Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Audiogalaxy won't back up your entire computer, your iPhone, your iPad...

Audio Galaxy "just works" and cost $0.00. Just use your own Mac with your own songs you already have. No fee for storage, no fee for streaming, no new hardware to buy.

I'm guessing that if you buy a TC and shell out $25 a year, Apple will offer you something like 2TB of cloud-based mirroring of your TC. So, not only will you be able to stream media from your TC to any Mac or iOS device, anywhere, via iTunes (probably PC's, too), but Apple will also host a synchronized copy of your TC on their servers, so if your house burns down, or you lose your iPad while on vacation in Aruba, or you flush your iPhone down a pay toilet, you can just plug a new TC or a new device in anywhere, enter the right password, and re-download your entire setup as of the moment your old TC went up in smoke / iPad vanished / iPhone became a terd.

This is a deal similar to CrashPlan, which charges something like $80 a year for remote backup, unlimited capacity, over the Internet. (Most folks don't need more than 2TB though, so that's likely the sweet spot Apple will target - or maybe if you buy a 4TB TC, they'll give you 4TB of cloud storage.)

The deal with the music labels is probably not as important as we've been assuming. It likely just lets Apple get away with not storing a copy of any content you downloaded from iTunes. Instead they'll just stream it or replace it from the iTunes original if yours is destroyed. That'll potentially save them a ton of storage space, especially down the road as more and more of their customers accumulate more and more terabytes of stuff downloaded from iTunes.
 
Loving the idea that devices like ATVs could access "your" icloud as it would finally mean I don't have to keep a mac running 24*7 to serve up my itunes library. But capacity wise, its not going to be expandable as Apple stuff never is. So I wonder how they'll get round that if you have a big itunes library.

Removing the need to attach ipads and iphones to a computer to activate them is also a good move.

But I still don't understand how they're going to get round the problem of people with TBs of media combined with limited connection speeds and fair use policies.
 
Unless you can transparently SSH in from anywhere and unless they integrate with :apple:TV, that's a hard fail.

What percentage of Apple's customer base do you think is interested in "transparently SSH"?

I don't even know what the hell that is, LOL.

I totally agree with rufwork. It better be possible to transparently connect via the SSH protocol from anywhere.

*LTD*: This means it should be possible to
  1. Connect to a computer behind the TC over SSH (this is done by setting up port-forwarding in the TC)
  2. Connect to the TC itself, copy files from it and sync to it over SSH.
SSH is a desirable protocol for such communication. This is because the SSH connection becomes an "encryption tunnel" for all the transmitted data.
 
So Apple has finally decided to release what basically comes down to an iTunes server.

Anyone want to buy a nice Core i7 Hackintosh...the one I just built last week to do the very thing that this new TC hopefully will do?

What's on your i7 and how much do you want for it? ;)

I've been using an old but upgraded 2001 PowerMac to run a dedicated 24/7 whole house audio/video server. It works great, but if iTunes updates disappear, I may have to replace it. I just bought a Netgear WNDR3700 not that long ago and so I don't exactly fancy buying a new Airport Extreme to replace it when the thing already has UPnP/DLNA on it, which Apple SHOULD support since it's a standard (unlike whatever the heck Apple is planning to release). But then Apple likes to lecture about standards when it suits them and use custom crap when it doesn't so they're hypocrites. I could probably get a decent small computer to run as a new server for the price Apple would probably want for that hardware (I already have the 3TB media drive setup and the dual-radio network so that's all it would need). It would have to have USB3 on it for the future, though (this 3TB is a bit slow under USB2).
 
hmm

Is there a fee for streaming your stuff to your iphone from your time capsule?

In windows 7 you can stream your music on your machine at home to say your laptop remotely without any fees what so ever. With live mesh i can do my other files this way also.

Why would apple charge when others like microsoft are not?
 
