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MobileMe Revamp to Focus on Streaming Data From Individual Machines, Not Cloud?

azentropy said:
Personal Cloud??? Now they are just making #%^$ up! :D

One of the major benefits of "cloud computing" is having it managed by someone else and that it is always on and always available. If I have to manage the system myself (backups etc.) and can't put my notebook to sleep when not being used etc. or if I have to reconfigure everything again if I change that "host" computer, then it really isn't cloud computing.
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Depending on your router, you can currently wake up your home computer remotely if you configure it so. Being able to access your home computer, even when it's sleeping, doesn't seem so far-fetched.
 
I like the idea of an Apple-made iTunes Media Server. I've looked at the HP Media Server for a while now and have been tempted to get it but have never pulled the trigger.

It's actually quite odd that Apple has encouraged the transition to digital media and yet has nothing to offer to simplify and make that transition easy in a living room setup. The AppleTV is a great product but the back office (so to speak) is a complete mess (needing a desktop machine to serve the content).

Apple needs a home media server with an integrated Airport Extreme. The networking should be configurable via Airport Utility on my desktop or laptop and the iTunes management should be done via AppleTV. The AppleTV should be the front-end of a home media server but I should be able to stream my library to my other iTunes enabled devices either at home or on the road.

I'd also like Apple to provide unlimited backup storage for my iTunes Media Library either included when I buy the server or with MobileMe subscription or both. At the very least, Apple should provide a backup service for my iTunes purchased content.

This media server can also provide wireless syncing of apps, iBooks, podcasts, etc.
 
CalCanuck said:
My guess is if they do it this way it avoids the legal issues the media companies might have it they allowed you to upload your music to a server then stream to your devices. If the content never actually leaves your home computer what can they do.
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All the tech talk on the forum and people are ignoring your point - which is the most significant point on this potential product.

It's illegal for companies to almost anything to your music without permission from the rights holders. That's why all the music lockers in the late 90's got sued out business with the file sharers.

Even them making physical copies of the music for backup can incur a statutory fee for making the copy. You as the owner can do a lot of things that a company cannot do in your name.
 
For those of you stating that "Who wants to leave on your Mac 24/7?" . . . there is WAKE ON LAN. For those stating "What an environmental impact this will have" . . . there is WAKE ON LAN. Everybody now . . WAKE ON LAN.

Even though I don't think this is the way they are going to go, at least if you are going to post comments on the issue, do a little research first - most Intel-based Macs can do . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . WAKE ON LAN!!
 
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/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

This guy is clueless. You can't use your home computer for much in this regard as to streaming. Even people with high speed cable Internet have very slow upload speeds. Usually topping out at 1mb/second while their download speeds are around 15-25. You need at least 3 to get a small sized QuickTime file to play or stream. And that's what you'd be doing. Downloading from the home computer, which would be using it's upload speed to act as a server. I could see it as an option for those with synchronous upload and download speeds, but otherwise it's not happening.
 
bretm said:
You need at least 3 to get a small sized QuickTime file to play or stream.
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Just an FYI, I use AirVideo quite often and it happily streams things back to my iPad remotely on a regular basis. I limit remote streaming to something low like 768kbps so quality isn't that great but it works fine.

On another note, it's unfortunate that, coming from Apple, it would likely be limited to codecs and/or content that come from Apple.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148)

WOL is all well and good but it doesnt log you into your account if you have multiple users on your mac or pc!!
 
Island Dog said:
Meh, it looks like they are doing whatever they can to avoid hosting data themselves.
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There's truth in that. Frankly, I don't know that I'd want to be responsible for hundreds of thousands of terrabytes of personal data (movies, photos, music, etc.). If Apple does as Dalrymple suggests, they can not only avoid a situation where they can only lose, but also they can sell a ton of Mac minis.

I'd buy one for that very purpose myself, if this projected Mobile Me service was truly good.

TitoC said:
For those of you stating that "Who wants to leave on your Mac 24/7?" . . . there is WAKE ON LAN. For those stating "What an environmental impact this will have" . . . there is WAKE ON LAN. Everybody now . . WAKE ON LAN.

Even though I don't think this is the way they are going to go, at least if you are going to post comments on the issue, do a little research first - most Intel-based Macs can do . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . WAKE ON LAN!!
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I have an idea. How about using WAKE ON LAN?
 
Rain Cloud

shaunp said:
It's all well and good Apple 'saying' that we can access our itunes from anywhere, but personally I wouldn't open up my firewall for this given Apple's dismissive stance on security.
.
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Exactly. First: Security. Hackers (government sponsored and otherwise) cannot be stopped. For god sakes, you have the chi-coms running lose on the NASDAC stock exchange, the power grid and who knows where else. Second: what happens when the cloud gets nuked?*

*And by nuked I mean, natural, manmade, act of god, dumb-assed mistake, and whatever. It can happen and it will happen. Oops, sorry about your 750GB of show tunes Mr. justperry.
 
