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Apple Reportedly Planning Streaming Music Service
Nerval's Lobster writes "Apple plans on taking a big bite of the streaming-music market, according to unnamed sources speaking to The New York Times. Those sources suggested that an Apple streaming-music service would 'probably' center on an app of some kind, and link to iTunes in order to better evaluate the listener's musical interests. In broad strokes, that would make it similar to Spotify, a streaming-music service that also requires an app. Other popular cloud-music hubs, including Pandora and Last.fm, operate primarily as browser-based services. The Wall Street Journal, citing its own unnamed sources, indicated that any Apple streaming service would work on iOS devices such as the iPad, Macs, and 'possibly on PCs running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.' In keeping with Apple's intense rivalry with Google, one source added, the service would not appear on Android devices."
Great, Apple have invented streaming music services!
i hated the complete ecosystem crap since MS tried to do it years ago. what happens is that you have a few good products and lots of mediocre ones that are easily beat by smaller competitors.
same here. iphone and ipad and lots of so so when compared to everyone else.
amazon is usually better to buy music
spotify is awesome
apple is still doing the buy music thing when everyone has moved on to the subscription model
blu rays are still better than buying locked down digital versions linked to specific products and ecosystems
amazon and netflix do subscriptions while apple is still a la carte
same here, i bet apple will come out with some mediocre licensing/rule scheme to make it useless
Apple launches a service that further degrades your rights to 'own' something that you've bought.
You mean I won't be able to leave my music streaming enjoyment to my heirs? Curses!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Streaming services at a time when bandwidth is being restricted rather then expanded seems like a dubious business decision. That is unless Apple rewrites their service agreements with AT&T & Verizon to stipulate that their streaming services do not count against their customers monthly bandwidth caps.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
With iTunes Match on, you can stream any music you have to any iOS device.
So it would be a really small leap to have an app that would let you stream anything in the iTunes catalog.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Around the time that iTunes came out, I was of the same opinion. Napster and Rhapsody all had subscription services to listen to whatever you want, whenever you want and it seemed ridiculous at the time... I wanted to keep my music on my machine/devices.
Things have changed. Now I almost exclusively use Spotify. The only time I don't is when I'm on the subway because NYC doesn't have cell service down there.
With the massively popularity of streaming services, I don't see this as a bad move at all.
That way even when I'm not at home I can have The Pixies thrown in with every kind of music that exists.
I swear it feels like that damned thing says, "Oh, you like having a sound in your ear? Have some Pixies!"
"We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
I have iTunes Match, and it doesn't currently stream to my iPhone - I have to download the tracks to listen
On my iPhone, on WiFi I can press on a cloud track and it starts playing before it's downloaded, so it is streaming... - but you're right, it does currently trigger a download also so it would be on the device after.
Basically the only change would be with a streaming service it would probably lower the quality and throw away the cached file when it was done.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...hating on Apple things that actually exist, the Slashdot crowd decides to start hating on speculative Apple things that may not ever exist. And second-guessing decisions that may not have actually been made.
After all, arguing about NYT link-bait is so much easier than making reasoned comments based on facts.
So Apple's "instructions on how to circumvent their DRM" is to either repurchase it in new DRM-free dorm or to pay them a fee to mirror your library in the cloud? Riiiight. Also, this DRM-Free Music thing they trumpet around hasn't reached all their music stores in every country, just some of them.