Apple Tapping Lala Media Team for Cloud-Based iTunes?

[MacRumors]

With Apple's acquisition of streaming media firm Lala Media last month, speculation about Apple's plans for the company has suggested a number of possible opportunities, including a new iTunes streaming service or simply a "talent" acquisition of Lala's engineers.

In a guest post on TechCrunch today, digital music executive Michael Robertson claims that rather than a traditional subscription-based streaming model, Apple is preparing to allow users to move their existing iTunes libraries into the cloud, allowing streaming to a variety of Internet-connected devices.

An upcoming major revision of iTunes will copy each user's catalog to the net making it available from any browser or net connected ipod/touch/tablet. The Lala upload technology will be bundled into a future iTunes upgrade which will automatically be installed for the 100+ million itunes users with a simple "An upgrade is available. . ." notification dialog box. After installation iTunes will push in the background their entire media library to their personal mobile iTunes area. Once loaded, users will be able to navigate and play their music, videos and playlists from their personal URL using a browser based iTunes experience.

Robertson claims that while Apple could have deployed such a functionality on its own, it decided to pursue Lala in order to speed the process while also adding expertise in the technology to its team.

Apple has been rumored to be including discussion of the next-generation iLife at next week's media event where the company is widely expected to introduce a tablet device, and although iTunes is technically no longer part of the iLife suite, a number of the applications do interface with iTunes media, suggesting that a shift to cloud-based iTunes could have implications for iLife. Today's report, however, does not offer a timeline for Apple's deployment of cloud-based iTunes functionality.

Apple received significantly publicity in mid-2009 for its announcement that it would build a $1 billion data center in North Carolina, scheduled to open sometime this year. While Apple has been silent on its plans for the data center, speculation has suggested that a data center of that size would most likely be targeting to supporting cloud-based services.

Article Link: Apple Tapping Lala Media Team for Cloud-Based iTunes?

 

[miles01110]

Haha. I bet AT&T loves the thought of streaming iTunes media to the iPhone.

 

[Grimace]

Awesome! Even if it was just available through Wi-Fi - this is a pretty great idea.

 

[Small White Car]

You've get this and you get Mobile Me's 'Back to My Mac' and pretty soon your 'mobile tablet' is just a control device for your iMac when you're away from home.

And that's pretty darn sweet.

 

[840quadra]

This is interesting, however I am wondering if it would actually be my library of music, or just songs that I had purchased form iTunes. My current music library consists of 100s of tracks, many from other sources, and some digitized myself from my LP collection.

 

[ValSalva]

This is very good news. But it would have to be via WiFi, at least for now. This has the potential of crippling AT&T's already precarious 3G network.

 

[spillproof]

Wow. Access my library anywhere, that's a really sweet idea.

Clouds are the future it seems.

This is interesting, however I am wondering if it would actually be my library of music, or just songs that I had purchased form iTunes.

oh, good question!

 

[ULFoaf]

Even if it does nothing but automatically backup your iTunes purchases, this is a great thing. My college age daughter (despite dad preaching) lost most of her iTunes in a hard drive crash. She backs up now!

 

[Tilpots]

Apple's going to have to buy some "pipes" here in the near future, more than likely some sort of wireless internet connection (4G, LTE, Wi-max, etc.). To be able to provide an end-to-end user experience would put them on a level all by themselves, something Microsoft, Google, AT&T, Comcast, or anyone else just can't compete with.

They'll be able to take "cloud" computing to a whole new level. And any military person will tell you that the you must own the skies to win the war.

 

[talkingfuture]

Will be interesting to see what Apple have in mind for streaming. I'm sure it'll be far more than just a copy of Spotify.

 

[MacBoobsPro]

I dont think Apple will be wiling to host my 600GB iTunes library and allow me to stream from it. I think this streaming thingymajig will be iTS stuff only. If at all.

 

[Eduardo1971]

Umm, if implemented; Apple should tie in the streaming iTunes library to their me.com service.

 

[kirky29]

I have a 300GB Music Library.. So, will it upload all my songs? I hope I don't pay for that in my bandwidth. Good idea though.

 

[dXTC]

This is interesting, however I am wondering if it would actually be my library of music, or just songs that I had purchased form iTunes. My current music library consists of 100s of tracks, many from other sources, and some digitized myself from my LP collection.

I echo spillproof's sentiment; a good question, indeed. I've digitized quite a bit of vinyl myself (most from the heyday of the 12" remix single), and simply must have many of those tracks available. Less than 1% of my library are iTunes purchases.

 

[Cascadians]

600GB! I thought mine was approaching insane at 12. Been collecting esoteric music for over 40 years. 99% imported from CDs, most not even on iTunes, and soon converting old cassettes.

