Why would you want to pay for a web-based unlimited streaming service when grooveshark.com (and many other sites) offer it for free?
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Apple to Overhaul iTunes Service?
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Why would you want to pay for a web-based unlimited streaming service when grooveshark.com (and many other sites) offer it for free?
Yeah, but you guys have been around for longer. Didn't you start building your system during the Renaissance? So of course it's not a fair comparison. Give us 500 years and we'll catch up.
I don't think this is going to be nearly as huge a change as everyone is expecting. I've blogged about this issue here:
http://www.evanagee.com/blog/2009/12/07/apple-acquires-lala-com-but-why/
http://www.evanagee.com/blog/2009/12/07/apple-acquires-lala-com-but-why/
Would prefer hybrid system until Apple Cloud Technology is bullet-proof
Most average consumers either
a.) Don't have libraries large enough to realize the benefit of having the music in the Cloud
b.) Don't trust the Cloud enough to store their music
I fall into category (b.) because after moving my iTunes library enough times to different external hard drives and finally from PC to Mac, i can see the benefits of Cloud Storage. No more hacking the library XML files if everything's online.
However, I want access to my music regardless of whether I have an Internet connection or not. So, I hope that Apple continues to support the local music cache, until extensive testing has been done with brave guinea pigs, err, beta testers like yourself, of course
I wonder if cloud-based music service has anything to do with that shiny new Apple Tech Center being built in North Carolina.
Most average consumers either
a.) Don't have libraries large enough to realize the benefit of having the music in the Cloud
b.) Don't trust the Cloud enough to store their music
I fall into category (b.) because after moving my iTunes library enough times to different external hard drives and finally from PC to Mac, i can see the benefits of Cloud Storage. No more hacking the library XML files if everything's online.
However, I want access to my music regardless of whether I have an Internet connection or not. So, I hope that Apple continues to support the local music cache, until extensive testing has been done with brave guinea pigs, err, beta testers like yourself, of course
I wonder if cloud-based music service has anything to do with that shiny new Apple Tech Center being built in North Carolina.
^^^
Way to force your opinion.
I absolutely love this idea. Obviously, iTunes wouldn't be "stream only" because there's plenty of people with Classics, Nanos, and Touches who would be without music. But what if it meant that you didnt have to store everything on your computer. What if it meant you could save all that space on your hard drive (or on your iPhone) by putting stuff into the "cloud"? How about being able to store your music online, and download a copy of a song onto your device if you really want it?
I would love to have music streamed to my iPhone over 3G saves space on my device for other things. I would love to have music streamed to my Mac via the Internet once again, it saves space for other things.
Imagine if you could take all the gigabytes of music stored on your hard drive, and suddenly get it all back. Plus, because the music wouldn't actually be stored on any of your devices, backing it up becomes a thing of the past (provided that Apple keeps it safe and sound on their servers, which I'm sure they would).
Perhaps this means that if I actually want to "own" the track on my physical hardware, I could just download a copy off the server to use in my iMovie, or iPhoto slideshow, etc.
I would jump on this in a heartbeat. Now, will they do the same for movies?
This makes sense to me if what they are proposing is a subscription based service so that I can stream music from the entire apple library to my home stereo via itunes/airtunes. Apple could create several pricing tiers (e.g. $20/month, $30/month, etc.) that would allow you access to a bundle of themes just like the cable companies do with television.
Obviously users will still want to purchase music for download.
There is no inherent conflict between offering both of these business models simultaneously. In fact, users may choose to purchase even more music for their ipods/iphones based on stuff they have discovered while streaming.
Obviously users will still want to purchase music for download.
There is no inherent conflict between offering both of these business models simultaneously. In fact, users may choose to purchase even more music for their ipods/iphones based on stuff they have discovered while streaming.
Why are people equating owning music with storing the data locally? Those attributes don't have to be linked.
Any of these models are possible:
Any of these models are possible:
- Music purchased and stored locally - what we do now with iTunes.
- Music rented and stored locally - the way iTunes movie rentals work.
- Music purchased and stored remotely - a streaming model or a server-based iTunes library with rights to make local copies or burn CDs if you want to.
- Music rented and stored remotely - a streaming model or a server-based iTunes library where you can play the music only online.
Because Apple is the one who's keeping them in line and not raping us by charging more for digital albums vs less for a physical CD (I have no source or data to back that up, but it sounds like something they would do).
This is true, however I feel like could only be true with music. The mainstream, when it comes to movies anyway, want a physical DVD to play where ever, when ever, and on what ever player is available at the time. With music however, it's less likely (as we all know, seeing as how iTunes has really taken off). I know what with more and more portable media players emerging it seems more likely that digital copies of films would be more popular, but I feel as though this is only among the Internet crowd and tech geeks. This is not to say that digital copies of movies could never take off also with the mainstream, but for now anyway, and until a viable option for playing that digital copy where ever, when ever, and on what ever player becomes as easy the DVD counterpart, I can't see it happening.
