Apple Racing to Include Movies and TV Shows in iCloud Service?

[Tones2]

One thing that I have yet to se ANY cloud service provide, including apps that stream from your home server, is the ability to view EMBEDDED lyrics in your music file while streaming. This is actually a pretty big deal to me as I enjoy viewing the lyrics when listening.

There are not even any seperate lyrics apps that can identify what is being streamed in order to at least automatically search the internet for lyrical content - all of them either use the iPod player as its source or you have to manually type in the song, which is a hassle.

The closest app that can kinda do something similar is iSub, that will search an external service for lyrics while you stream from your home server, but the quantity and accuracy of the lyrics is pretty terrible.

I hope that in some way the iCloud serve will allow for uploading of content and also presentation of embedded lyrics on playback, although the possibility of it having this is probably less than 1%.

Tony

 

[bushido]

Maybe, but only for the kick off. Then will be spread over any possible country as long as licence/agreements permits.

just like we got hulu and netflix in europe? ... not

 

[Tones2]

Meanwhile in other news, just about every company that controls Internet bandwidth is putting the pinch on unlimited Internet. Wired or wireless, there are already caps in place by the majors which is only the first step. It's set up to be much like the airlines and their fee happy innovations: see what the consumer will tolerate.

In my own situation, Comcast is the key provider and they've set the initial cap at 250GB. If I'm a movie fan and I download movies at about 2GB each from the iCloud, I can pull in up to about 125 movies in a month. However, I (and everyone else) should have no doubt that 250 will soon become 125, then 75 or so, then maybe tighter still.

As much as we all want to imagine the many benefits of storing it all in this iCloud, it still has to flow back to us through someones pipes and/or someones 3G or 4G. Haven't you noticed that the companies that mostly control those pipes also happen to be the companies that love consumers paying fat monthly fees to receive video programming via cable & satt subscriptions now? Do we really live in illusions that Apple's iCloud is somehow going to overcome the issue with these "middlemen" being heavily motivated to protect their cash cows (either by constraining the flow with caps or by raising their Internet access rates, OR BOTH?)

We've seen rumors of Apple working deals with the music companies and now video companies. Where's the deals with the gatekeepers through which all this media is supposed to flow? Or are all who are so looking forward to storing all their media in the iCloud just happy to repeatedly pay for streaming content they own?

Conceptually, the vision of it is fantastic. The efficiency in storing media once for many to use is much superior to storing a million copies with individuals. But the delivery is a mess and worsening. Apple isn't the middleman, just as Apple doesn't provide the lovely deals we get from AT&T & Verizon for iPhone service. The middlemen don't exist to cut their own (revenue) throats to make Apple's next big things work.

I totally agree with this. What I really want is 128 GB (or at least 64 GB) on my iPhone. Forget the cloud then.

Tony

 

[Porchland]

WTF R u talking about?

Clearly they are looking to take people who have purchased legitimate iTunes media content since inception and move it to iCloud. I'm looking specifically at those of us who purchased early movies like Zoolander and 1st seasons of shows like 30 Rock which were not in the best res--I bet they will do like music and upgrade the quality as well.

Did you just pull this out of your butt or do you have a rational reason why a clearly stated agenda for uploading a customers own content would be "not in demand" and instead it become a rental service for content they don't own???

Wake up.

Apple doesn't need your copy of the movie; Apple just needs to know that it sold you the movie -- and it already knows that, BTW -- to provide you the license to stream it.

This whole construct of online storage of music, movies, etc., is something that Amazon came up with to get around the fact that it doesn't have the license rights to allow you to download the music, movie, etc., again or to stream it from Amazon's servers.

Noob.

 

[bushido]

Apple doesn't need your copy of the movie; Apple just needs to know that it sold you the movie -- and it already knows that, BTW -- to provide you the license to stream it.

This whole construct of online storage of music, movies, etc., is something that Amazon came up with to get around the fact that it doesn't have the license rights to allow you to download the music, movie, etc., again or to stream it from Amazon's servers.

Noob.

why on earth would i stream a movie to my iDevice if i could just sync it with iTunes and save some data + can u imagine a movie over 3G, pixel mess here we come

 

[Porchland]

why on earth would i stream a movie to my iDevice if i could just sync it with iTunes and save some data + can u imagine a movie over 3G, pixel mess here we come

1. You can already do that, so you're saying that iCloud is moot as a streaming service as far you are concerned.

2. Netflix for iPhone.

 

[Kusanagi6913]

Why are you stating the obvious

Apple doesn't need your copy of the movie; Apple just needs to know that it sold you the movie -- and it already knows that, BTW -- to provide you the license to stream it.

