no lack of network connection) and no worries about who has or could get my data (this goes beyond just music). Cloud based means you can access it from anywhere, but so what. Do I really need access to my iTunes from computers other than the ones I own?
look down the road. the client will still have some local storage...probably always will, but data is moving to the cloud. you might not like it, but you'll look back on your "not liking it at the moment" as an archaic stance.
my 300+GB of music streamed to my iphone would be nice. i don't sync ANY music at the moment because it's too inconvenient. streaming all of my music to my iPhone would be a killer feature.
Whether I like it or not isn't the point. But as long as my iPod Classic works, or I can get an equivalent, that's what I'll use. And I will never pay a subscription to listen to music I already own.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)
Yes but that gets back to what I already posted. You really think you're going to have 300 gb of online storage with this service? No way in hell... And if it were an option, it would cost a hell of a lot.
proglife said:
Yes but that gets back to what I already posted. You really think you're going to have 300 gb of online storage with this service? No way in hell... And if it were an option, it would cost a hell of a lot.
I can't keep all my music and videos on my iPhone. The same would hold true if I had an iPad. Movie rentals would make more sense streamed as well. As long as internet storage is only designed to compliment local storage, not replace it, I have no problems with it at all.
Apple seems to be making moves with massive data centers to make something like this a possibility. I would think it would be a paid service similar to the (expensive) dot mac service, but we've been surprised many times before.
Why would Apple store individual copies of titles they have in their iTunes Store? Especially considering how Lala worked.
yep.
i suspect Apple was looking for the tech that allowed the one full listen preview and perhaps the 'mix it up' genius like thing.
as for streaming, I won't be shocked if it happens, and even very soon. but as 'what you bought on itunes only' with perhaps that cheaper 'streaming only' option. no more uploading your collection (cause it could be full of torrented stuff etc)
I fully agree with everything here. This "cloud" everyone speaks of is not widespread. Besides my iPhone, I cannot access this "cloud" everywhere I go. Then, when I do have access, it's slow. I definitely do not want to pay money to have limited access my own files and property. Furthermore, I don't want to sit around waiting for my files to load either.
Actually, the technology I was hoping for was basically turning iTunes on the mac or PC into a streaming server, so that you are your own "cloud" - still in control of your own music/videos/etc. and hosting to your own enabled devices. Basically, what you can already do over the LAN from computer to computer, but over the internet to iDevices as well.
But it'll never happen. No way in hell apple will get away with pissing off the music labels AND the ISPs with the added upload bandwidth. But I can always hope.
But it'll never happen. No way in hell apple will get away with pissing off the music labels AND the ISPs with the added upload bandwidth. But I can always hope.
How long would it take to upload an entire library? I think I'm hovering around 50 GB, and there are plenty of people with lots more than that. That's going to be one LONG process. I'll stick with the current model of loading music onto my iPods. I'm still not sold on putting my entire life "in the cloud". And as others have said, there's no way that I'm paying for access to files I already own because I'm too lazy to connect an iPod or iPhone to my laptop for a few minutes. Music is not something that I HAVE to have right away no matter where I am.
Really going to miss Lala. Great place to fine some obscure music as well as being able to listen to an entire album before buying. Lala helped me make some good decisions music purchase wise.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)
Fair point. Was not thinking along those lines, but of course that makes sense. Still doesn't make sense for people with moderate amounts of music, but yes, that helps for people with really big libraries. Still, iTunes doesn't have everything, so they're going to need storage. Unless this will only work with music either available from or, worse, actually bought from iTunes, which would greatly diminsh the service's value.
paradox00 said:
Fair point. Was not thinking along those lines, but of course that makes sense. Still doesn't make sense for people with moderate amounts of music, but yes, that helps for people with really big libraries. Still, iTunes doesn't have everything, so they're going to need storage. Unless this will only work with music either available from or, worse, actually bought from iTunes, which would greatly diminsh the service's value.
Some of you are forgetting that Apple already keeps a lot of the songs that you've got sitting on your computers in that "cloud" - so it's not a matter of syncing 50+GB of data from all the millions of itunes customers, but merely a list of songs captured in the user library.
As a matter of fact, they probably already have these lists as well - remember turning on that iTunes Genius feature a while ago?
But there is no needs for more online storage, Apple has already all the tracks in their servers, they only need a way to flag the tracks as yours and a way to stream them to your device.
Hopefully that's exactly where iTunes is going in the future. It would be great also to see a media subscription plan.
No.
The only thing that will be uploaded is the meta data from your iTunes library and any music you may have ripped that does NOT have meta data. The "cloud" will already have all the music. You will be able to see your library on any device due to the meta data being stored in the cloud. Then when you want to stream your music the "cloud" looks at the request and streams the music to your device.
If you purchase music from iTunes from your iPhone,iPad etc. it will stream and/or download to your device. You will be able to sync your library data at any time. But the music you have on your computer stays on your computer.
Looking down the road?
All I see are a lot of questions and "maybes"!
The idea that all of this data is "moving to the cloud" seems like ONE possibility for the future, but by no means a certainty.
I can see where the recording industry would embrace this concept, because it gives CONTROL back to them again. (If the listening public gets used to the idea that the content is merely "streamed" down to them, on-demand, from a central location, that means the industry only has to control that central location. The idea of music "piracy" diminishes - because people stop being concerned with possessing copies of music on physical media.)
However, this also means the listening experience is only as good as the data connection. If you're driving around in your car or you're in a remote location on a camping/hiking trip, are you sure you'll have easy access to sufficient bandwidth? How about for movies too, once the "cloud" model is in full swing?
