Apple To Beat Google On Cloud Music

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Apple To Beat Google On Cloud Music

Posted by Soulskill on Friday April 22, 2011 @03:06AM from the hey-guys-what-else-can-we-stream dept.

yogidog98 writes with this excerpt from a Reuters report: "Apple Inc has completed work on an online music storage service and is set to launch it ahead of Google Inc, whose own music efforts have stalled, according to several people familiar with both companies' plans. Apple's plans will allow iTunes customers to store their songs on a remote server, and then access them from wherever they have an Internet connection, said two of these people who asked not to be named as the talks are still confidential."

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Amazon beat them both by Enry · 2011-04-22 03:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'm slightly interested to see what Apple does, but it's likely they'll integrate only with iOS devices and iTunes. Amazon's works with web browsers and Android devices (and I hope they release an API soon). Google will likely be the most open in terms of mobile support and maybe more likely to have an API to integrate their cloud with third party apps.
1. Re:Amazon beat them both by chemicaldave · 2011-04-22 03:16 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I'm slightly interested to see what Apple does, but it's likely they'll integrate only with iOS devices and iTunes.
  I don't know what they'll do, but you can be sure they'll use the term "revolutionary new service."
2. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:34 · Score: 1
  
  revolutionary and magical new service.
  there, fixed that for you. and people will believe it.
3. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:39 · Score: 0
  
  which will change everything all over again again!!11!!
4. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:39 · Score: 0
  
  And rest assured that we will be seeing daily updates on Slashdot about the sales of Apple's service and how this means all other competitors should just close up shop and give up. Also Linux sucks.
5. Re:Amazon beat them both by Americano · 2011-04-22 03:43 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Be honest: do you really expect any company to announce a new product or service, and say something like, "It's kind of boring, really, and you'll probably hate it, but we hope to sucker a few people into spending their hard-earned coin on it. Thanks for coming by today."
  If you make a new product that you want to sell to the world, then yeah, it's sort of Marketing-101 that you behave as if you're excited about it. If your competitor makes a new product that you wish you had made, then yeah, it's sort of Marketing-101 that you behave as if it's no big deal and it'll never succeed in the market - all while furiously trying to finish your own offering that does the same thing.
  I've never understood why Apple's use of basic marketing strategy seems so *outrageously* offensive to some people - every company does it. So is it just that Apple tends to back up their marketing with fairly solid products, rather than saying "It's amazing!" while they wink and hand you a fresh turd and a DIY polish kit?
6. Re:Amazon beat them both by fortapocalypse · 2011-04-22 03:44 · Score: 1
  
  I burned some supposedly high quality mp3s from Amazon and it still sounds like crap on my CD player.
  
  If I pay for it, it better be as good as listening to a CD when I burn it to CD.
  
  People wonder why p2p is such a problem. Hmm. Tough to figure out.
  
  Master recording -> FLAC, please!
  
  But, subscription music has and will be where it is at, not buying specific songs, which is sooo January 8, 2001.
7. Re:Amazon beat them both by DaveSlash · 2011-04-22 03:48 · Score: 2
  
  I haven't heard anyone point out that the Ubuntu One Music Store exists. https://one.ubuntu.com/music/
  
  --
  Burn FAT not OIL
8. Re:Amazon beat them both by degeneratemonkey · 2011-04-22 03:54 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It's not the marketing hype that garners resentment. It's the fact that, for some incredible reason, many Apple fans actually believe that hype.
  
  I have a manager in my company who is completely enamored of Apple. He tweeted about walking past an Apple talk at GDC. He buys every iteration of every Apple device. He actually believes that Apple is fundamentally changing the world with their devices. He's an idiot, and he's not an outlier.
9. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 04:09 · Score: 1
  
  Do a lot of people really use Ubuntu One Music store to buy music?
10. Re:Amazon beat them both by Americano · 2011-04-22 04:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I guess what I don't get is, why does somebody else's appreciation for something bother you so much in the first place?
  I'm not a particularly big fan of wine, but I don't get worked up into a lather when wine tasters talk about the sweet tannins and smoky aftertaste of the oak, chocolate and honey notes - I just shrug, and say "I'll have a Guinness, please." I'm not a particularly big fan of Scandinavian death metal, but I don't get overly worked up when people talk about some sort of operatic death metal album as "the best album, hands-down, ever made," I just shrug and say "Oh, so they found a way to improve on At Folsom Prison?"
  There's this odd foreshortening of perspective in some geeks where they seem to get terribly emotionally involved in whether or not somebody else likes something that they don't. See: vi/emacs; Linux/Windows/MacOS; BSD/GPL; Apple/Google; etc. etc. It's not even that somebody is *criticizing the things they love.* It's that *somebody else likes something different,* which seems to just rock their whole universe off its foundations.
  It seems that only the most literal-minded of idiots would hear Apple describe the iPad as "magical," and think, "My god, they actually are trying to tell people they manufacture it out of unicorn farts." Marketing speak is marketing speak: nobody *really* believes that they're going to get the bikini model pictured next to the Toyota Camry. Nobody *really* believes that the iPad is, literally, a magical device, operating under its own set of physics unlike anything else in the world.
11. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 04:16 · Score: 0
  
  I'm slightly interested to see what Apple does, but it's likely they'll integrate only with iOS devices and iTunes.
  I don't know what they'll do, but you can be sure they'll use the term "revolutionary new service."
  Which they bought from lala.com. (Opens up breakfast-40 and pours out onto ground for defunct amazing music service)
12. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 04:34 · Score: 0
  
  in all fairness, linux does suck.
13. Re:Amazon beat them both by Kjella · 2011-04-22 04:38 · Score: 2
  
  No, Apple rubs it in slashdot's face that it's not the engineers and technical innovation that sells stuff. Like so many have pointed out Microsoft had windows tablets long before Apple did. Same with most everything Apple does, people point to some reason why the competitor is a technically superior product - and then Apple wins. Hell, sometimes it's just rebranding an age old idea that never caught on like Facetime.
  The attitude remind me of certain IT systems that technically work fine - except nobody uses it. In every project manager's book that is a failure, the success is the project that has users and make people change how they work. I wouldn't go so far as "fundamentally change the world", but I know plenty people that have changed by using iDevices. Many people who'd never before have had a smart phone, for instance.
  The only reason Apple got some loving here is because they used BSD as the basis of OS X - not that the kernel has any significant part in what makes Apple a success. FreeBSD and friends don't even register as desktop market share without everything Apple built on top, sure they're happy to not have to license a proprietary kernel but that's what they would have done. Also they don't need to be so intimidating as Microsoft because if you want their products you have to buy their hardware.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
14. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 04:46 · Score: 0
  
  POTY. Very well said.
15. Re:Amazon beat them both by Raenex · 2011-04-22 04:50 · Score: 1
  
  There's this odd foreshortening of perspective in some geeks where they seem to get terribly emotionally involved in whether or not somebody else likes something that they don't.
  I think that's pretty much human nature. People are the same way about cars or whatnot, and music too, even if you yourself are above it. Being a geek is somewhat trendy these days, but how many people over the years got shit for being into computers?
16. Re:Amazon beat them both by arose · 2011-04-22 04:53 · Score: 1
  
  And Canonical beat Amazon...
  
