The cloud music wars are about to begin in earnest and one way of looking at the battle is to say that Apple is already behind. Amazon and Google have got their options out into the world first with the Amazon Cloud Drive and Google Music both offering music lockers located up in the fluffy white virtual clouds.
But Apple wasn’t even close to being first out of the gate with the iPod and first mover advantage is often overblown. Because while Amazon and Google jumped without the labels onside, Apple is playing the long game…
The concept of a digital locker where you can stash your music collection and stream it to whatever device you fancy isn’t a new one. MP3.com launched My.MP3.com back in January 2000 allowing users to register their CDs and stream digital copies from an online repository of tracks.
Though users could only listen to songs they already owned, the music industry sued MP3.com for unauthorised duplication and copyright infringement. It won and Vivendi gobbled up MP3.com for a fraction of its previous worth.
While Google and Amazon have much bigger pockets than MP3.com ever did and the music industry is a very different place 11 years on, they will face a big battle. Google Music is essentially a glorified external hard drive in the cloud and the uploading process can take days and days to complete if your bandwidth isn’t up to scratch. Amazon is a bit smarter giving you a cloud-copy of every album you buy from its store but lawsuits from litigious labels seems inevitable.
If Apple has managed to snag three of the four remaining major labels (Sony, EMI and Warner), Universal surely won’t be far behind. With the big boys on board, indies are likely to fall in line too and Apple’s iCloud will be set to mirror your local music collection in the cloud. Making the process speedier and less complex than Google or Amazon can offer, Apple will take the mainstream with iCloud just as the iPod knocked the Walkmen and an army of anonymous Archos-a-likes out of the park.
When you add the vertical integration of Apple’s system into the mix – its got a tight grip on every part from the servers through iTunes down to the device in your hand – the ‘iCloud‘ starts to looks almost unbeatable. Consumers flock to convenience and right now, Google and Amazon’s music offerings just don’t have that. Apple has messed up cloud offerings in the past (remember the great MobileMe catastrophe?) but this time I’m willing to bet it nails it.
Disagree? Hit the comments and let us know where you’re placing your bet in the cloud music race.
I just don’t see the point (of any of these services - not just Apple bashing). I have about 80-100gb of tunes that I could carry if someone would sell me a good 128gb flash based mp3/4 drive (there is a gap in the market there) - I would then not have the worry about battery life / data connections / roaming charges / “fair use” limits etc etc. This is a service for service sake in my eyes. Give me an iPod / Android player etc with the 128gb+ storage and I will be happy.
Anonymous
I must admit I can see the appeal for a lot of people of a 128GB SSD iPod touch rather than streaming. Can’t be far off, with the maximum capacity stuck at 64GB for the last two generations.