This whole construct of online storage of music, movies, etc., is something that Amazon came up with to get around the fact that it doesn't have the license rights to allow you to download the music, movie, etc., again or to stream it from Amazon's servers.

Noob.

Listen Brainiac---I appreciate you stating common sense for those who've spent 3 pages not understanding this--but I was clear in my post that this service has appeal for those of us who have purchased content from iTunes and are tired of storing it on our PC's, Time Capsules and other devices when we just want to pull it down as needed.

As for where you tried to be clever and demonstrated your assness--let's be clear---Apple knows who bought their data (they may also know who comes on Macrumors criticizing them 24-7 and likewise being the 1st noob in line to buy an iPhone--is this u?) Point is--this isn't for Apple's sake but for the IP companies--THEY WANT TO KNOW that you legitimately own their content.

To be fair, I wouldn't doubt Jobs is trying to do many of the naysayers here a solid and have them wipe under the bridge the cases of "3 gb's of illegal music" some of these posters claim to have stored and allow some of these 'customers' to come into the light in amnesty. I can assure you that the movie companies will NOT allow this to be the case.

Lastly, are you daft? Amazon invented this??? Yeah-sure they did. Let's see where they are 3 mos from now? How much would you like to bet they'll be rolling out a cloned version of whatever Apple has complete with fee and complete with no uploads of content without some due diligence.

Noob indeed.

 

[bushido]

1. You can already do that, so you're saying that iCloud is moot as a streaming service as far you are concerned.

2. Netflix for iPhone.

sry forgot about Netflix as this is still US/Canadian only

 

[frunkis54]

If this is true iCloud will definitely be US only.

they don't have clouds overseas?

 

[carl62]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

If true, then this would tie in quite nicely with moving to SSD's in future iMacs and MacBooks as users wouldn't necessarily need such large hard drives...

 

[Kusanagi6913]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

If true, then this would tie in quite nicely with moving to SSD's in future iMacs and MacBooks as users wouldn't necessarily need such large hard drives...

Great post. I agree. The iCloud should offer simple innovations that speak to common sense tech geeks and the mainstream consumer. I want space in my house and car and likewise, I want to consumer content and use it anywhere. By and large this should mean that I can carry smarter, thinner devices (as well as in my home) without having to constantly upgrade clumsy bulky new storage sizes.

I imagine before long--my watch will be able to pull BIG content from the cloud without needing to be a size of a brick (and ultra-warm) on my wrist.

 

[caspersoong]

If it is free after all this, that would be awesome.

 

[kalsta]

The thing about uplaoding your own stuff is how does Apple know or how do you prove your stuff is not violating copyright. Say you illegally ripped (pirated) a friend's DVD movie to your iTunes. Now you want to upload that pirated movie to iCloud? I would assume Apple could be held liable for copyright infringement just like Limewire is being nailed for file sharing.

Firstly, Apple's negotiations appear to be about allowing users to access Apple's copies of the media files, not uploading a zillion of their own copies. The model makes a lot of sense. So one would assume it will only recognise iTunes store purchases.

It would be great though if there was a way to recognise legitimate DVD ownership (through serial numbers or something), and move that great hoard of a DVD collection into the iTunes sphere overnight. I can't see that ever happening, but it would be absolutely wonderful for DVD owners. Admittedly though, it would render the months I just spent ripping and compressing my entire collection an utter waste of time.

 

[AidenShaw]

Firstly, Apple's negotiations appear to be about allowing users to access Apple's copies of the media files, not uploading a zillion of their own copies.

Note that any reasonable cloud service for millions of users would use SIS (single-instance store) software. If hundreds of thousands of righteous Apple users had downloaded the same pirate rip of a blu-ray movie, and tried to upload it to the Icloud - the software should recognize that the Icloud already has a copy of those bits, and quickly link them to the single-instance copy.

So, I'm not arguing your point about the focus of Apple's negotiations, but saying that a "zillion" people uploading private copies of stuff won't be happening if they used a common source for their copies.

Even if there are a hundred rips of Justin Bieber's latest CD, that means that Apple would only have a hundred copies, not a hundred million.