  --
  Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
17. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 04:55 · Score: 2
  
  No, Apple rubs it in slashdot's face that it's not the engineers and technical innovation that sells stuff.
  Huh? Apple is a good example of how engineering and technical innovation do matter, when used to solve problems people care about. The egomania required to think apple is "rubbing it in slashdot's face" when they create things people outside slashdot's narrow set of super-nerds wants borders on mental illness.
18. Re:Amazon beat them both by intheshelter · 2011-04-22 04:57 · Score: 1
  
  Damn you, you made me choke on my lunch on that one!
19. Re:Amazon beat them both by Triv · 2011-04-22 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  There's this odd foreshortening of perspective in some geeks where they seem to get terribly emotionally involved in whether or not somebody else likes something that they don't.
  (stereotypes ahead)
  If you've spent years realizing, by outside standards, that you're not athletic, or socially adept, or popular, or catered to, you realize the thing you CAN be is right. Being right about things that are quantifiable is risky, but being right about things that are completely subjective delivers the superiority payload while carrying very little actual risk.
  --Triv
20. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 05:27 · Score: 0
  
  that's it, slashdot is dead. You're officially a normal person. What I want to know is where all the aspies went to?
21. Re:Amazon beat them both by cpicon92 · 2011-04-22 05:35 · Score: 2
  
  I think what bothers some people is the fact that Apple actually manages to convince a large portion of the population that its products actually are revolutionary...
22. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 05:51 · Score: 0
  
  "Like so many have pointed out Microsoft had windows tablets long before Apple did."
  And they sucked. I had one. It was Windows with a pen that acted like a mouse. There was very little reimagination of the OS to be more pen based. There were a FEW apps, but even then it was horrible to work with. That said, the Newton was a functional computer far before Windows ever had a tablet. It was years ahead of any other technology in its class I had one 15 years ago. Palm had something, but it was a toy in comparison...I owned both because I didn't like to carry cargo pants to put my 'portable' newton away. Palm wasn't bad, but it was limited badly. Even the Palm was an upgrade in usability to anything Microsoft put out. The fact was, without a paradigm jump, the Windows tablet was nothing more than a touch screen Windows mockup. And it sucked.
  And everytime someone points to a 'technically superior product', they forget to talk about how unusable it is, how little software, how amazingly bad it actually is. The original iPods everyone here hated? Were the easiest to use. They didn't feel like plastic pieces of crap. They were fast at getting the sounds in. The 'competitor' that was often thrown around took hours to get the songs in. 'But it could load without itunes' was what everyone said...I'm kinda glad there was a slick interface to manage the files (even if it might have been nice some other time to just drop and drag).
  But the 'technically superior' products seem to look at the hardware without realizing that hardware means nothing without software.
  "sure they're happy to not have to license a proprietary kernel but that's what they would have done"
  The Kernel was actually written by one of the VP's at Apple. The kernel was his...he used BSD and dropped it into it as a replacement for the old kernel. He could have easily written an OS to go along with it, but it was free. And he gave away one of the most advanced free kernels around in doing so.
  The fact about Apple is that if you don't like their products, you can just not use them. They are a small enough force in the industry that unless you have a personal preference, you can find other OS's that work for your software. Those of us that use Apples will tell you that its crude and unrefined and a pain to use...but thats why we use Apple. I use to program Windows -- and I still maintain a large Windows network...and yet my main machine is a Mac. It kills me to RDC into my servers to use them because I can't stand the OS. At the same time, I'm generally the guy that the nerds come to in this operation because I'm the most knowledgable. Maybe this is why I hate Windows so much. If I needed to stick with a CLI, I'd use UNIX. Hell, a lot of my work is done under terminal on the Mac. But not all...thus I couldn't switch to UNIX.
  But no one is forcing you to do ANYTHING with Macs. Ya don't like it? Don't fucking log into an Apple posting to tell us how smug Mac users are. I don't got to LINUX posts and talk smack about it. I don't know other Mac users doing this either. You never find Mac users logging into Windows posts to do this either...generally, Windows bores the hell out of us and we don't care. And yet you find the time to do this...
  What does that tell you about yourself?
23. Re:Amazon beat them both by geekoid · 2011-04-22 05:59 · Score: 2
  
  What if the person who is a wine snob is in a position to force toy to drink wine?
  What happens when they try to you how you should enjoy your beer with the same qualities of wine?
  What happens when they keep telling you you beer is what's wrong with the world, and you should drink wine?
  And by using the term *magical* they are being insulting, and trying to divorce reality from the device.
  Meaning they hide technical qualification under a special blanket so people won't think about it.
  I don't care if someone likes something different, just don't lie about it and turn it into some kind of worship.
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
24. Re:Amazon beat them both by geekoid · 2011-04-22 06:00 · Score: 1
  
  That's cool. Did you submit a story?
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
25. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anthony+Mouse · 2011-04-22 06:02 · Score: 1
  
  I think that's pretty much human nature. People are the same way about cars or whatnot, and music too, even if you yourself are above it.
  I suppose they are, but there is actually a reason for it with technology: Network effects. People always talk about growing the pie and all that, but the simple fact is that if people are using Apple products instead of (rather than in addition to) Linux-based products then it very much impacts people other than the ones who buy the Apple kit, because of the network effects. People make content and drivers and so forth for the platforms that people use. So if geeks want content and drivers and so forth for the platforms they like, they have to get everyday people to use those platforms. And the effectiveness of Apple's reality distortion field is very much one of the impediments to that.
26. Re:Amazon beat them both by dadioflex · 2011-04-22 06:03 · Score: 1
  
  It's not the marketing hype that garners resentment. It's the fact that, for some incredible reason, many Apple fans actually believe that hype.
  It's kinda how normal people feel about Fox news viewers.
27. Re:Amazon beat them both by scot4875 · 2011-04-22 06:04 · Score: 1
  
  I miss the days when Apple tried to compete in terms of performance and features -- stuff that could be measured objectively.
  Now they compete on "design" (subjective -- IMO they put form over function far too much) and magical content. Of course, it's tough to compete on performance when you use the same hardware as everyone else, but still.
  --Jeremy
  
  --
  Jesus was a liberal
28. Re:Amazon beat them both by scot4875 · 2011-04-22 06:12 · Score: 2
  
  I'm not a particularly big fan of wine, but I don't get worked up into a lather when wine tasters talk about the sweet tannins and smoky aftertaste of the oak, chocolate and honey notes - I just shrug, and say "I'll have a Guinness, please."
  This is all well and good; no problem here. The problem arises when they then try to point out how much better their expensive wines are than your Guinness. The problem is when you have to explain to them, "no, I really like what I have, you keep to yours." And the biggest problem is when they convince people who have no opinion either way that they need to spend the extra money to get all of the oak, chocolate and honey notes that they can't even taste, when they would have been perfectly happy with the Guinness.
  The reason we get worked up about describing something as magical is because it's fucking stupid. Obviously nobody thinks they are literally claiming that they manufacture it using magic, or that it is imbued with magical properties. It's a completely pointless superlative; they might as well just be calling it "super awesome extreme!" because it means the same thing -- nothing.
  --Jeremy
  
  --
  Jesus was a liberal
29. Re:Amazon beat them both by poptones · 2011-04-22 06:28 · Score: 1
  
  You're joking, right? Have you ever been condescended to? Spoken to like you don't know what you're talking about, wether you do or not? Being told, in so many words, "what I like is the best and I think your opinion is both ignorant and meaningless?"
  I don't give a fuck what desktop someone uses. If you like windows, fine - I don't, and for a variety of reasons. I also don't like Apple or its OS, for many of the same reasons (evil corporate empire, brainwashed drones, etc). But it's not as if I have never suggested someone ELSE use windows or a mac. I've tried several times to get one friend, who often seems unable to get even the simplest shit done with his windows machine, to get a mac. He refused every time and still insists on asking me questions about how to do things with his windows laptop in spite of me repeatedly reminding him that I myself haven't used Windows since the fucking Clinton administration and, therefore, asking me how to do something in windows makes about as much sense as asking your grandmother who can barely even operate a TV remote.
  I normally avoid OS arguments, although sometimes mu comments abotu the world as I perceive it are necessarily going to be seen by some as "jabs." It's not a religion with me - or, perhaps it is in that I really don't give a fuck WHAT you BELIEVE so long as you don't try to convince me that your superstitious, fanboi mumbo jumbo represents a measured, objective reality. Keep your koolaid to yourself.
30. Re:Amazon beat them both by stewbacca · 2011-04-22 06:31 · Score: 1
  
  The lying and worshiping is all in your little insecure head, my friend.
  Those are some awful analogies as well.
  