Microsoft is already referring to the act of accessing files on your home computer from a remote location as going "to the cloud!" (when they really mean "thru the intertubes"). So the terminology has already been twisted away from its original meaning.
 
0815 said:
But might be a problem for people with slow network connections and people that don't want (or can't) leave their machine on for 24/7.
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Exactly! I seriously doubt Apple goes from the current server issue to making people use their desktops, or have a desktop, in order to use this service. That's lame. Syncing with it, fine, but why go away from the current server setup? I think this guy is wrong.
 
ranReloaded said:
THE CLOUD IS A LIE

Seriously... People have to get real and stop all this crap about the cloud. Stream your music library 24/7? We are still decades before that becomes even likely, telco-wise...
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are you trolling?

you must be trolling. Music streaming for 24 hours uses less bandwidth at CD quality than a 15 minute youtube video at 720p.


You must be trolling.
 
Mister Snitch said:
There's truth in that. Frankly, I don't know that I'd want to be responsible for hundreds of thousands of terrabytes of personal data (movies, photos, music, etc.). If Apple does as Dalrymple suggests, they can not only avoid a situation where they can only lose, but also they can sell a ton of Mac minis.

I'd buy one for that very purpose myself, if this projected Mobile Me service was truly good.



I have an idea. How about using WAKE ON LAN?
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wake on lan doesn't fix a 128kbps uplink speed limit on a basic DSL connection.

Some blend of SimplyMedia and lala.com's functionality would be ideal. Apple bought one of them, and it wasn't the one that used the method described in this "rumor."

basically this rumor says "that other rumor doesn't seem plausible to this one blogger who doesn't know what he's talking about, so let's make up something else with no info at all to support it"

google bought simplify media, not apple. they bought lala. lala was cloud.
 
What about listening to music on airplanes? That's mostly where I listen to music and watch videos... What about an unreliable connection? I would hate to not be able to listen to a song because it buffers slowly, or simply stops streaming at some point like YouTube often does.

I don't think this is doable with the current technology, the internet is still too slow for this sort of stuff, and I would expect my files to be ready when I need them, without having to wait or pray for a reliable connection.

This would also increase the load on 3G networks a LOT, which is clearly already a problem today, as smartphone eat up too much bandwidth as they are. Add to that a cloud service, and the entire network crashes. Don't count on WiFi because connecting to those either costs extra or is a hassle and is unreliable as soon as you start walking around with a mobile device.

An 8GB SD card costs £25 today, and its transfer speed is still much faster than that of the internet. I'm sure that with cheaper and slower storage, the speed would still beat the cloud!
 
Yay! Thanks to :apple: we can expect this 50 years sooner as millions if people leave their Computers on 24/7 so they can listen to music on the way to work.

day-after-tomorrow-SPLASH.jpg
 
Perrumpo said:
Pretty useless while carrying your laptop around if it's your only machine.
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Uhm... so why bother comment on a synchronization feature then? Do you go to Windows software forums and complain "pretty useless if you use a Mac."
 
Kavok said:
Indeed, Dropbox is the best thing to come around in a long while where all this "cloud" stuff is concerned. What MobileMe (.Mac, etc.) should have been in the first place.
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Dropbox is good for what it does, but it doesn't have anything finer grained than file level synchronization. What if your address book is changed on your home machine and your laptop at the same time? Which one is dropbox going to keep? MobileMe can look inside your files and sync individual records in them.
 
here's a thought... apple hosts the content based on a tiered user paid for mobileme service, but it's nowhere close to 100+gb that it seems people say they would have to host their media. It'd be more like 8,16,32 or 64 gb - just as much as the itoys currently hold. Mobileme might offer something like 8 or 16gb free but then charge for larger amounts. if we want to stream different songs/movies then we have to change what they host, just like we currently change songs/movies/whatnot on our itoys.

but of course, this doesnt do anything to address the problem of accessing playlists while on a airplane, or camping or...
 
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Only Apple could launch cloud computing without the cloud. :eek::eek::eek:

In all honesty this doesn't make any sense. The idea of cloud is to have it always available, backed up and ready to use from any possible host. Why would I want to host the data, take care of the backups, buy the hardware etc.
 
Good. There are already adequate cloud services. Apple doesn't need to duplicate those (and probably do a worse job).

Some kind of super advanced syncing would be great. ESPECIALLY FOR GAMECENTER pleeeease!!
 
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