Yikes! Dude! How about $5.99 and $9.99? Some of us also have monthly cable bills!
We don't know enough details yet to be sure ....
Personally, I don't like the idea of streaming music to my devices. I think the technology is nice as strictly an *option* for content I've already purchased. (EG. It would be a big plus if iTunes started tracking all the music I ever purchased, and allowed me to stream those tracks at any time since I already own them. I could even see them charging me a one-time fee of a few cents per track extra to "enable" that feature for them.) But honestly, I think it's a waste of bandwidth to keep streaming the same data to a device, every time I want to listen to it - when it would be far more efficient (on battery life of devices like an iPhone, among other things!) to play a locally stored copy instead.
Talking about storing one's music library "in the cloud" to make sure you never lose it is really a completely different issue. MobileME could easily address that one, regardless of any streaming ideas Apple comes up with. All they need to do is raise the disk quotas for users and give iTunes the option to sync all songs to your iDisk in a designated folder.
Personally, I don't like the idea of streaming music to my devices. I think the technology is nice as strictly an *option* for content I've already purchased. (EG. It would be a big plus if iTunes started tracking all the music I ever purchased, and allowed me to stream those tracks at any time since I already own them. I could even see them charging me a one-time fee of a few cents per track extra to "enable" that feature for them.) But honestly, I think it's a waste of bandwidth to keep streaming the same data to a device, every time I want to listen to it - when it would be far more efficient (on battery life of devices like an iPhone, among other things!) to play a locally stored copy instead.
Talking about storing one's music library "in the cloud" to make sure you never lose it is really a completely different issue. MobileME could easily address that one, regardless of any streaming ideas Apple comes up with. All they need to do is raise the disk quotas for users and give iTunes the option to sync all songs to your iDisk in a designated folder.
^^^
Way to force your opinion.
I absolutely love this idea. Obviously, iTunes wouldn't be "stream only" because there's plenty of people with Classics, Nanos, and Touches who would be without music. But what if it meant that you didnt have to store everything on your computer. What if it meant you could save all that space on your hard drive (or on your iPhone) by putting stuff into the "cloud"? How about being able to store your music online, and download a copy of a song onto your device if you really want it?
I would love to have music streamed to my iPhone over 3G saves space on my device for other things. I would love to have music streamed to my Mac via the Internet once again, it saves space for other things.
Imagine if you could take all the gigabytes of music stored on your hard drive, and suddenly get it all back. Plus, because the music wouldn't actually be stored on any of your devices, backing it up becomes a thing of the past (provided that Apple keeps it safe and sound on their servers, which I'm sure they would).
Perhaps this means that if I actually want to "own" the track on my physical hardware, I could just download a copy off the server to use in my iMovie, or iPhoto slideshow, etc.
I would jump on this in a heartbeat. Now, will they do the same for movies?
This is one of those times when I see an article receive far more negative ratings than positive ratings and I just don't get it.
I will admit that I fought this "cloud" thing for years. Maybe it's just me but I think part of the problem is the image most people conjure up when they think of a cloud; that being a soft, wispy vaporous substance that is here one day and gone the next. Not the most comforting image when you are using said "cloud" to store pictures of your babies first smile, 5,000 songs collected over a period of years and 3,500 customer contacts that essentially pay your mortgage! Capesh? I'm thinking maybe they should re-market these offsite servers as "caves!" Yeah...that's it! Screw the clouds! I want my data stored in rock-solid, nuclear blast-proof structure. Maybe they can even have some of those bad-ass Capital One cavemen dudes guarding my "cave." I mean, server farms look more like caves then clouds anyway don't they? Embrace the paradigm shift, brethren. Cave...errrr...cloud computing is the way of the future. Throw away those floppy drives and 10 terabyte HD's! But I digress...
I think this is a *wonderful* idea. I'd be willing to bet my MBP, ATV and iPhone that Apple will not do away with the current ITMS model of buying a song, movie or whatever and allowing for a direct dl to your HD. On the contrary, services like those mentioned in this article only *enhance* the current model. How can this *possibly* be a bad thing?
Rant over.