  What if the person who is a wine snob is in a position to force toy to drink wine?
  Name one example where Apple, with its 4% desktop market share, has been able to force anyone to use OSX?
31. Re:Amazon beat them both by david_thornley · 2011-04-22 06:32 · Score: 2
  
  It's helped by the fact that some of its products are revolutionary.
  The Apple II was a mass-marketed home computer for people who didn't own an oscilloscope. (Seriously, one review I read of an older computer said it was really easy to build, and the reviewer only had to get the oscilloscope out once.) That was about the same time Radio Shack and Commodore were doing it, but the impact was pretty big.
  The Lisa interface was revolutionary when it came out, before everybody copied it. Sure, the components had been used before at Xerox PARC, but not available to the public and not in a polished whole. It became the Mac interface, and then it was available to a lot more people.
  The iPhone changed the perception of what a smartphone was. The Android is a smartphone in the Apple style, not the Nokia/Blackberry style.
  The iPad created a new market, and again people are trying to enter the market and catch up. (I'm thinking about a Nook Color myself.)
  That's three cases where Apple did something that hadn't been done commercially before, and other companies followed, and one in which it was in the first wave along with a few other companies.
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
32. Re:Amazon beat them both by stewbacca · 2011-04-22 06:41 · Score: 1
  
  Excellent points.
  PC Tablets suck. Period. Full stop. You can't just take a desktop OS, slap it on some ruggedized screen and add a cheap stylus, without making wholesale interface changes and software paradigm shifts. That's why the PC crowd will never understand Apple's successes.
  People who claim about Apple users are insecure.
33. Re:Amazon beat them both by UnknowingFool · 2011-04-22 07:05 · Score: 2
  
  Your premise relies on the assumption that everyday people would have bought into other platforms had Apple not offered their platform. If anything, it seems to me that Apple helps other platforms because they enter into underserved consumer markets and make these geek gadgets cool so that every day people will buy them.
  I guess the best example is the iPad. How long have tablets existed? Well since 2001 when Bill Gates himself was championing their usage, I would say. How did MS fare for ten years? Not very well because MS always focused their tablets to business users first. Consumers were an afterthought. Apple comes along and makes a tablet specifically for consumers and it sells extremely well. Geeks had ten years with the tablet and didn’t do much with it.
  Also, Android launched after the iPhone and it seems to be doing well regardless of Apple. I would argue that Android owes some of its success to Apple. Before the iPhone, smart phones were just geek gadgets or for business users. Now the general consumer can get a wide variety of smartphones made just for them.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
34. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 07:19 · Score: 0
  
  I blame Bill Gates for just how charged this issue gets in the world of computer geeks. From quite early on, he pushed the "there can be only one" POV, killing off competing companies to ensure this was the case. Got the entire industry into that mindset.
  No-one (few?) people expect that there can be only one brand on Ketchup. Or cars.
35. Re:Amazon beat them both by jedidiah · 2011-04-22 07:22 · Score: 1
  
  > I guess what I don't get is, why does somebody else's appreciation for something bother you so much in the first place?
  Why? Because it's obnoxious and often times includes LIES that even Apple Corp would not associate themselves with. Such nonsense, if taken seriously by other similarly clueless consumer types could lead to real consequences. First there would be real consequences for anyone that fell for the fraud and potential nice network and other side effects for those of us that have better taste. ...but mostly because of the obnoxious bits.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
36. Re:Amazon beat them both by jedidiah · 2011-04-22 07:24 · Score: 2
  
  > No, Apple rubs it in slashdot's face that it's not the engineers and technical innovation that sells stuff.
  Perhaps you missed the 80s and 90s.
  Microsoft already established that principle.
  The soundly spanked Apple too and further demonstrated that principle.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
37. Re:Amazon beat them both by Enry · 2011-04-22 07:24 · Score: 1
  
  Not at $3.99/month. The idea? Yes. Execution? No.
38. Re:Amazon beat them both by jedidiah · 2011-04-22 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  Since PC tablets have typically been "premium" items targeted mainly at business, it's hard to say really.
  Apple was the first company to "go ghetto" with the tablet hardware and use something more along the lines of an iPod and thus achieve something resembling cheap.
  I put "PC tablets suck" rants into the same category as "Photoshop rules" rants and for the same reason. The person in question probably never touched either.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
39. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 08:14 · Score: 0
  
  No, Apple marketing is an example of why some womans handbags sell for over $1000. It's not that you need a $1000 handbag to stand up to the abuse of carrying around some makeup, a pocketbook, and a cell phone in that bag safely and securely, you buy that $1000 handbag so every other woman looks at you and says "Wow, look at that handbag!"
  It is a fact of life man, many industries are based on that concept and Apple happens to be only one technology company that falls into that category. Good for them. Apple does make good stuff and those $1000 handbags are good too but if you take away the false sense of sensationalism away, neither is worth the premium price they demand compared to similar products. This concept is no secret man, it's just some people refuse to believe it because they don't want to appear to be one of the people that enjoys the attention even though they go out of their way to get it and justify getting it.
40. Re:Amazon beat them both by CODiNE · 2011-04-22 08:17 · Score: 1
  
  I think it's because geeks are a lot like "objectivists".
  They research something, they weigh the facts, and then make a concrete decision that's completely based on reason.
  Normal people also do this... they're called opinions. The difference is how much evidence they require and how much they trust their sources.
  Just about everyone believes that what they believe is correct. But a geek doesn't have an "opinion" it's ALL FACT. Never mind that they may have missed many important facts, got biased or incorrect news, forget that something seemingly undoubtable a few years back has since been debunked...
  geeks KNOW.
  
  --
  Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
41. Re:Amazon beat them both by tyrione · 2011-04-22 08:33 · Score: 1
  
  What if the person who is a wine snob is in a position to force toy to drink wine?
  What happens when they try to you how you should enjoy your beer with the same qualities of wine?
  What happens when they keep telling you you beer is what's wrong with the world, and you should drink wine?
  And by using the term *magical* they are being insulting, and trying to divorce reality from the device. Meaning they hide technical qualification under a special blanket so people won't think about it.
  I don't care if someone likes something different, just don't lie about it and turn it into some kind of worship.
  Did you write this when you were two fisting beer and wine?
42. Re:Amazon beat them both by Kamiza+Ikioi · 2011-04-22 08:51 · Score: 1
  
  Smugness.
  
  I've never understood why Apple's use of basic marketing strategy seems so *outrageously* offensive to some people - every company does it.
  
  --
  I8-D
43. Re:Amazon beat them both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 09:15 · Score: 0
  
  I blame Bill Gates for just how charged this issue gets in the world of computer geeks. From quite early on, he pushed the "there can be only one" POV, killing off competing companies to ensure this was the case. Got the entire industry into that mindset.
  No-one (few?) people expect that there can be only one brand on Ketchup. Or cars.
  It's always good to have someone to blame. But that explains the ZX vs Commodore vs Atari flamewars and faboyism - which were at a level rivaling the best today - exactly how?
44. Re:Amazon beat them both by Dog-Cow · 2011-04-22 10:02 · Score: 0
  
  I know many Apple users, some going back to the Apple II days. I have never once had anyone try and convince me that Apple was superior to the point of denigrating my choice to use something else. That has only happened on slashdot, and not by Apple users.
  The perception that you try to project on Apple users is just that -- a projection. The feelings, attitudes and behaviors are all yours, you hypocritical shit.
45. Re:Amazon beat them both by Americano · 2011-04-22 18:55 · Score: 1
  
  And by using the term *magical* they are being insulting, and trying to divorce reality from the device.
  I see. Tell me, did having to read poetry in high school english class also work you up like this? I can only imagine how angry you must've been to learn that some people use their words to say things in a less-than-literal manner.
  I don't think there's been any significant hiding of "technical qualification" with the iPad... the tech specs were pretty clear, and pretty widely available from day 1 on the apple web site for those who were interested enough to look. If you get off on reading lists of features and standards, then you can rub one out to the tech specs of the iPad just as easily as you can rub one out to the Motorola Xoom's specs. Apple simply chose to focus its advertising on the actual usage scenarios for the device, instead of jizzing on about how many hertzabytes and gigaroms the device has. That doesn't mean that they've "hidden" the technical specs, it means that they understand their target market far better than the typical geek getting upset over their ads can ever hope to.
  Reading your post, it's quite obvious that you do "care if someone likes something different," so why pretend that you don't?
46. Re:Amazon beat them both by Americano · 2011-04-22 19:08 · Score: 1
  