I bet you the price of an iCloud subscription that no component of the service will support SSH, at least not in a user-accessible fashion. The whole point of Apple products is that any features that exist are fully formed, and any component part that isn't quite right or deemed surplus to requirements goes in the bin. Any remote data transfers will without a doubt be encrypted, but expecting Apple to include stuff primarily of interest to techheads when their focus is consumer electronics is silly. Time Machine, for example, lacks granular backup options (save for an exclusions list) because storage is cheap and they figure that if you put something on your computer, the odds are that you'll want to keep it more likely than not. Asking your averagely informed user what time they'd like to back things up, what encryption method they'd prefer, whether to keep multiple changed copies, and their eyes'll glaze over pretty much instantaneously. The way Apple's arranged things, I can simply say 'Buy an external hard drive, plug it in and agree to the dialog box that says 'Backup now'.

People trot out the same tired complaints about the lack of a browsable filesystem on iOS devices. If they do that, and there's a 'Movies' folder there, what happens when they copy on a file from their camcorder, consider it synced, then go on holiday and find that it doesn't show up, won't play because the bitrate's too high, or so on? The answer is that they'll have a crappy experience with the product. Making iTunes the content gatekeeper is a practical decision, not something Apple's done because they 'hate freedom'.
 
Intermediate Step to Reaching the iCloud

Using a quiet, low power device like a Time Capsule as an intermediate step towards caching important data would be great.
I executed the concept by having my local computers (OS X and Windows machines) sync files from their home directories to a Windows Home Server directory which is eventually uploaded to DropBox.
Cutting out the WHS and replacing it with a Time Capsule which is smart enough to know which files to backup, how to sleep and wake the associated computers, and being iOS easy to update and configure would be awesome.
 
It's now official-I'm confused! :D

I'm not sure full syncing to Apple's (or anyone's for that matter) cloud is a feasible idea.

I don't have a particularly large iTunes library (it's 250 gig or so)
I spent 6 months ripping to iTunes (and backing up of course!), but I'm not sure what the advantage is here.

I'm lucky in that I'm with 3 (UK) for my mobile/cell provider and I get truly unlimited data (only 3 offer this in the UK) and I also get very good coverage where I live/work (an average of 5 or 6Mbps down).

I'm guessing that I once I had sync'd my iTunes library to Apple's iCould (all 250 gig of it?? :eek: ), I could then listen to anything from my library using my phone's 3G connection?

In honesty, it's a nice feature, but not important to me as I don't carry a lot of music on my phone as I don't often have the opportunity to listen to it while travelling.

I have a few albums on it and I have 1 playlist that I update regularly that I listen to on my motorbike, but other than that I'm not travelling often enough to want/need to listen to anything from my 250 gig collection.

Couple that with the fact that most residential ISPs (in the UK anyway) have a data transfer limit that includes uploads as well as downloads, so if my ISP was one of those (which fortunately it isn't), I'd never be able to upload my 250 gig collection without hitting a cap and getting some kind of warning from them.

Or am I missing something? :eek:
 
Last edited:
Or am I missing something? :eek:

Yep! In a good way though. :D

You might have heard that Amazon and Google recently both launched 'music locker' services that seems superficially similar to what Apple's rumoured to be launching. A 'locker' though, is a pretty good name for it. You have to put music in it (uploading) yourself, and only then can you stream it to your various devices. This is because they both decided that the licensing terms were too onerous, so they came up with a compromise that they figured was acceptable (at least temporarily).

Apple, on the other hand, has properly licensed this service with the four major music labels. The primary advantage of this lies in Apple being able to simply scan your library and then give you access to the iTunes store's copy of that song. This sort of thing is ideal for handling music, movies and TV shows (the last two are reportedly going to be available via iCloud too, subject to licensing deals with the big movie studios), since songs don't vary between individuals. If you want any of your other personal data (photos, documents, etc) on iCloud, you're going to have to upload them since that data is unique to you.
 
The keynote video is fascinating - 14 years old, but what Steve was saying is still so interesting. I was hanging on every word. I also liked the very interactive nature of that keynote.
 
The keynote video is fascinating - 14 years old, but what Steve was saying is still so interesting. I was hanging on every word. I also liked the very interactive nature of that keynote.

Yep impressive!

