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Apple Is Ready To Launch Cloud-Based Music Service

April 22nd, 2011 04:06 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

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According to Reuters, Apple is getting ready to launch its cloud-based music service or digital music locker, which will allow users to upload their music to Apple’s servers so that they can access them from various devices.

Reuters reports that Apple has “completed work” on the rumored cloud-based service and is set to launch it ahead of Google.

Reuters reports:

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.

Reuters reports that according to their sources, Apple is yet to sign any new deals with major music labels.

However, All Things Digital reports that Apple has already signed deals with two out of the four major music labels.

This is in contrast to how Amazon launched their cloud based service. It launched Amazon Cloud Drive without taking approval from the music labels.

MacRumors points out the benefit of signing deals with music labels:

All Things D points out that having official licenses can allow Apple to store a single master copy of a song rather than storing individual copies for every user. Amazon’s original argument against needing the licenses was that their service was the same as any upload storage service. This meant that users needed to upload copies of their old music to be able to stream them. With the proper deals, Apple could avoid the need to upload individual copies and simply allow users to stream off of the single master copy. This could save on significant upload time for the user and storage requirements for Apple.

It remains to be seen when Apple plans to launch the cloud-based service and how much it will cost. We were expecting Apple to launch it at WWDC 2011 when it will unveil the next generation iOS - iOS 5, which we’ve heard will be heavily built around the cloud and expected to include features like digital music locker. According to rumors, Apple is planning to charge $20 per year for the digital music locker.

Are you excited about the cloud-based music service from Apple?

[Reuters, All Things Digital via MacRumors]

Source: Apple Is Ready To Launch Cloud-Based Music Service

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