  Obviously nobody thinks they are literally claiming that they manufacture it using magic.
  Then why would you get so upset over their use of the term "magical" to describe the device?
  Again: Only the most literal-minded simpleton would read "It's magical," and assume that it's made with 100% Grade A Fairy Poop. Regular people understand that, when Apple says, "it's a magical device," they're saying - "It's really great. It'll surprise you, it'll delight you, it'll make you want to keep playing with it. You're really going to like using this thing, it's pretty special." Now they could have said all of that... or they could have just said, "it's just magical." Guess which one fits better in ad copy?
  You're claiming that you DO understand that their use of the term isn't intended to be literal, and then you're saying that their use of the term makes you angry because they use a term that's... not literally what they mean, as if you've been duped or misled by their claims that it's "magical". Do you get this upset when somebody uses a metaphor around you? Or sarcasm? Or simply chooses a word that does not literally suit their meaning with 100% accuracy?
47. Re:Amazon beat them both by Americano · 2011-04-22 19:11 · Score: 1
  
  Let me see if I can paraphrase that back for you:
  "We get upset because we clearly have better taste than you, and you still dare to disagree with us."
  Thanks for clearing that up.
48. Re:Amazon beat them both by Kyusaku+Natsume · 2011-04-24 02:34 · Score: 1
  
  revolutionary and magical new service.
  there, fixed that for you. and people will believe it.
  Like all of apple's magical products, it will be made with pixie dust, unicorn blood, and leprachaun bones.
  And a small piece of organic hobbit skin to keep the device always clean and shiny.
  
  --
  Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
49. Re:Amazon beat them both by Pollardito · 2011-04-26 04:43 · Score: 1
  
  I think it's because they use the exact same marketing-speak when they add something that actually is new and interesting as they use when they add something that isn't novel at all, like cut-and-paste. No, I don't expect them to say "this is really boring, it's cut and paste", but maybe they could just say "we have cut and paste now" or add it in a bullet point somewhere and leave it at that (AND they use this same lavish praise to describe features that they previously described as worthless and unnecessary when they didn't have them). Most companies have lists of standard features that are beneath discussion and spend their time talking about the ones that are, but Apple seems to require 5 paragraphs of praise for each and every aspect of their products.
  
  That external antenna that everyone was raving about on the iPhone 4 is a good example of this too. Maybe if they weren't talking about how amazing it was to have an external antenna when that fact looked completely meaningless, then people wouldn't have jumped all over them when it became clear that having an external antenna was a really bad idea.
50. Re:Amazon beat them both by Americano · 2011-04-26 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  I'd point out that the "magical" term wasn't used to describe "cut and paste" - in fact, their presentation of "cut and paste" was pretty much "We have cut and paste now." And then they proceeded to show people what they considered to be an elegant way to accomplish cut & paste on a small touchscreen device, along with a host of other "user enhancements" with their 3.0 release.
  It's the literati here on Slashdot who have created the myth that Apple billed cut and paste as anything other than "a new feature we've added in iOS 3.0 that we think we've come up with a great interface for."
  Apple never described cut & paste as "worthless" or "unnecessary". They did describe it as something they wanted to take time to get right, because the touchscreen interface was different and new. This seems to be their design philosophy: rather than give you a bundle of a hundred half-baked features that'll change repeatedly in future releases, they seem to prefer giving you 40 well-thought-out features that stay pretty consistent and stable over the life of the product, and they reserve the other 60 features as "stuff we may do later, once we've had time to think about the implementation more." (see: copy/paste & multitasking).
  This doesn't mean that their designs are always perfect, or even always *good* (cough*magicmouse*cough), but they also don't seem to release "beta" devices, where they throw a million half-finished things into the device and wait to see how things work out in the market.
How will this beat Google? by chemicaldave · 2011-04-22 03:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

Assuming you MUST use an iOS device and MUST use iTunes as is Apple's norm. How is this going to beat more open platforms like Amazon or (I assume) Google. Especially as Android overtakes iOS in terms of users.
1. Re:How will this beat Google? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:17 · Score: 0
  
  How is this going to beat more open platforms like Amazon or (I assume) Google.
  By not going offline for two days?
2. Re:How will this beat Google? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:18 · Score: 0
  
  They're not talking beating as in winning, they're talking beating as in getting to market with it first. (Of course, Amazon has more of a claim on that than Apple does)
3. Re:How will this beat Google? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:25 · Score: 0
  
  It's going to beat them because there's so many iOS devices out there. Even if Android does overtake iOS, Apple has a lot of devices out there and you can't deny that. Not to mention that iOS users probably won't care if Google or Amazon products aren't available since Apple has their own solution.
4. Re:How will this beat Google? by ColdWetDog · 2011-04-22 03:28 · Score: 1
  
  How is this going to beat more open platforms like Amazon or (I assume) Google.
  By not going offline for two days?
  Apple? The folks with company that runs Mobile Mea Culpa? Who's email and hosting servers can, incredibly, stay up for weeks at a time?
  
  Sir (or madam or whomever) you have a fine sense of the absurd.
  
  --
  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
5. Re:How will this beat Google? by Americano · 2011-04-22 03:32 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I don't know anything about the service that doesn't come from speculation I've read in news reports, so your guess is as good as mine. But, here's some points to consider:
  1) It might be a compelling alternative if it's simpler to use, integrated out of the box with your iTunes account and Apple device(s) - iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Apple TV, and Macs running iTunes - not just iPhones.
  2) Android has a ways to go before it overtakes *iOS* in terms of users. We're talking about the entire platform, not just the smartphone segment.
  3) Amazon's "open" platform might not be so "open" after the recording industry gets done with their legal challenges to the Cloud Drive service.
  4) Google may be a big company, but they don't have the one really big stick - namely, the iTunes music store - that Apple does. Apple may actually be able to get the music industry to agree to non-extortionary terms that Google & Amazon simply don't have the leverage to negotiate.
6. Re:How will this beat Google? by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · 2011-04-22 03:34 · Score: 0
  
  Because Apple will have invented it first, and any newcomers will simply be ripping off a revolutionary new technology.
  
  --
  "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
7. Re:How will this beat Google? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:44 · Score: 0
  
  I hope you're trolling, because comparing Apple's servers to Amazon's is fucking retarded.
8. Re:How will this beat Google? by Kjella · 2011-04-22 03:44 · Score: 1
  
  iTunes is as far as I know available for 99% of the desktop market (that is, Windows and Mac) so essentially your argument boils down to the iOS device. I don't think they mind that at all, if you want the Apple service you must use Apple hardware.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
9. Re:How will this beat Google? by splerdu · 2011-04-22 03:47 · Score: 2
  
  > Apple Inc has completed work on an online music storage service and is set to launch it ahead of Google
  If you read the summary, It'll be by releasing first.
10. Re:How will this beat Google? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:49 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, talk about a terrible headline. This is predicting an earlier launch, not predicting a victory as a service. TFA has (basically) the same headline, so I suppose... Go Slashdot! Regurgitate the article!
11. Re:How will this beat Google? by 808Lupine · 2011-04-22 04:09 · Score: 1
  
  I think by "beat" they may mean Apple will be the first to market. It won't necessarily be more open, or a better service, but it will be first.
  
  --
  Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines - Unknown
12. Re:How will this beat Google? by Voyager529 · 2011-04-22 04:39 · Score: 2
  
  4) Google may be a big company, but they don't have the one really big stick - namely, the iTunes music store - that Apple does. Apple may actually be able to get the music industry to agree to non-extortionary terms that Google & Amazon simply don't have the leverage to negotiate.
  You're right, but it would be funny as hell to hear the Google negotiations.
  "We want to start a cloud music service so your customers have more ways to pay for your product"
  "That'll be *puts pinky to mouth* Ten BEEEELION dollars."
  "we were thinking more like...less than that, plus revenue sharing"
  "Well I'm sorry then, but I'm late to a meeting with Steve Jobs for his iStream project negotiations"
  "Alright then, we'll just have to save up our money then. I think we're going to have to downsize, starting with our DMCA takedown department...I'm sure those Rapidshare links will flush themselves in several months...and I dunno if we really have the bandwidth for those awfully popular VEVO videos on Youtube..."
  "...let me go make a phone call."
13. Re:How will this beat Google? by Fahrvergnuugen · 2011-04-22 05:27 · Score: 2
  
  How is this going to beat more open platforms like Amazon or (I assume) Google
  
  You do realize that there are 59% more iOS devices than there are Android devices, don't you? And that this would likely also work with iTunes on the desktop which has a gigantic install base...
  If it is real, how could it "lose"?
  
