Next week’s Apple event has stoked up plenty of new rumours but while we’re almost certain to see the new iPod touch, if you’ve been waiting for iTunes streaming, you may have to wait a little longer. New reports suggest Apple will unveil a new, more social iTunes but isn’t ready to jump to the cloud just yet…
Music industry sources say Apple hasn’t inked licensing deals it would need to have in place to launch an iTunes streaming service. Instead, they’re suggesting that it has a new web-based version of the iTunes Store in the works. That sounds like an extension of the current iTunes web previews and definitely makes sense. It’s just a mite disappointing given all the talk since Apple shuttered web-streaming outfit LaLa.
The social iTunes update will break down the walls between the store and the rest of the Internet, making it easier to share your musical tastes with friends. The suggestion is that Apple will make it simple to throw recommendations out through Twitter and Facebook and share playlists.
There’s also speculation that the new social iTunes will introduce wireless syncing between your iPhone/iPod touch and your laptop. Having to manually hook up to your laptop to sync songs is definitely starting to seem pretty old-fashioned especially with Android music syncing hotting up.
Then again, we could still see some form of iTunes streaming unveiled next Wednesday without the labels on board by revealing cloud storage. But it doesn’t seem likely.
What do you want to see Apple do with iTunes? Should it pull its finger out and get streaming sorted or would you be happy to just see a few tweaks?
Out TBC | £TBC | Apple (via All Things D)