I will admit that I fought this "cloud" thing for years. Maybe it's just me but I think part of the problem is the image most people conjure up when they think of a cloud; that being a soft, wispy vaporous substance that is here one day and gone the next. Not the most comforting image when you are using said "cloud" to store pictures of your babies first smile, 5,000 songs collected over a period of years and 3,500 customer contacts that essentially pay your mortgage! Capesh? I'm thinking maybe they should re-market these offsite servers as "caves!" Yeah...that's it! Screw the clouds! I want my data stored in rock-solid, nuclear blast-proof structure. Maybe they can even have some of those bad-ass Capital One cavemen dudes guarding my "cave." I mean, server farms look more like caves then clouds anyway don't they? Embrace the paradigm shift, brethren. Cave...errrr...cloud computing is the way of the future. Throw away those floppy drives and 10 terabyte HD's! But I digress...
I think this is a *wonderful* idea. I'd be willing to bet my MBP, ATV and iPhone that Apple will not do away with the current ITMS model of buying a song, movie or whatever and allowing for a direct dl to your HD. On the contrary, services like those mentioned in this article only *enhance* the current model. How can this *possibly* be a bad thing?
Rant over.
Oh, the humanity!!! The overreactions from many of you are priceless.
Go sign up for Lala while you still can and you can get a general idea as to how this might work.
Going all to the browser is a great idea. I'd like to not have a separate program to play media. You can still have an offline library, especially with the advent of HTML5 and offline caching.
Being a Lala user, having my library in the cloud is great. i can go to anyone's house and play any song I have. And having the option of paying just 10 cents for cloud only access or paying ~89 cents for local access is a great feature. iTunes would benefit greatly if people did not have to install a program to use it and if there were cheaper price points available.
I just don't get how anyone rates more choices of how one buys their content as negative? You prefer one way over the other, but not everyone prefers your way. And most people are like me and would take advantage of all the available options. Options are good people...
Go sign up for Lala while you still can and you can get a general idea as to how this might work.
Going all to the browser is a great idea. I'd like to not have a separate program to play media. You can still have an offline library, especially with the advent of HTML5 and offline caching.
Being a Lala user, having my library in the cloud is great. i can go to anyone's house and play any song I have. And having the option of paying just 10 cents for cloud only access or paying ~89 cents for local access is a great feature. iTunes would benefit greatly if people did not have to install a program to use it and if there were cheaper price points available.
I just don't get how anyone rates more choices of how one buys their content as negative? You prefer one way over the other, but not everyone prefers your way. And most people are like me and would take advantage of all the available options. Options are good people...
Apple rarely creates a brand new market. They're known for taking an existing market and making it their b!tch.
I don't know how anyone thinks this is NOT a great idea. Another service for people to use. It's not like they're going to stop selling songs through iTunes. 3,000,000,000+ songs can't be wrong.
Plus, to be able to have access to all the music you have on your computer, anywhere -- that's awesome if you ask me.
Personally, I probably wouldn't consider the service for the fact that I'm on satellite internet that caps me at 350MB in 4 hours. If I go over that, I'm booted off service for 24 hours (Hughes.net, if you're wondering). It leaves me out of using Netflix's "Watch Now" program of streaming movies. So unfair.
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Question, how does/did LaLa determine what songs you had on your computer? By title only? Title and length of song? It seems to me, a person armed with the right info could trick LaLa into thing they had a certain album on their computer when it was just an mp3 dressed up to look like a certain album. Boom! Playing your favorite tracks in seconds. I hope I'm wrong. I'm sure it's not that easy. Wonder what they do. Certainly there's not enough time to analyze ever track.
My guess, is that people don't trust Apple. It's not a company with a history of giving a lot of choices to the customer. So when they see Apple revamping the iTunes service, they worry it's going to replace, rather than augment the download service.
I don't think that's likely, but I wouldn't put anything past Apple.
To those among you who are upset that Apple might discontinue downloading services: relax, it isn't going to happen. You're reading too much into the story. If Apple does anything with this it will be to add a subscription service which people could use instead of, or with the download model, or it might be another service such as one that would allow streaming of content which users have otherwise purchased.
They're not going to abandon their highly successful download model.
If they do anything at all, it will be to expand upon it.
They're not going to abandon their highly successful download model.
If they do anything at all, it will be to expand upon it.
"Helluva?!"
Have you got a map?
Anyway, I have been to NYC, DC, Philadelphia, Boston and Toronto (I'm aware that it is in Canada). Large, important places. You would think that networks pay particular attention there... My iPhone sucked. These places cover millions of people, yet the service is poor. So, I don't think it is the actual area. Compare that to several European cities, where there are more subscribers and again, the position in the US is embarrassing.
By the way, in terms of population and area, Europe is larger. Even, if you only count Western and Central Europe, the quality of the mobile network coverage puts the US into shame. I can imagine that much of the US' territory is not covered by 3G at all, so I would not be surprised to see, if Europe has much larger 3G coverage. (I'm sorry that my comment is a bit all over the place, but I am just writing these from a taxi.)