  --
  Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
14. Re:How will this beat Google? by thetoadwarrior · 2011-04-22 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  My concern with Google is they have a pretty good record at fucking up things that aren't search and then dropping them. So if I were going for a cloud based music solution it would have to be Amazon or Apple. Imo, Google has the most to prove.
15. Re:How will this beat Google? by geekoid · 2011-04-22 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  The goal post for measuring of users between iOS and Android always changes when android beat the previous set of number.
  I'm sure in 2 years people will have another excuse to inflate the iOS number to still 'beat' android.
  MS still kicks both their ass when you consider the entire platform. And if they keep,pissing in each others soup, MS will over take them with the long game.
  4) If they do that, they can expect to be in court for unfair market practices.
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
16. Re:How will this beat Google? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 06:12 · Score: 0
  
  If you read the summary, It'll be by releasing first.
  I hear that's a common problem amongst the Apple fanbois
17. Re:How will this beat Google? by jbplou · 2011-04-22 06:24 · Score: 1
  
  You mean like how open Linux desktops beat closed Windows desktops in terms of users?
18. Re:How will this beat Google? by nurb432 · 2011-04-22 07:19 · Score: 1
  
  It doesn't have to beat them. there are tons of iOS devices out there now, with more flying off the shelves every day.
  Plenty of revenue potential on its own.
  
  --
  ---- Booth was a patriot ----
19. Re:How will this beat Google? by technomom · 2011-04-22 08:41 · Score: 1
  
  Amazon MP3 never went down.
20. Re:How will this beat Google? by Americano · 2011-04-22 18:39 · Score: 1
  
  Really? When have the goalposts been moved? Android fans seem to have set the single arbitrary goalpost of "our platform is the most popular smartphone platform, therefore we win!" As far as I can see, that's pretty much the ONLY metric that Android fans have even been paying attention to, so pray tell - where is this goalpost-moving happening, exactly?
  If you want to actually *compare platforms,* and not just engage in a dick-measuring contest in a narrowly defined segment, then you need to look at the entirety of the install base, because when something is available "for iOS," it's available for all of the millions of iPod Touches & iPads as well.
  
  If they do that, they can expect to be in court for unfair market practices.
  And if they end up in court, you can bet the case will be tossed out amidst howls of derisive laughter. If you have one of the largest outlets for music available, you have a lot more leverage when you go into a negotiation with your suppliers. If you have a proven history of making online music sales convenient, accessible, and profitable, your plans are going to have a lot more credibility. This is not "unfair market practices." You might as well suggest that WalMart is going to end up crushed by the courts because they negotiate bulk discounts with suppliers of paper products and housewares that a single store simply doesn't have the leverage to make happen.
21. Re:How will this beat Google? by Pollardito · 2011-04-26 04:54 · Score: 1
  
  Because they will make it so that if you already do use an iOS device that you CAN'T use the Amazon or Google products on them. There is no Amazon MP3 store app for the iPhone right now for instance. That didn't matter as much when they were just selling song downloads that you could then transfer to iTunes on your computer, but if we're talking about streaming features you'd really need the actual app installed on your device (technically they could make it a mobile web app, but those never seem to work as well). So now you've got an open music store, but you can't put it on your closed device that happens to have a huge install base. That's not entirely different than where we were at with iTunes DRM versus Microsoft's DRM "that can play on any device except iPods", though they don't have quite as much of a market lead as they did back then.
wtf by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:14 · Score: 0

according to several people familiar with both companies' plans
How do people manage to get access to both Google's and Apple's plans while not being able to keep their mouths shut?
1. Re:wtf by Dr_Barnowl · 2011-04-22 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  I presume they work for a major label - that would be the only legit reason to know the plans of both companies with regard to this product. And I expect that being the case, they have a number of incentives to keep their mouth shut, not least the pack of vicious attack lawyers.
Re:First to bat by bennomatic · 2011-04-22 03:15 · Score: 1

Once upon a time, this is also what MP3.com tried to do, but the music industry buried them.

--
The CB App. What's your 20?
Amazon: Been There Done That by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:18 · Score: 0

Meanwhile, Amazon beat both of them. But hey,whatever it takes to further the Google vs Apple meme. right?
1. Re:Amazon: Been There Done That by Idbar · 2011-04-22 03:21 · Score: 1
  
  Well, Microsoft launched their online drives that you were able to mount on any computer and synchronize among all your devices to keep local copies.
  
  That was sometime ago that I tried, I think that what they now call skydrive (and you see product placement all over the tv series).
  
  So the only difference is that this is Apple, and this is limited to music... for now.
2. Re:Amazon: Been There Done That by jedidiah · 2011-04-22 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  No. An online file locker is a bit different than a sync service.
  Either way, both are pretty ancient ideas that are hardly revolutionary being implemented by anyone during this century.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
3. Re:Amazon: Been There Done That by Idbar · 2011-04-22 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  Mmm.. it's not a locker. It's a sync service. I used long time ago, but just checking I think it's called Windows Live Mesh.
  
  When I used it, you had some online storage that you could sync, or you could leave your computer on, and remotely access it through your account. That is, you could have your files in their servers or on your computer and they would help you to remotely access them (which was particularly useful also to connect to computers connected to the internet through ISPs doing NAT).
  
  Anyway, yes that service has been around already commercially available besides what a geek could attempt on their side.
4. Re:Amazon: Been There Done That by jedidiah · 2011-04-22 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  Yup. What you are describing is more like Ubuntu One.
  What Apple seems to be releasing is more along the lines of the service that Amazon has already done.
  Amazon beat both Apple and Google to the punch.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:First to bat by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:19 · Score: 0

and ... now with 10 gb free!
Oblig Dilbert by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:20 · Score: 0

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-01-07/
1. Re:Oblig Dilbert by Dr_Barnowl · 2011-04-22 04:03 · Score: 2
  
  You can use the "fast" links on dilbert.com
  http://dilbert.com/fast/2011-01-07/
  Much less pagecruft.
mp3.com's problem was innovation by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:23 · Score: 1

It was too hard then, and even now, for the music industry to understand how much sense it made for them to catalog and pre-convert all of the audio so that all users had to do was prove they owned a CD by verifying it. It really was an efficient system, and it's too bad they were sued out of doing it.
1. Re:mp3.com's problem was innovation by bennomatic · 2011-04-22 03:30 · Score: 1
  
  Yup. Music's big four are really adept at stunting their own growth. If they see a third party adding value--and thus profiting--their first instinct is to shut it down because nobody is allowed to profit other than them. My feeling is that if they'd let MP3.com do their thing, they might have seen a temporary drop in revenues, but nowhere near the ongoing dip in major label sales we've seen over the past few years. And there wouldn't be nearly the level of bad blood in the market.
  
  --
  The CB App. What's your 20?
2. Re:mp3.com's problem was innovation by somersault · 2011-04-22 03:47 · Score: 1
  
  Seeing the story about Amazon's cloud music service a few weeks ago just reminded me of the existence of Spotify. I decided to try out the premium service and I love it. I don't see why I'd pay similar amounts to use an Amazon/Google/Apple based hosting service for the year, plus have to buy music on top of that. The Amazon service is good in that they don't count stuff you buy on Amazon towards your storage space, but I still think Spotify has them beat on variety. The only reason you might not want spotify is if 320kbps MP3 isn't good enough quality for you. You can synch as many playlists as you want to play offline, so it's pretty much the same as using iTunes and synching to an iPod for people who don't have a cheap or flat rate data connection, except you have a much larger catalogue of music to choose from.. and you can play local music files in Spotify too.
  All this storing your own music/video in the cloud stuff will be pointless once good subscription services and connections are widely available. In some places you can already do HD streaming without any fuss.. we're almost there, and I'm looking forward to it :)
  
  --
  which is totally what she said
Re:Thank goodness by Scareduck · 2011-04-22 03:24 · Score: 1

Yup. "The cloud" is just another way to rip people off while making it more expensive to play music you ostensibly own (mobile devices increasingly come with per-megabyte limits). Why is this attractive to ANY customer? The last time I tried to buy MP3s at Amazon, I was assaulted with a hard sales pitch for their cloud services, now apparently the default for download if you don't look closely. No, never.

