Apple’s iCloud streaming service a go, deals with labels, studios all done?

By on May 31, 2011 at 10:49 PM
mobile May 31, 2011

Unlike Amazon and Google who launched half-baked cloud storage services for music, it’s going to be Apple that shows the world how something is done properly once again, it seems. According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple has finally struck deals with the four major recording companies in addition to movie studios:

Apple Inc. has reached terms with major recorded-music companies to allow it to launch a digital locker service that would be more robust than those currently offered by Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

According to these people, deals with three labels have been completed, and the fourth, with Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, is likely to be signed this week. Apple has signed deals with Warner Music Group Corp., Sony Corp.’s Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Group Ltd.

Add that on to a CNET report that Apple executives were all over film studios for more than a year, and it sure looks like iCloud won’t be just a simple MP3 locker, but a robust service that combines all kinds of multimedia, and most likely, social and location-aware elements as well, tied tightly into iOS 5.Read

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  • Michael Scrip

    Monday June 6th… 100% chance of clouds….

  • Anonymous

    “Unlike Amazon and Google who launched half-baked cloud storage services for music, it’s going to be Apple that shows the world how something is done properly once again, it seems”. Really? In which ways are those services half baked? In that they do not require paying fee to music labels for music that you already own? We’ll see. There is a good chance that iCloud will be as well baked as another Apple’s service called Ping.

  • Anonymous

    Good luck being able to stream anything you ripped from CD’s legitimately purchased.  It will merely scan your collection that you bought from itunes and charge you a monthly fee to stream it and call it “magical”.  You also won’t be able to download any of the content unlike what google and amazon allow you to do today.  

    There’s a reason why amazon and google didn’t give in to the music companies… It’ll be tied to the bloated itunes software in a supposed post pc era, Have fun isheep ;)

    • Anonymous

      Damn, you’ll look like a fool in a few months when Google and Amazon have to crawl to the money-grubbin’ music industry mafia to secure licenses and follow in Apple’s footsteps.  Again.

      • slackerjack

        Yeah…I’ll look like a fool for having months worth of DRM-free streaming music.  The only thing worse than people who don’t take a stand for what they believe in is people who don’t take a stand for what they believe in and bitch about the people that do :P – but go on…support Apple and the “money grubbin’ music industry mafia” freely – that’ll show em…

      • Anonymous

        Apple ain’t be usin’ no DRM for years now, foo’.

    • Anonymous

      Like I told the other dork. You don’t know what there doing.

    • Michael Scrip

      – “Good luck being able to stream anything you ripped from CD’s legitimately purchased.  It will merely scan your collection that you bought from itunes and charge you a monthly fee to stream it and call it “magical”.”

      Speaking of monthly fees… when will Google and Amazon start changing for their service?
      Assuming million of people start using their music locker services… that’s a lot of bandwidth flowing out of their data centers.

      And bandwidth ain’t cheap. I never really thought of that…

  • slackerjack

    “Unlike Amazon and Google who launched half-baked cloud storage services for music, it’s going to be Apple that shows the world how something is done properly once again, it seems”
    Other likely scenario’s based on the above statement:

    Also seems likely that BGR is going to continue swinging from old Apple’s teste’s like everything else
    Also seems likely that despite any solid details, media outlets will assume that Apple’s solution is somehow “more robust”
    Also seems likely that “social and location-aware elements” will be found to be useless by 90% of people just trying to listen to music
    Also seems likely that Apple was late to the party and will use this as an excuse for at least the first year of terrible service
    Also seems likely that DRM will screw over, unjustifiably, at least a significant % of owners of actual music (as it screws it up with everything else from movies to games)

    Also seems likely that it’ll be yet another Apple product that Apple zealots go batcrap crazy over simply because it’s branded “iCrap”

    • Zac Caslin

      Nothing but Jealous fanboys in here i see.

      • slackerjack

        Jealous of what – an overpriced DRM-ridden solution that will undoubtedly break the DRM rules in favor of an the music industry whenever there’s a question about legitimate ownership?  Jealous of having only one platform option so that even if the iCloud sucks…I don’t have anywhere else to turn?  Tempting…but

        No thanks…I’ll take my 100% DRM free solution thanks!