So I have the same question -- will it really upload my tracks even though they are not carried in iTunes?

I would LOVE to have my playlists on MobileMe so I could share them -- any pdf is too big to email or post.

 

[Small White Car]

I am wondering if it would actually be my library of music, or just songs that I had purchased form iTunes.

On the one hand, I'd guess 'just purchased music.'

But if that's true, why would they back up YOUR file? Why not just stream the songs from their servers? They know what you've bought.

So the fact that you'd be uploading makes me think they WILL upload anything. Otherwise I don't see the point in making a system capable of uploads.

 

[DipDog3]

I hate always calling the internet the "cloud".

Who came up with this?

 

[spice weasel]

This is interesting, however I am wondering if it would actually be my library of music, or just songs that I had purchased form iTunes. My current music library consists of 100s of tracks, many from other sources, and some digitized myself from my LP collection.

I'm thinking that it would still work. After all, the Genius feature works with your whole library, not just purchased songs/albums. Basically it would see what songs are in your library and then allow you to stream those songs from the server. You wouldn't have to upload anything other than your library's xml data. No need to upload songs that Apple already has them on its server, just the ones that they don't.

 

[MacBoobsPro]

600GB! I thought mine was approaching insane at 12. Been collecting esoteric music for over 40 years. 99% imported from CDs, most not even on iTunes, and soon converting old cassettes.

So I have the same question -- will it really upload my tracks even though they are not carried in iTunes?

I would LOVE to have my playlists on MobileMe so I could share them -- any pdf is too big to email or post.

Well its more like 591GB mostly films and TV shows. The streaming thing will most likely be a feature in iTunes that allows streaming of your own library from your own computer through iTunes. i.e. sign in to a streaming itunes account (or mobileme) in iTunes and your library appears so you can listen to it. This would be a great feature on the tablet.

 

[roland.g]

The great thing for Apple is that for each "track" out there, they only have to house it once, not for each user. However, it would seem interesting to see how this feature would work in practicality. The 2 biggest hurdles are HD video and when a user has no access to the cloud for whatever signal reasons. I personally have yet to employ the Back to my Mac feature through MobileMe because of the ISP/porting/firewall issues that make setting it up less than a snap. But I would like to. I have currently been exploring additional external HDD options as my TM and internal storage are ready to exceed their current capacity as I buy more HD movies from iTunes.

 

[swingerofbirch]

This makes no sense. Most songs you have, iTunes has. It would make much more sense for Apple to cut a deal with the music labels and let you stream songs you own from iTunes rather than everyone uploading their libraries, and then allowing you to upload whatever songs you have that iTunes doesn't to a separate server space. Although, Apple would somehow have to verify you actually had those songs--otherwise you could just presumably add meta-data to iTunes making it look like you own music you don't. I don't know the solution--but if everyone uploads their music to a server you're going to have a massive redundancy of songs and seemingly waste a lot of space.

 

[jaw04005]

I have a 300GB Music Library.. So, will it upload all my songs? I hope I don't pay for that in my bandwidth. Good idea though.

I don’t buy that it’ll upload your actual music or TV show content. I think it’ll use your iTunes Store account and Genius to verify that you own the track and then allow you access to a “master track” in the cloud via streaming.

Makes way more sense than uploading the same track from everyone’s library.

Edit: Looks like several of us were answering that question all at once.

 

[Cascadians]

Reading the article at
http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/19/apples-secret-cloud-strategy-and-why-lala-is-critical/

it sounds like they're well aware most of us have strange and oddball unique music and that it will all be welcome in the cloud to be used by all our Apple devices. Happy day!

 

[Yankeexpress]

I dont think Apple will be wiling to host my 600GB iTunes library and allow me to stream from it. I think this streaming thingymajig will be iTS stuff only. If at all.

I agree. They better let users opt out of the cloud streaming. I want local control of my stuff. I remember the Microsoft cloud debacle when they lost customers data. The cloud went poof...bye-bye.

 

[t0mat0]

Is it of use for those with lossless large libraries?

What of those with 100's GB or even TBs worth of Apple lossless/FLAC? Unless they can give lossless back - why bother? Why not just sling your library on Back to my Mac & stream?

It'd be useful to Apple in a way - all that media duplication of iTunes purchased music - just millions of soft links to 1 file, rather than millions of hard copies of the same thing.

There would be some large-scale duplication. Kind of suck for those with non-Apple level tagged music.

If Apple wanted to do this, twinning it with higher level bitrates, plus bundling upgrades for iTunes LP information etc would be clever.

Just have one big pile of keys/receipts for media using KeyChest is another option.