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Remote iTunes Streaming to iPhone or iPod Touch?
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I do NOT want to stream. I think they should put there efforts & resources into MORE, and CHEAPER storage.
Give us a 64gb iPhone next year for the same cost!
But you asked what are the benefits of streaming music, and there are many benefits but they don't fit you? Maybe Apple are making this for everyone else and not just you?
It's nothing but a huge + for me. I'd probably sync a few of my fave albums to my iPhone and simply store TV shows, films and photos. A 250gb iTunes library and an 8-16gb iPhone don't really go hand in hand. I couldn't even store all my music on that!
Unfortunately I can't see this being great for video playback. Unless it could cache the file and I could watch it in 30 minutes or so. Suppose this is what 4G will be good for.
yea... except for the lucky few of us without a **** ISP like Comcast, it's not an issue... besides, think of it. how many songs at... say 192 kb/s... can you fit in a 5 GB bandwidth cap? Enough to get you through quite a few hours of waiting at the airport.
As for those of you hoping for 3G availability... why? it uses up twice as much battery as WiFi. and don't say you'll be able to cut storage for a bigger battery cause that's not going to happen. Less physically available music isn't going to cut storage for other apps.
True, Comcast is the only one doing it now, but that won't last long. All of them are going to implement it.
Well, just with my drive to work and back I would go through over 2.5GB of upload bandwidth in a month. That is only with a 30 minute drive to work. 30 minute drive, average 3 minute song, would be 10 songs in one direction. So 20 songs to and from work, average 4MB per song, and 30 days a month, that would be around 2.4GB. I listen to music throughout the day while at my desk. So with a 5GB bandwidth cap I could only listen to music maximum an hour a day.
I think I'll stick with local storage on the device.
What about energy consumption?
If you have an iPhone without local music and you want to listen to your content everywhere that means even more devices running 24/7 at your home!
Even a small Mac Mini with a DSL modem and a router is about 50W, constantly running. At a typical 0,20€ /kWh this is more than 80€ per year. If ithe server is a Pentium4 based PC, the cost can easily exceed your mobile contract.
Millions of this devices in use? Extra nuclear power stations for this "luxority"? Is it really worth it? If you use the device for three years, you pay 240€ for electricity. You could have a lot of storage space for that price - and energy will become more expensive while storage becomes cheaper.
Christian
If you have an iPhone without local music and you want to listen to your content everywhere that means even more devices running 24/7 at your home!
Even a small Mac Mini with a DSL modem and a router is about 50W, constantly running. At a typical 0,20€ /kWh this is more than 80€ per year. If ithe server is a Pentium4 based PC, the cost can easily exceed your mobile contract.
Millions of this devices in use? Extra nuclear power stations for this "luxority"? Is it really worth it? If you use the device for three years, you pay 240€ for electricity. You could have a lot of storage space for that price - and energy will become more expensive while storage becomes cheaper.
Christian
Isn't practical?? What do you mean? This simply uses your home broadband internet connection to connect your PC/Mac to your iPhone. Very simple, really.
WTF?
Not in America. Everything is unlimited. No bandwidth caps for internet, unlimited iphone internet. For an iphone user, it's bad to live in canada =)
Give it time. Most American ISPs are starting to test out and place limits on their connections.
Avoiding having to sync
This possible feature sounds fine, but seems to only partially and inadequately address the identified problem, namely that "iPhone or iPod touch owners must selectively sync content from their Mac or PC's iTunes library." I'm a big podcast listener, so what would entice me to buy a touch would be if I could subscribe to podcasts on iTunes on the touch and download the files directly rather than subscribe on my computer and then sync the podcasts to the touch. For much of my travel, this would mean that I could happily leave my laptop (and nano) at home and use the touch for almost all of what I'd use the laptop for -- email, browsing, podcasts.
It seems so obvious to me that this is a feature that should be a natural part of the iPhone/Touch system. I've never heard a convincing reason why it isn't.
This possible feature sounds fine, but seems to only partially and inadequately address the identified problem, namely that "iPhone or iPod touch owners must selectively sync content from their Mac or PC's iTunes library." I'm a big podcast listener, so what would entice me to buy a touch would be if I could subscribe to podcasts on iTunes on the touch and download the files directly rather than subscribe on my computer and then sync the podcasts to the touch. For much of my travel, this would mean that I could happily leave my laptop (and nano) at home and use the touch for almost all of what I'd use the laptop for -- email, browsing, podcasts.
It seems so obvious to me that this is a feature that should be a natural part of the iPhone/Touch system. I've never heard a convincing reason why it isn't.
Here are two big ones testing it out already.
Time Warner
http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/policy/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208401833
Comcast
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/94185?r=171
http://www.lightreading.com/blog.asp?blog_sectionid=419&doc_id=153177&site=cdn
While it is only a small provider, Bend Broadband is doing it.
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=155814&site=cdn
I wish it wasn't going to happen, but it is.
Simplify Media
I;ve been using the great service Simplify Media have been offering for over a year now, and use the iTunes library on my home computer to listen to the music on the road, using a Wifi connection.
I now am testing it on the iPhone and it works wonderfully over EDGE, 3G and Wifi. I have a bottomless iPhone. The only issue would be O2UKs fair use data policy.
The connection from home is never an issue as we are lucky enough to have super fast (for the UK!!) cable at about 20Mbps.
I hope Apple do go down this route - but then why would they make high capacity devices? Only reason would be for on an aircraft or far out at see, or if there were no comms at all.
Jim
I;ve been using the great service Simplify Media have been offering for over a year now, and use the iTunes library on my home computer to listen to the music on the road, using a Wifi connection.
I now am testing it on the iPhone and it works wonderfully over EDGE, 3G and Wifi. I have a bottomless iPhone. The only issue would be O2UKs fair use data policy.
The connection from home is never an issue as we are lucky enough to have super fast (for the UK!!) cable at about 20Mbps.
I hope Apple do go down this route - but then why would they make high capacity devices? Only reason would be for on an aircraft or far out at see, or if there were no comms at all.
Jim