Funny how he had just got back to Apple, you can feel the pokes at current Apple management.
 
I really don't like how Apple is coming out with all these new devices that are seriously crippled (they have 2-3 functions each).

For example, the AirPort Express vs AirPort Extreme vs TC.

Or,

Apple Mini vs ATV.

Now, I have an ATV2 and I still don't know how its really supposed to be used. Sure, I shelled out $99, but most on here would spend $99 on anything with an Apple label on it. Looks great underneath my 52 inch though.

So, now we are going to get another device? One that will just act as a media server (certainly not a new/revolutionary idea, btw), which our Macs can already do anyway. But, we will not have to keep it on (big ***** deal).

I'm at the point where I think I'll just buy a Mini, which will allow me to use my ATV2 as a paper weight, will prevent me from having to waste more money on buying this iCloud device, and will also make a great HTPC too. And if you add up all the money people who spend on this new iCloud device + an ATV + a TC, I bet it reaches the same as the cost of a Mini (but with the Mini not being as crippled).
 
No new Time Capsule announced today. Perhaps it will be announced in the fall to coincide iCloud launch (as to not sabotage existing product sale), but disappointing.
 
No new Time Capsule announced today. Perhaps it will be announced in the fall to coincide iCloud launch (as to not sabotage existing product sale), but disappointing.

Agreed. I was certain it would be in the iCloud segment or steve's one more thing. Fall it must be.
 
What!? No Time Capsule? If iCloud only stores my most recent items, 5GB max, and the rest has to be stored on my Mac then how can they say the iDevices will now be independent of the Mac / PC?

They even mentioned that many users are stating they want the iPad / iPhone to be their only device. So in this case where the heck will they store their files?

:confused:
 
What!? No Time Capsule? If iCloud only stores my most recent items, 5GB max, and the rest has to be stored on my Mac then how can they say the iDevices will now be independent of the Mac / PC?

They even mentioned that many users are stating they want the iPad / iPhone to be their only device. So in this case where the heck will they store their files?

:confused:

I sure hope they come out with the new Time Capsule or AEBS soon. :(
 
Agreed. I was certain it would be in the iCloud segment or steve's one more thing. Fall it must be.
I have a strong feeling that new models will be announced rather sooner than later.
Maybe already tomorrow - Apple often announces new hardware products on tuesdays.

If I'm not mistaken, today's keynote was explicitly said to be about software.
It probably just didn't fit into today's keynote.

"Apple's Retail Stores (are reportedly) Running Dry of AirPort and Time Capsule Stocks?". As seems to be the channel - well, at least where I live: Several of the biggest Apple retailers in Europe (Germany and Switzerland - and I work for one of them) are currently out of stock on at least one Time Capsule model.

You can probably say the same for other markets. I am not familiar with the U.S. reseller market at all, but, for instance, MacMall, who are advertising very prominently on AppleInsider, are currently out of stock on both models as well.
 
Last edited:
What!? No Time Capsule? If iCloud only stores my most recent items, 5GB max, and the rest has to be stored on my Mac then how can they say the iDevices will now be independent of the Mac / PC?

They even mentioned that many users are stating they want the iPad / iPhone to be their only device. So in this case where the heck will they store their files?

:confused:

I'm surprised too about the lack of the TC announcement. For many reasons, it looked like TC was a natural companion for any iCloud launch. I'm completely surprised about iTunes Match- especially if as many are speculating- the end result is converting even pirated media into legitimate media for as little as only a 1-time $24.99 fee (I just can't believe that).

As to your last point, I'm guessing the concept is that the iDevice-only user is assumed to be starting from scratch (no media on hand because they don't have a computer). However, I also bet the 5GB is not the only option, and that more space option will be announced soon... for a price.
 
I like the idea of iCloud but not the idea of giving all my data over to apple. The time capsule implementation would be ideal, so I can still sync all my devices wirelessly and automatically but keep my data safe from data scrubbers and prying eyes.
 
What I've been waiting for!

I desperately need this... the 64GB on the air is too small for even my music collection, much less movies.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.