--
Dog is my co-pilot.
There's one good thing this time round... by bogaboga · 2011-04-22 03:24 · Score: 0, Troll

...and that is that Apple fanbois will not have to queue up in the wee hours of the morning or night for this service.
This phenomenon has always intrigued me. How someone can line up in the cold, hungry and with limited bathroom facilities in order to be the 'first' to have a device, which by the way, becomes mainstream a few weeks after.
All the while, some clever gentle man is making millions as the fans 'suffer'.
This world is clearly interesting, isn't it?
1. Re:There's one good thing this time round... by NekSnappa · 2011-04-22 03:49 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Really. I mean it's not like opening day of a movie based on a comic book or anything.
  
  --
  I want to shoot the messenger!
2. Re:There's one good thing this time round... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 04:22 · Score: 0
  
  Worst. Comparison. Ever!
  Comic Books ^H^H Graphic Novels are important works of art and literature. The latest shiny fad from Apple is nothing but twaddle, which only fools and sheeple will waste their time on.
3. Re:There's one good thing this time round... by intheshelter · 2011-04-22 05:02 · Score: 1
  
  Or people who care more about how well something works out of the box rather than being able to install Linux on a toaster. . .
4. Re:There's one good thing this time round... by scot4875 · 2011-04-22 06:36 · Score: 1
  
  The people who stand in line for days for those are rather pathetic as well.
  --Jeremy
  
  --
  Jesus was a liberal
5. Re:There's one good thing this time round... by stewbacca · 2011-04-22 06:53 · Score: 1
  
  Worst. Comparison. Ever!
  Comic Books ^H^H Graphic Novels are important works of art and literature. The latest shiny fad from Apple is nothing but twaddle, which only fools and sheeple will waste their time on.
  I'd mark this +1 if I were for certain it is sarcastic. But since I think you might be serious...
Skynet by cultiv8 · 2011-04-22 03:26 · Score: 2

will take Apple down next.

--
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
1. Re:Skynet by Jason+Levine · 2011-04-22 03:52 · Score: 1
  
  Wait. It all makes sense now. Skynet wasn't really a military computer network but was actually developed by the combined efforts of the RIAA and MPAA to take down Internet piracy (and anything that threatened their business model). Skynet was programmed with a rigid interpretation of copyright law, became self-aware and soon reasoned that humans would commit copyright violations every time they thought of or hummed a song. It reasoned that the only way to prevent all copyright violations from occurring would be to destroy humanity. It took over a military computer system and the rest is future-history. Insidious!
  
  --
  My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Not first. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:29 · Score: 0

And they wall-garden grew a few feet higher.
Re:Thank goodness by SocialEngineer · 2011-04-22 03:32 · Score: 1

I've actually found Amazon's cloud service incredibly useful. I listen to music on a myriad of devices; my Android phone, my laptop, my desktop, my work computer.. While I typically don't rely on the cloud service to stream music (unless I'm at a machine with limited storage), it's nice to be able to download my music to all my devices when I want rather than having to manually copy them or utilize my Dropbox account (which I tend to keep full of other stuff). Any time I purchase an album on Amazonmp3 (at least once or twice a month, if I can keep myself restrained), I have it loaded onto the cloud service. Then, when I'm ready to listen to it on a certain device, I just log into my account and download the album. I'm not going to bother uploading all my previously purchased tunes (seeing as how I've got them all loaded and backed up at appropriate locations), of course, but it is nice for situations when you think you've copied an album over to another machine and delete it off of another device (such as my phone), but then discover that you didn't.

--
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
"wherever there's an internet connection" by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:34 · Score: 0

> store their songs on a remote server, and then access them from wherever they have an Internet connection
Meanwhile, I store my music locally on my own devices and have it accessible both where I have an internet connection *and wherever I don't*.
What is this strange obsession with more restrictive, controlled, and less flexible things that people seem to have?
1. Re:"wherever there's an internet connection" by stewbacca · 2011-04-22 06:55 · Score: 1
  
  What is this strange obsession with more restrictive, controlled, and less flexible things that people seem to have?
  It's called "ease-of-use", which Apple is pretty good at. It also works well for complex things like cars.
When will Google start signing artists? by erroneus · 2011-04-22 03:35 · Score: 0

The record publishers, the funding behind the RIAA, live off the work of both living and dead artists. But the publishers don't seem to publish their content directly for online distribution. It somehow seems natural that Google could begin taking the place of the recording industry. So I wonder not "if" that will happen, but "when" that will happen.
Wake me up... by ProppaT · 2011-04-22 03:35 · Score: 2

....when Apple starts a subscription service. I don't need cloud access nor do I want to take the time to upload my collection to the net. I really don't think they'd want me uploading 200gb of hand ripped audio files, anyway. Until then, I'll just stick with listening to my own music on my mp3 player and streaming everything else via PC/cellphone with my $10/m Rhapsody account.

--
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
1. Re:Wake me up... by thestudio_bob · 2011-04-22 03:52 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  ....when Apple starts a subscription service.
  Wow! I thought you guys were a myth or some sort of statistically anomaly. I really didn't think the "Consumer That Wants To Rent Music via Monthly Subscriptions" actually existed.
  So, do you know more of your kind? Where do you live? Do you breed? Is it true that you were created in a lab from record executives scrapings and dead lawyer parts?
  
  --
  The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains /.
2. Re:Wake me up... by Voyager529 · 2011-04-22 04:48 · Score: 1
  
  Lemme try to break it down:
  Renting music is exactly like renting movies. There are certain movies I'll buy shortly after DVD release. There are other movies I'll buy at the bargain bin. Still others I'll get from Netflix. Some I'll watch when they're on broadcast TV and nothing better is on. They all compliment each other.
  I'm a Napster subscriber, and have been since 2005. For $15 a month, I can stream whatever I want, and download protected WMA files. DRM, yes...but I clearly don't own them. I do this in order to determine whether a song or album is worth purchasing before I actually go out and buy it. Some songs I don't like enough to justify the purchase, so they eventually get deleted. Sometimes I'll put on a random playlist.
  The anti-music rental camp seems to believe that renting music is at the complete exclusion of music purchases. I've got a sickening stack of receipts from iTunes, Napster, Amazon, and even buy about half a dozen CDs per year, on top of renting the music. Yes, rental-only is bad. Rental+purchase is not.
3. Re:Wake me up... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 04:55 · Score: 0
  
  I am a myth. I enjoy all the music I want for $15/month. I can take some with me when I'm not connected to the Internets. I don't regret listening to the occasional crap because I didn't have to pay to own it. I don't have to worry about losing my electronic media because I don't have to pretend that I actually own it. I'm not forever tied to one company so I can maintain "ownership." Being a myth is bliss.
4. Re:Wake me up... by ProppaT · 2011-04-22 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  For $10/m, I get to listen to everything that comes out (within reason) as much as I want. I probably listen to 15-20 new releases a month, plus I get to dig through all sorts of old stuff I've never heard of.
  I have a rather enormous music collection at home and it would be impossible, financially and storage wise, for me to buy everything I'm interested in. When I find rarities that I really like, I buy them. If I see something new that I really like, I try to buy it directly from the artist when possible. And, when I do want to listen to an album, it's not always readily accessable due to the size of my collection. $10/m for a subscription service is a really nice compromise.
  Do I want to only rent music? No. Do I want to only rent some music? Yes.
  