 

[h0mi]

If Apple would support Ultraviolet, the problem would go away but that would be too easy, and allow people to use their itunes content on non apple devices.

 

[Sol]

If iTunes users have music and videos ripped from CDs and DVDs, wouldn't they be opening themselves to litigation by the music labels and film studios if Apple scanned the contents of their iTunes libraries? I am no lawyer but it seems risky to use iCloud before knowing for sure that Apple will not be sharing the contents of your iTunes library with the rights holders who would then have proof of content piracy. Hopefully users will be able to opt-in for this service instead of having it on by default.

 

[AidenShaw]

If iTunes users have music and videos ripped from CDs and DVDs, wouldn't they be opening themselves to litigation by the music labels and film studios if Apple scanned the contents of their iTunes libraries?

The courts have not been holding ISPs responsible for the transgressions of their customers. The ISPs can save a set of bits, return a set of bits, and send the set of bits off to the wild.

It's not the ISP's liability if their customer does not have appropriate rights to the "set of bits".

For "bits" purchased from Itunes, Apple has no need to "scan" the bits. They can simply link to the original Itunes sources.

For uploaded rips, Apple would need to be careful to avoid anything that would facilitate piracy. Low-level SIS (single-instance store) would not be an issue, since that's a close to hardware level compression technique (don't store more than one copy of this file/cluster/sector).

If Apple processed your data, and saw that you had a 128 Kbps rip of Justin Bieber's "Somebody to Love", and Apple decided to link instead to a 384 Kbps copy that someone else had uploaded - then Apple could have some issues.

 

[bobob]

Steve Jobs walks out on stage, raises his hands and says:

"This is the last time you'll have to pay for content, ever! Guaranteed."

The crowd leaps to it's feet for a fifteen minute standing ovation and spontaneously carries Steve off the stage, through the door, and out into the California sun.

 

[capt601]

I agree completely. Great idea but the boon will be to AT&T, Verizon and other mobile companies bottom lines. somehow I don't see them going back to unlimited data plans. And cable companies are next. Some have already started and the others will soon follow if everyone is downloading movies from the cloud.

Meanwhile in other news, just about every company that controls Internet bandwidth is putting the pinch on unlimited Internet. Wired or wireless, there are already caps in place by the majors which is only the first step. It's set up to be much like the airlines and their fee happy innovations: see what the consumer will tolerate.

In my own situation, Comcast is the key provider and they've set the initial cap at 250GB. If I'm a movie fan and I download movies at about 2GB each from the iCloud, I can pull in up to about 125 movies in a month. However, I (and everyone else) should have no doubt that 250 will soon become 125, then 75 or so, then maybe tighter still.

As much as we all want to imagine the many benefits of storing it all in this iCloud, it still has to flow back to us through someones pipes and/or someones 3G or 4G. Haven't you noticed that the companies that mostly control those pipes also happen to be the companies that love consumers paying fat monthly fees to receive video programming via cable & satt subscriptions now? Do we really live in illusions that Apple's iCloud is somehow going to overcome the issue with these "middlemen" being heavily motivated to protect their cash cows (either by constraining the flow with caps or by raising their Internet access rates, OR BOTH?)

We've seen rumors of Apple working deals with the music companies and now video companies. Where's the deals with the gatekeepers through which all this media is supposed to flow? Or are all who are so looking forward to storing all their media in the iCloud just happy to repeatedly pay for streaming content they own?

Conceptually, the vision of it is fantastic. The efficiency in storing media once for many to use is much superior to storing a million copies with individuals. But the delivery is a mess and worsening. Apple isn't the middleman, just as Apple doesn't provide the lovely deals we get from AT&T & Verizon for iPhone service. The middlemen don't exist to cut their own (revenue) throats to make Apple's next big things work.

 

[capt601]

Great post. I agree. The iCloud should offer simple innovations that speak to common sense tech geeks and the mainstream consumer. I want space in my house and car and likewise, I want to consumer content and use it anywhere. By and large this should mean that I can carry smarter, thinner devices (as well as in my home) without having to constantly upgrade clumsy bulky new storage sizes.

I imagine before long--my watch will be able to pull BIG content from the cloud without needing to be a size of a brick (and ultra-warm) on my wrist.

Sounds great but that data is going to cost you. Mobile providers are not going to let you get it free. And what about when you are out of cell coverage (never happens with at&t )?

 

[Mr Fusion]

Am I the only one who thinks iCloud is a silly idea?