      • Anonymous

        I see you have been in a cave or something the last few years, so let me be the first to welcome you to the present where there isn’t DRM on music in iTunes.

      • S1ackerjack

        Quite te contrary…iTunes is loaded with DRM…you have to pay extra to buy DRM free music

  • http://twitter.com/SonsofAres Sons of Ares

    Can’t shake the feeling that Apple was quietly working on this service, then Amazon and Google suddenly appeared, banging pots and making all sorts of noise, and then Apple’s offering has morphed into a panacea that may leave some fans with a sense of “Is that it?”

    At that point, tech bloggers will confuse their expectations with an explicit promise by Apple.

    • slackerjack

      Don’t worry – they’ll still find a way to make it Google and Microsoft’s collective fault…because that’s what tech blogger’s do!

  • Greg

    How is Amazon’s service “half-baked?” Oh, it’s a good value for consumers, unlike anything Apple has ever produced. Making deals with studios really just means, “screwing the consumer in every possible way.” 

    BGR has been axed from my RSS feed.

    • Anonymous

      First off you don’t have a clue what apple has going on yet or what they produced. And yes google and amazons service as of now are half baked.

      • Steve

        You’re half-baked…

      • Jayhammy

        You obviously have no clue what you’re talking about. I have Amazon and Google’s streaming services and, I must say, they both ROCK in their own way. I’ve uploaded my entire music library to both services and they play extremely well with no lag on 3G at all, ever. 

      • slackerjack

        Neither do you and that you just assume that Apple is doing right by you simply because they’re doing something is as naive as you can get.  And it’s amazing how many times people are willing to throw around “Half Baked” to describe Amazon and Google’s collective cloud services without any real gripes as to why.  I seriously doubt that many of you have even tried their offerings because…oops…they’re not available on the iPhone that you sleep with like a teddy bear every night!

      • Anonymous

        You’re right I don’t know what apple is going to do. But I bet it’s done right and done better than what amazon and goggle are doing. As far as “half baked” goes every company does things half ass to rush it out to get one step ahead of apple. Look at android that’s as half baked as you can get. And amazons cloud service is available through the browser on iOS and is shit just FYI. And yes I have tried it. And how do you know that I sleep with my iPhone ya stalker.

      • Jayhammy

        You obviously have no clue what you’re talking about. I have Amazon and Google’s streaming services and, I must say, they both ROCK in their own way. I’ve uploaded my entire music library to both services and they play extremely well with no lag on 3G at all, ever.

      • Anonymous

        Please learn to read. I never typed anything about lag.

      • Orion

        Wait, wait… you say that Android is half-baked, yet the pundits are guessing that iOS is finally going to get widgets and a decent notification system, both things Android has had for ages.  And in its last major iteration, iOS finally got the ability to have backgrounds and folders.  Android, coincidentally, has had those for ages as well.  In fact, it may have had all of the things I’ve indicated since its inception. 

        Look, I’m not saying that Android doesn’t owe Apple a lot.  I’m not saying that Apple has not clearly contributed to the smartphone ecosystem.  Clearly, they have.  I have a macbook and love it, so I’m no Apple hater.  But to say that Android, that has a number of features that Apple has aped and (if the pundits are correct) will be aping again in the very near future, is half-baked… well, that’s inane without some examples or further explanation.

        I’m happy that there are two juggernauts that are fighting it out.  You should be, too.  It helps innovation and pricing.  As it stands, Android addresses my needs better than iOS (mostly because of widgets, which I use extensively).  If iOS addresses your needs better, that’s great.  Please don’t presume that we all lead macboy lives, however, and please don’t paint an operating system that your operating system of choice is imitating as half-baked.  It makes you look as silly as those people who blindly bash Apple, despite the many design cues that Android has copied from them.

      • Anonymous

        First I could care less about what the pundits say never did care. Second if I do have widgets I will shut them off. I don’t need to know the weather every second. And I like my battery to last all day not four hours like the evo I had. And backgrouds are cool when you’re a teenager still havent changed mine. Better notifications then what we have now I’ll take. I had a evo 4g and the notifications were not that great at all. And since when is 3 years of android os on a phones considered as ages? And not android but the whole cell phone industry owes apple and bb for what they brought to the table. But they get no respect. Was not for the first iPhone none of this would be around. Just saying.