  --
  Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
5. Re:Wake me up... by JohnnyConatus · 2011-04-22 05:43 · Score: 1
  
  Despite owning an ipod, three generations of iphones, an iPad, and an Apple TV - I received most of this stuff as perks - I recently joined the "renting" music demographic so that I could stream music to my living room using the Napster app on my Logitech Revue.
  After a few months I have zero regrets because for ~$10/month I have access to millions of songs on-demand. For a dedicated music fan, just the ability to fully preview albums is worth the $120/year in the number of bad purchases it has saved me.
  On the mobile front, though, I have to note that the Napster audio quality is crap. Once there's a Rhapsody app for Google TV I'll likely switch.
6. Re:Wake me up... by stewbacca · 2011-04-22 07:04 · Score: 1
  
  I'm a minority, but as an iDevice user, I would love to pay $15-ish / month to "rent" music, just for music exploration alone. I'd probably end up buying way more music than I do now (are you listening Apple and Music Industry) if I were able to discover music I like from renting. Radio stations suck at discovering new music because by definition, they make music not new (by playing the same pop-tripe over and over again). I've heard enough Katie Perry to know I won't be buying her next album, but I never even heard of Biffy Clyro, but heard one song and bought their entire discography after that.
7. Re:Wake me up... by guruevi · 2011-04-22 07:25 · Score: 1
  
  I would LIKE a streaming/downloading service for $10/month or even $20/month but so far, no legal alternatives have been offered in my region. Rhapsody (REAL *shudder*) and some other minor players have SOME streaming music but it's tightly locked down so I can't play the stream without either Flash or THEIR software. I rather have an OGG/MP3/AAC stream which I can freely download to my system on my terms. Don't treat me as a pirate and I won't need to be a pirate.
  
  --
  Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
8. Re:Wake me up... by jedidiah · 2011-04-22 07:32 · Score: 1
  
  Why bother? There is already a superior free service called Pandora.
  Pandora is going to spank anything that Apple has to offer. Their whole "musical DNA" stuff is far beyond what anyone else offers and is far more effective in terms of "exploration".
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
9. Re:Wake me up... by Voyager529 · 2011-04-22 08:44 · Score: 1
  
  True, but they're for different kinds of discovery. Pandora is great for finding stuff you haven't heard and expanding one's musical horizons. However, if $GOOD_BAND releases a new album, I'm not going to listen to 50 hours of Pandora to hear it. It's also not good at hearing older albums of bands with more recent releases, unless you're station seeds lend themselves to the older era.
10. Re:Wake me up... by Obfiscator · 2011-04-22 20:57 · Score: 1
  
  Sadly, Pandora doesn't work outside the U.S.
  "We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative."
  Maybe I just need to go through seven proxies.
  
  --
  "Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." -Indiana Jones
11. Re:Wake me up... by sincewhen · 2011-04-23 01:19 · Score: 1
  
  So, do you also pay $15 per month to your local shoe store to entitle you to go and try on any of the shoes they have for sale, and later buy the ones you like?
  Not trying to be a dick here, if it is working for you, that's fine with me, but it is a little odd that you have to pay to sample music before you buy it.
  
  --
  -- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
12. Re:Wake me up... by Voyager529 · 2011-04-23 02:02 · Score: 1
  
  I'd pay $15 a month to my local shoe store if they let me try them on, wear them to work or a party, and return them the next day, whenever I wanted, even multiple times a day.
Sorry, amazon already beat them both. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:45 · Score: 0

Since when does slashdot care who comes to market second? When its apple.
Still Vaporware... by Z_A_Commando · 2011-04-22 03:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in order to "beat" Google, doesn't Apple actually have to have a service that's available to the public? Until then, this supposed cloud-based iWhatever is vaporware, just like Google's supposed service.
1. Re:Still Vaporware... by stewbacca · 2011-04-22 07:06 · Score: 1
  
  It's not even vapor ware yet, it's speculation by people who supposedly are in the know about Apple and Google.
  I can make a claim I know something about Apple, but if it's a stupid claim, then I'm to fault, not Apple.
2. Re:Still Vaporware... by vgerclover · 2011-04-22 10:56 · Score: 1
  
  It would be interesting what kind of person is "in the know" of the status of secretive projects in two highly secretive companies. Somebody with lots of friends in California, maybe?
Bad idea by Nihn · 2011-04-22 03:46 · Score: 1

Am I the only one with half a brain on this planet? This fad of "cloud" saving has got to be the dumbest thing to emerge from the idiots who convinced people that their personal information would always be safe and then either lost it all or it was compromised by hackers. How about just keeping your damn files, information, or anything else of value OFF THE INTERNET!!!!!!! You want safety? You want to ensure your info? It's called an external drive or usb flash drive. It keeps ALL you put on it and it's within your own environment meaning you can always access it, modify it, or erase it at your own leisure. Letting someone you never met or know personally having access to your info or data is just......stupid. I never entered anything personal on the net because I'm not an idiot, companies feed off of idiots, who else buys into this failed idea.
1. Re:Bad idea by dragonhunter21 · 2011-04-22 04:08 · Score: 1
  
  I use Mspot, myself, and I don't use it to "store" my music. I use it to keep my music accessible so I can access my collection from just about anywhere, without having to sync everything when I get a new song. (Also so I can use voice to pick a song on my phone.)
  Really, I could give less of a crap if somebody gets into my music- they might be able to delete it from Mspot, but the local copy on my computer that it syncs from stays intact.
  
  --
  Sent from my CR-48
2. Re:Bad idea by geek · 2011-04-22 04:10 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, you are the only person on the planet with only "half a brain." You're special.
3. Re:Bad idea by stewbacca · 2011-04-22 07:09 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, the tradeoff of "safety" versus being able to play my iTunes collection at work over the cloud is not even close.
  What is unsafe about putting my music in the cloud so I can hear it anywhere I go? Am I going to be stalked and murdered based on my music profile? Will the feds access information about me to use against me in trumped up charges?
  I fail to see any risk of uploading my music to a cloud service. Some data is really not all that insidious, ya know.
4. Re:Bad idea by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 07:33 · Score: 0
  
  I don't get it either. My entire collection will fit on one 64gb sd chip. Coupled with the excessive overage fees and data usage caps from the major carriers just how accessible is your collection going to be? I suppose if your collection is huge and your one of these people who need access to music like some sort of life support system then the "cloud" is waiting.
5. Re:Bad idea by Nihn · 2011-04-22 12:07 · Score: 1
  
  So no server has ever failed and erased all the data on it? Right.....
6. Re:Bad idea by Nihn · 2011-04-22 12:09 · Score: 1
  
  Yea, they make mp3 players extremely portable..or did you forget that you can physically carry what you want with you?
7. Re:Bad idea by dragonhunter21 · 2011-04-22 12:46 · Score: 1
  
  without having to sync everything when I get a new song
  Between three computers and a phone, having a complete music collection can take some doing. mSpot compiles it all into one neat little package I can access from any machine.
  Also, as stated previously, Voice Search works with mSpot. It does not, however, work with the default Music app.
  
  --
  Sent from my CR-48
Licensing Status by bill_mcgonigle · 2011-04-22 03:46 · Score: 1

I wondered if Apple had a leg up with the labels due to their senior status in the market, but TFA says, "Apple has yet to sign any new licenses for the service and major music labels are hoping to secure deals before the service is launched, three of the sources said."
So, Amazon, Google, and Apple are on roughly equal footing as of now. Well, perhaps Amazon has a bit more negotiating power.

--
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
1. Re:Licensing Status by xMrFishx · 2011-04-22 05:39 · Score: 1
  
  It will be interesting to see how this evolves, now we've got the three headed hydra of music streaming. I would like to see the Big GAA (google, apple, amazon) get so intertwined with the RIAA that the RIAA can't exist without them, then merely change the ball game in a way that the RIAA can't possibly prevent, or even just kill the RIAA off entirely. This may be the only real way to destroy that copyright monster, by eating it away from the inside.
Storage size... by Conrthomas · 2011-04-22 03:48 · Score: 0

I highly doubt that they'll allow me to store my 70GB of music on one of their servers....
1. Re:Storage size... by jedidiah · 2011-04-22 04:06 · Score: 1
  
  ....well, they will. It will just cost you a pretty penny.
  That's one big problem wit this whole "cloud" thing. It quickly becomes too expensive to be useful.
  It might work with small quantities but there's a small overlap between "too big for the device" and "small enough to be cheap enough to put in the cloud".
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
2. Re:Storage size... by mekkab · 2011-04-22 04:15 · Score: 1
  
  then the service is useless. Because cloud back-up only becomes useful when I can save my whole iPod (80gb+). Anything less is a kids toy.
  