This is how I look at it:

- I can't access it everywhere. Airplane, tunnel, elevator, poor 3G service? That's a lot of "dark territory."

- Even if I did have my media in the iCloud, I'd still have a backup at home. So it's not saving me HDD space.

- Streaming even more data = more $$$ to Ma Bell and friends.

Am I missing something here?

 

[Kusanagi6913]

This is the criticism I understand the least

Sounds great but that data is going to cost you. Mobile providers are not going to let you get it free. And what about when you are out of cell coverage (never happens with at&t )?

I am with you 100% this is going to cost. Ofcourse it is. I'm an entrepreneur on my 3RD business. Ofcourse Apple is in this to make money. I'm not picking on you but I see these posts and they just floor me with the silliness of it.

They are unveiling something called iCloud. 3 or 4 pages so far dedicated to whining about "why (I) need this when I have storage devices and the costs for storage devices keep falling?" and the "seems stupid--why would someone want to stream their music -- I already do it with my cumbersome setup in my house".
Now, we get the discussion point that--"hey sounds great but I bet you anything they're going to CHARGE YOU!---huh? what do you think about that?"

Listen--Apple is going to charge and yes, there is a problem if they are including video and a raft of other services in terms of data coming through that pipe to be streamed somewhere like a coffee shop or hotel where wifi is maybe not ideal. And what's your point?

I pay for cable. I pay for insurance. I pay for a lot of things I wish was cheaper or MORE convenient but everything has it's price and unless this argument is coupled with--I live off the grid so I don't have to do any of this--then stop posting on this message board.

Bottom line--this is an ingenious service based on the little that we know for one reason and one reason only--storage of entertainment content--books, movies and music--as well as productivity software--should be accessible anywhere--when I want it and without some cumbersome set-up--provided that I paid for it legally. Simple--end of story.

Likewise, I'm willing to bet that for the Apple TV naysayers who hate the device--I have a hunch that this new iCloud will have something to say on finally putting apps on the device. And yes--I bet you'll have to pay for it.

 

[jprocha]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

The biggest issue that will affect this is data caps. Mobile devices are losing unlimited data left and right and now data caps are being proposed for home Internet connections... This would be great but it's important to remember this problem.

 

[Moyank24]

Sounds great but that data is going to cost you. Mobile providers are not going to let you get it free. And what about when you are out of cell coverage (never happens with at&t )?

I am with you 100% this is going to cost. Ofcourse it is. I'm an entrepreneur on my 3RD business. Ofcourse Apple is in this to make money. I'm not picking on you but I see these posts and they just floor me with the silliness of it.

They are unveiling something called iCloud. 3 or 4 pages so far dedicated to whining about "why (I) need this when I have storage devices and the costs for storage devices keep falling?" and the "seems stupid--why would someone want to stream their music -- I already do it with my cumbersome setup in my house".
Now, we get the discussion point that--"hey sounds great but I bet you anything they're going to CHARGE YOU!---huh? what do you think about that?"

Listen--Apple is going to charge and yes, there is a problem if they are including video and a raft of other services in terms of data coming through that pipe to be streamed somewhere like a coffee shop or hotel where wifi is maybe not ideal. And what's your point?

I pay for cable. I pay for insurance. I pay for a lot of things I wish was cheaper or MORE convenient but everything has it's price and unless this argument is coupled with--I live off the grid so I don't have to do any of this--then stop posting on this message board.

Bottom line--this is an ingenious service based on the little that we know for one reason and one reason only--storage of entertainment content--books, movies and music--as well as productivity software--should be accessible anywhere--when I want it and without some cumbersome set-up--provided that I paid for it legally. Simple--end of story.

Likewise, I'm willing to bet that for the Apple TV naysayers who hate the device--I have a hunch that this new iCloud will have something to say on finally putting apps on the device. And yes--I bet you'll have to pay for it.

Interesting you chose to quote that specific statement and failed to address the meat of his concern. Most people aren't questioning the fact that Apple is going to charge for this. Data cost and usage is the real concern. How much will it use? Not everybody has unlimited data or even has an option to upgrade to an unlimited plan. For someone that has 2GB/month (or less) how much can they really get out of this service?

I guess we'll find out next week...but if this turns out to be a data hog, it's not going to be worth it for a lot of people, no matter how great it is.

 

[d4rkc4sm]

tangled is a sweet sweet movie. ive seen it so many times, i doubt i will download it from icloud so it is useless to me.