      • Orion

        Whether you care about the pundits or not misses the point.  The question is whether they are correct (a big “if” admittedly) that Apple is preparing to (again) copy certain functionality that Android already has, which tends to undermine your (still unsupported) assertion that Android is half-baked. Even if Apple isn’t about to again copy Android, Apple has already copied aspects of Android (multi-tasking is another in the non-exclusive list I’ve set out (no worries… I’m sure that you don’t use that, either)).  Your experience notwithstanding, all iOS users have greater options because of the competition and example that Android set and that Apple has followed.  Most of the rest of your post simply bolsters my argument that your choice of OS should be what suits *you* best and not bald, unsupported tripe that name-calls the competition).  So don’t use widgets if you don’t like them, but don’t argue that not having the option of using them (for people who use them and for things other than the weather since widgets have evolved far beyond that) is a good thing.  Don’t customize your phone with ringtones or backgrounds or icons if you don’t want to, but don’t try to argue that giving people the choice to personalize their phones is a bad thing.

        I’ve never had an evo, so I can’t speak to its battery life.  My droid incredible never has an issue with a full days’ use, and I’m a fairly heavy user.  While I’ve never needed (nor do I own) a spare battery, I do like the ability to swap batteries, just in case.  You probably like Apple’s approach, and I’m not knocking it.  They have good battery life, but it’s again an issue of choice.  And your choice isn’t necessarily correct for everyone else.  Your posts (not just this one, but so many of your posts) make Apple users like me cringe, because you play to the stereotype that Apple users are self-involved and ego-centric, believing that Apple products aren’t necessarily just better for them, but they are, per se, better for everyone.  As if your experience is the experience that everyone else should value, irrespective of differences in style, productivity, and preference.  Other people liking competing products isn’t a personal slight.  Just… back away from the edge… just a little.

      • Orion

        Wait, wait… you say that Android is half-baked, yet the pundits are guessing that iOS is finally going to get widgets and a decent notification system, both things Android has had for ages.  And in its last major iteration, iOS finally got the ability to have backgrounds and folders.  Android, coincidentally, has had those for ages as well.  In fact, it may have had all of the things I’ve indicated since its inception. 

        Look, I’m not saying that Android doesn’t owe Apple a lot.  I’m not saying that Apple has not clearly contributed to the smartphone ecosystem.  Clearly, they have.  I have a macbook and love it, so I’m no Apple hater.  But to say that Android, that has a number of features that Apple has aped and (if the pundits are correct) will be aping again in the very near future, is half-baked… well, that’s inane without some examples or further explanation.

        I’m happy that there are two juggernauts that are fighting it out.  You should be, too.  It helps innovation and pricing.  As it stands, Android addresses my needs better than iOS (mostly because of widgets, which I use extensively).  If iOS addresses your needs better, that’s great.  Please don’t presume that we all lead macboy lives, however, and please don’t paint an operating system that your operating system of choice is imitating as half-baked.  It makes you look as silly as those people who blindly bash Apple, despite the many design cues that Android has copied from them.

  • Capt601

    What happens as AT&T lowers their data limits and the cloud is just too expensive for normal people to use

  • worldbfree4me

    What about the music I napped from Napster, and the like. Will there be a statue of limitations or some sort of waiver on pirated music in the iCloud? cause in the A and G Cloud, I store and stream worry free!

  • Katypee

    there’s a pretty good part of me that is considerably shocked when i see iphone sales still somehow hanging on.  i had the first 3 iphones and switched to android after it caught on.  now i’m not saying the world should follow my moves, but i sure haven’t looked back and i loved my iphones, but after you use android for a month or so, it just feels ancient, outdated and limited.  the argument always gets made that it does what you do well, and that it does, but you quickly find out what it doesn’t do after straying for a bit.

    • Jayhammy

      I’m sure there’s more than iPhone doesn’t do than what Android doesn’t do. 
      Compare features and you’ll see. Yeah, sure, iPhone is all “purty” and fluid, but that’s where it ends. 

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