  --
  In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
3. Re:Storage size... by stewbacca · 2011-04-22 07:10 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure they'll let you store as much as you want....as long as you bought it from the iTunes store. That wouldn't be an unfair demand, would it?
4. Re:Storage size... by Conrthomas · 2011-04-22 18:07 · Score: 0
  
  That'd be about 60 songs, fortunately
Oh neat. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:48 · Score: 0

We're posting rumors as facts in headlines on Slashdot now.
Re:First to bat by Phleg · 2011-04-22 03:48 · Score: 2

That's the exact same mentality people had when Apple released the the iPod and the iPad. It's a shame those ideas didn't take off, either.

--
No comment.
Only one copy of each tune is needed by presidenteloco · 2011-04-22 03:53 · Score: 1

"Invented?" Oh and I suppose they will now patent the idea of storing music on servers so you can use it from anywhere.
When I thought of this (obvious) idea 20 years ago or so, I realized that in theory, only one copy (ok with several backups)
of each tune or movie or whatever was required to exist.
If people were to be charged money for it, each tune would just need a list of owners allowed to access it and stream it.
Then I thought. That's a pretty silly idea. People should just play a flat fee if any for access to all the content. The proceeds
could be distributed according to some kind of measurement of how much each item gets streamed. These are all obvious
ideas from a few hours of thought about the problem long ago. It's the execution, not the idea, that counts, and Apple has
execution down.

--

Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
1. Re:Only one copy of each tune is needed by intheshelter · 2011-04-22 05:01 · Score: 1
  
  Calm down, Mordok was being sarcastic.
2. Re:Only one copy of each tune is needed by geekoid · 2011-04-22 06:03 · Score: 1
  
  an idea isn't what you patent. Did you think of all the technical details? solve latency and location issues? design supporting hardware? A process for tracking purchase, etc..etc...
  Anyone can shit ideas out.
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Should be easy for itunes by highlander76 · 2011-04-22 03:55 · Score: 2

All those songs in itunes are already stored somewhere. And Apple already has a list of songs that a user has purchased. So wouldn't Apple's "music storage cloud" basically be adding a streaming service? No real extra cloud storage required?

I'm sure the RIAA has some cockamamey restriction against a simple implementation though.
Re:Thank goodness by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 03:56 · Score: 0

> it's nice to be able to download my music to all my devices when I want rather than having to manually copy them
See, I don't get this. First, even manually copying them is trivial, is it not? Either drag and drop or if you're a command line kind of person, cp MyAlbum /mnt/wherever.
But why do it that way? I have an automated script using rsync that copies my collection to all my devices from my HTPC to desktop PC, netbook, and my phone. Any online music I buy just gets dumped into a directory from which it auto-propagates to all my devices. There's nothing to manually do *at all*.
And that way, I do not have to have an internet connection to listen. It's available anywhere and everywhere I want, under my own terms, not those imposed by some streaming service that could disappear at any time. And it's safe from the failure of any one device's disk drive or storage.
7digital by twokay · 2011-04-22 04:01 · Score: 1

I like 7digital.com a lot. They have a pretty damn good library (in the UK at least) and have had a "Digital Locker" since sometime near the end of 2010 i think. You can stream your purchases online through a decent HTML5 player, and download as many times as you like.

Also some selected albums (eg. lastest Radiohead) have FLAC downloads for a couple of quid extra. Better than those £12.99 WAV/FLAC download prices you see everywhere else. Hopefully they start encoding more FLAC.

--
Wannabe nerd.
You are missing the point by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 04:02 · Score: 1

Ubuntu is not cool enough. Apple is uber-cool. If steve job farts, it is no ordinary fart - it is revolutionary, never-seen-heard-smelt-before world-changing fart which changes everything all over again!
Re:Thank goodness by jedidiah · 2011-04-22 04:04 · Score: 1

Many devices have rather limited storage.
We have reached the point where a significant amount of supplemental storage in the cloud is cheap enough and big enough that you might want to use it in order to make up for the rather limited storage available on mobile devices (especially Apple mobile devices).
My music collection can't fit on my phone. Being able to stream it to my phone is useful when compared to trying to pick and choose what subset of my music collection will go on the device itself.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:First to bat by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 04:04 · Score: 0

To be fair, the first generation was, indeed, crap!
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2011-04-22 04:20 · Score: 2

Comment removed based on user account deletion
Subsonic.. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 04:31 · Score: 0

Isn't this what me and about a dozen of my friends have been using Subsonic for (and my 1.5TB music collection for?) It has ipod/iphone and android clients, all work great?
Re:Thank goodness by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 04:55 · Score: 0

I guess it depends on your phone. Mine has an SD slot, and big-ish SD cards are cheap these days. But I don't have a TB of music or anything - maybe a few tens of GB, so it fits on a phone just fine.
and Nokia beat 'em both by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 05:19 · Score: 0

It was called "Comes With Music". What's the point of the article?
Apple shooting themselves in the foot? by geekmux · 2011-04-22 05:43 · Score: 1

Just wondering, since Apple makes a VERY hefty profit on marking up those models that have more memory capacity than the "basic" model of iPod/iTouch/iPad, I wonder how much they stand to lose when consumers no longer have a need to have a 32GB iAnything because it's all stored in the cloud.
1. Re:Apple shooting themselves in the foot? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 13:57 · Score: 0
  
  Just wondering, since Apple makes a VERY hefty profit on marking up those models that have more memory capacity than the "basic" model of iPod/iTouch/iPad, I wonder how much they stand to lose when consumers no longer have a need to have a 32GB iAnything because it's all stored in the cloud.
  Hmm...may depend on how much they charge for the cloud! There are clouds, and then there are iClouds!
  Seriously, I'd be interested in a cloud subscription from Apple if I could listen to all of my purchases on any device that I had internet access to, but I'd be extremely surprised if Apple will go that far given the iEverythings they sell everywhere (myself included).
Dont think so. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 05:44 · Score: 0

Before everything, there was hotmail, yahoo mail, and they belonged to yahoo and microsoft. then came gmail. look what happened.
No by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 06:09 · Score: 1

Instead of charging you $100 once every 2-3 years for the higher capacity device, they charge you $10/month for 2-3 years. Do the math...
Re:First to bat by tivoKlr · 2011-04-22 07:53 · Score: 1

Really, crap?
I try not to join in the Apple supporting around here, but i remember my 1st gen iPod fondly, and when other people saw and used it, I don't remember them recoiling as if I'd handed them a steaming piece of shit.
I'm sure your zune/rio/whatever is pants. Everybody's got one, remember?

--
Ocean is land, covered with water.
Just use Rhapsody by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 08:03 · Score: 0

For $9/month or $15/month if you want to sync to an offline device, it stores "your" 2 million+ songs and allows you stream them to just about any device that has an app for it or any web browser including Firefox on Linux. Includes the ability to make playlists that sync as well. Okay, the songs are technically yours but for $9 a month, you get cloud storage that includes access to 2 million + songs.
Re:Thank goodness by technomom · 2011-04-22 08:48 · Score: 1

Agreed. To me, Amazon Cloud wasn't so much an iTunes or Google Music killer. It's a Pandora killer. I generally was buying my music through Amazon or from my own CD collection anyway. Amazon Cloud lets me listen to my own collection rather than relying on Pandora's sometimes off the mark impression of what I want to listen to.
i don't get what's so difficult about this... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-22 10:44 · Score: 0

... or why it would take apple so long to build something they already have
apple already has the music library that is itunes
apple already has the purchase history of all itunes users
the only thing they don't have is non-itunes purchase files
which, knowing apple, they'll likely ban from storage
so what the hell is apple doing that they don't already have the service?
Apple, the st*r performer... by alfielee · 2011-04-23 19:22 · Score: 0

We've done it first so it must be better & we must be better at this so here you go & something else that you really need that you never had before. Did that sound insincere? I apologise if it did. I meant it to sound completely sarcastic & this ridiculous cloud-based anything can go waft itself somewhere else. I just don't get trusting my data with any large corporation, especially not Apple definitely not Microsoft not even Google, even if they've shown themselves a little more reliable for that matter...