Personally, I don't see the "cloud" as ever doing more than complimenting a PRIMARY model of local storage. It will provide added convenience and an alternate way to get content -- but people will see too many advantages in having locally stored music libraries to be comfortable SWITCHING to it, in entirety. After all, you gotta store it SOMEWHERE, and storage costs keep on dropping. (Look how cheap 1TB hard drives are these days!)
All I see are a lot of questions and "maybes"!
The idea that all of this data is "moving to the cloud" seems like ONE possibility for the future, but by no means a certainty.
I can see where the recording industry would embrace this concept, because it gives CONTROL back to them again. (If the listening public gets used to the idea that the content is merely "streamed" down to them, on-demand, from a central location, that means the industry only has to control that central location. The idea of music "piracy" diminishes - because people stop being concerned with possessing copies of music on physical media.)
However, this also means the listening experience is only as good as the data connection. If you're driving around in your car or you're in a remote location on a camping/hiking trip, are you sure you'll have easy access to sufficient bandwidth? How about for movies too, once the "cloud" model is in full swing?
Personally, I don't see the "cloud" as ever doing more than complimenting a PRIMARY model of local storage. It will provide added convenience and an alternate way to get content -- but people will see too many advantages in having locally stored music libraries to be comfortable SWITCHING to it, in entirety. After all, you gotta store it SOMEWHERE, and storage costs keep on dropping. (Look how cheap 1TB hard drives are these days!)
oh yeah, and I am sure you will upload your library to the cloud. more like the cloud will have an approved selection you can chose from. Heck, Apple cannot not even get the rights to offer Beatles in itunes; so I am sure they are not going to allow you to upload your Beatles collection to it.
Also, I have 5gb of music now. I am sure Apple would have something to say about me storing my entire 5gb library, your entire 5-10gb library, etc - especially if we all listen to the same songs and artists (duplication on servers). And once you upload, what will the compression be? Will we have to live with quality loss? Also, does this also mean only itunes purchased songs? what about all the old vinyls, 8-tracks, cassettes, and CD's I converted over the years to MP3. Also, I listen to a lot of local artists who either cover a song or have an original. Many of their CD's are not DRM protected. Some where just mp3 they emailed to me.
Ok, even if the above does come to fruitation - I am totally sure AT&T cannot handle everyone streaming to their Ipod / iphone / ipad.
I listen to more than just what is considered mainstream. in fact I tend to listen to more local artist originals and randitions (covers), so those songs are probably never going to be on the server as most local bands never make it big (or big enough to warrant availability in itunes).
There will always be physical media, your local itunes, and your storage capacity on your ipod/iphone/ipad. To all those who say no - what you are saying is you would be happy to listening to what Apple and the government (DRM, etc) ok's you to listen to and nothing more. I think also any other method would really squelch local artists who are just starting up and are not signed to a major label yet.
If it will only be for music bought through iTunes then I'm toast. I have 150GB of music, all copied from CDs or friends. I know Apple (or most people) don't care, but I'm into some more obscure genres of metal and a good 60% of my music library can't be found on iTunes.
Cloud-based storage for what I already have would be nice, but I bet 150+GB would cost me hundreds of dollars per year since MobileMe costs $100 for 20GB of storage (email+iDisk).
Unless it's dirt-cheap cloud storage for what I have, it's useless for people like me. And worse, if Apple decides to push this as the new way to store music and does not expand local storage on iPhones and iPods, I won't be able to hold even a fraction of my library on my mobile device.
My point is, this can either come out absolutely fantastic or have pretty nasty policy implications for people who don't listen to them mainstream. I guess we'll wait and see.
the problem is, of course, that lala.com had it exactly right, and there was no use in having someone buy them from a consumer standpoint.
you could listen to (almost) any album in their catalog for free once, you could have it scan your itunes library (with audio fingerprinting) for songs that were in their library, which were then "unlocked" for your account, giving you unlimited playback for those.
Any songs that you had that didn't show up in their library would then be converted and uploaded to their servers, appearing alongside everything else in your online library.
Which meant that my beatles albums were on my lala account, even though the songs weren't available on lala itself. The metadata was there, though, so it showed the artwork and everything with no problem.
basically, lala was exactly what i wanted.
if i wanted to buy a song, i just paid 10 cents, with the understanding that they wouldn't be available unless i was logged in. fair trade.
You can bet all the money in the world that Apple will not be offering anything close to the terms of the lala system. They may carry most of the functionality wrt synching your library, etc, but it isn't going to be free (as lala was). It will probably be used as a sales point for freaking mobile me.
which I will never, ever buy.
you could listen to (almost) any album in their catalog for free once, you could have it scan your itunes library (with audio fingerprinting) for songs that were in their library, which were then "unlocked" for your account, giving you unlimited playback for those.
Any songs that you had that didn't show up in their library would then be converted and uploaded to their servers, appearing alongside everything else in your online library.
Which meant that my beatles albums were on my lala account, even though the songs weren't available on lala itself. The metadata was there, though, so it showed the artwork and everything with no problem.
basically, lala was exactly what i wanted.
if i wanted to buy a song, i just paid 10 cents, with the understanding that they wouldn't be available unless i was logged in. fair trade.
You can bet all the money in the world that Apple will not be offering anything close to the terms of the lala system. They may carry most of the functionality wrt synching your library, etc, but it isn't going to be free (as lala was). It will probably be used as a sales point for freaking mobile me.
which I will never, ever buy.