Apple To Beat Google On Cloud Music

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."

Comments

Amazon beat them both

[Enry]

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.

Re:Amazon beat them both

[chemicaldave]

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."

Re:Amazon beat them both

[Americano]

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?

Re:Amazon beat them both

[DaveSlash]

I haven't heard anyone point out that the Ubuntu One Music Store exists. https://one.ubuntu.com/music/

Re:Amazon beat them both

[degeneratemonkey]

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.

Re:Amazon beat them both

[Americano]

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.

Re:Amazon beat them both

[Kjella]

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.

Re:Amazon beat them both

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Amazon beat them both

[cpicon92]

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...

Re:Amazon beat them both

[geekoid]

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.

Re:Amazon beat them both

[scot4875]

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

Re:Amazon beat them both

[david_thornley]

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.

Re:Amazon beat them both

[UnknowingFool]

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.

Re:Amazon beat them both

[jedidiah]

> 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.

How will this beat Google?

[chemicaldave]

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.

Re:How will this beat Google?

[Americano]

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.

Re:How will this beat Google?

[splerdu]

> 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.

Re:How will this beat Google?

[Voyager529]

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."

Re:How will this beat Google?

[Fahrvergnuugen]

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"?

Skynet

[cultiv8]

will take Apple down next.

Wake me up...

[ProppaT]

....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.

Re:Wake me up...

[thestudio_bob]

....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?

Still Vaporware...

[Z_A_Commando]

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.

Re:First to bat

[Phleg]

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.

Re:There's one good thing this time round...

[NekSnappa]

Really. I mean it's not like opening day of a movie based on a comic book or anything.

Should be easy for itunes

[highlander76]

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:Oblig Dilbert

[Dr_Barnowl]

You can use the "fast" links on dilbert.com

http://dilbert.com/fast/2011-01-07/

Much less pagecruft.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion