Amazon, Google, and Apple are simultaneously coming out with a new service: your music in the cloud so you can play it anywhere. (Apple will even scan-and-match so you don't have to upload most of it.)
I'm not sure I get why it's such a big deal? Don't people have iPods? My classic iPod holds all the music I have collected through 20 years, with 30% still left to go before it's full. It can sit in any pocket I have, so why do I need to have my music sit in the cloud?
I like many of the other iCloud things, like simultaneous/automatic sharing of content and apps to all your devices (You take a photo, and a minute later it's on your computer too), but the music thing... could be handy in some situations, but important? I dunno.
Two potential reasons come to mind:
ReplyDelete- piracy
- making people dependent on the cloud, to prepare them for future subscription systems
All iCloud is about is a new paid service which will cause all users to fork out more to their cell-provi¬ders for vastly increased data-strea¬ming. Just imagine a kid listening to music 4+ hours a day - that is roughly 240 Mb per day coming down the pipe, or 7+ Gb per month.
ReplyDeleteThere is a big difference in business models between Microsoft, Google and Apple, put bluntly, if you enter into a business where Microsoft is, usually 3rd parties can flourish, with Apple it is closed and under their control, you can flourish until they decide you shouldn’t, and Google simply kills the market as everything is free.
ReplyDeleteThat said, there is a definite benefit to succeed with innovation if you have control over the entire ecosystem.
It will be interesting to see if iCloud will succeed, seems you have decided it will.
I don't see much doubt. Everything is moving in that direction, and Apple seems to finally have a handle on it, and is putting enormous resources behind it.
ReplyDeleteWhether the prices are fair or not, the Apple users are too mesmerized by the features of ios. The cloud connectivity gaining a lot of significance, the features as said are too tempting to prohibit its use. The competitors of Apple seem to have experiences a little insecurity with respect to the features that they are yet to achieve.
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