Have you got a map?
Anyway, I have been to NYC, DC, Philadelphia, Boston and Toronto (I'm aware that it is in Canada). Large, important places. You would think that networks pay particular attention there... My iPhone sucked. These places cover millions of people, yet the service is poor. So, I don't think it is the actual area. Compare that to several European cities, where there are more subscribers and again, the position in the US is embarrassing.
By the way, in terms of population and area, Europe is larger. Even, if you only count Western and Central Europe, the quality of the mobile network coverage puts the US into shame. I can imagine that much of the US' territory is not covered by 3G at all, so I would not be surprised to see, if Europe has much larger 3G coverage. (I'm sorry that my comment is a bit all over the place, but I am just writing these from a taxi.)
I may be one of the few here, but (as I already posted in a different thread) I don't want to own music anymore, nor I'm anymore interested in storing a file in any of my personal media or device. Instead, I'm looking forward to the day when I will just pay-per-listen to the music of my choice.
Why? First of all, because I will have access to an immensely vast collection of music, magnitudes bigger that the one I can ever store locally (and I do love exploring and discovering music and artists). The size of the memory (or hard drive) in my media render will not anymore define the size of my music collection. Secondarily, I will save money: Assuming to pay 1¢ to listen to a song, and to listen to 120 songs a day (or 120 repetitions of the same song), then the daily total is $1.20. That is $36 a month. Because my purchasing habit exceed that amount, I will save money. And, as a bonus, I will not have all the cost (and space and time) associate with storing and back-upping all the files.
I don't care if this will take the form of a subscription or a meter, a timer, or whatever; the key point is that I want to be able to select the music I'm going to listen to, not simply to select a channel Pandora style. I believe the mucic/iTunes industry is going there (step by step), and in future owning music will look simply as something of the last century, and it will, rightly so, just means owning the copyright of it.
Why? First of all, because I will have access to an immensely vast collection of music, magnitudes bigger that the one I can ever store locally (and I do love exploring and discovering music and artists). The size of the memory (or hard drive) in my media render will not anymore define the size of my music collection. Secondarily, I will save money: Assuming to pay 1¢ to listen to a song, and to listen to 120 songs a day (or 120 repetitions of the same song), then the daily total is $1.20. That is $36 a month. Because my purchasing habit exceed that amount, I will save money. And, as a bonus, I will not have all the cost (and space and time) associate with storing and back-upping all the files.
I don't care if this will take the form of a subscription or a meter, a timer, or whatever; the key point is that I want to be able to select the music I'm going to listen to, not simply to select a channel Pandora style. I believe the mucic/iTunes industry is going there (step by step), and in future owning music will look simply as something of the last century, and it will, rightly so, just means owning the copyright of it.
AT&T will hate this...
With the current identification of "bandwidth hogs" by AT&T, I don't think they will be on board with iTunes going to a streaming model as that is what they are currently complaining about. With them fingering streaming video/audio as the main vehicle for "excessive usage", pointing every iPhone at a streaming server is going to crush the already limping network.
With the current identification of "bandwidth hogs" by AT&T, I don't think they will be on board with iTunes going to a streaming model as that is what they are currently complaining about. With them fingering streaming video/audio as the main vehicle for "excessive usage", pointing every iPhone at a streaming server is going to crush the already limping network.
both
It will be both. Apple will still let you download the music to your HD and iPhones and whatnot, but you will also be able to listen to the music you have bought through somekind of cloud based inclusion in iTunes. Kinda like the iTunes store previews but with whole songs that you have bought. That way you can log into your iTunes cloud on someone elses computer and listen to your streaming music, playlists, movies, podcasts and everything else you have bought through iTunes (or hopefully have in your iTunes library). It will be awesome because it will be the best of both worlds. Just you wait!
It will be both. Apple will still let you download the music to your HD and iPhones and whatnot, but you will also be able to listen to the music you have bought through somekind of cloud based inclusion in iTunes. Kinda like the iTunes store previews but with whole songs that you have bought. That way you can log into your iTunes cloud on someone elses computer and listen to your streaming music, playlists, movies, podcasts and everything else you have bought through iTunes (or hopefully have in your iTunes library). It will be awesome because it will be the best of both worlds. Just you wait!
I think most people are in favor of more choices, but fail to recognize that there is a grey area in life. People (especially on internet forums) jump to conclusions that it's either all or nothing, as opposed to allowing you to have the choice.
That could be out of fear, or it could be out of ignorance. I agree though, that I would love the choice of having my music stored locally or in the cloud. I don't think that internet access is available in enough places for this to replace local storage, but it's a great option.