Oh yeah, what about Apple? I suspect they will offer a streaming service at some point. In that way, it’s similar to other cloud sync services such as SugarSync, RealNetworks Unify and Apple’s MobileMe. The Amazon Cloud Drive is really more of a music backup service. But they want an easy way to access their music on all of their devices: home theater, PC, tablet or to their SmartPhone.
Even though some people capture music for free online, most people are willing to pay a reasonable fee, for example, $.99/song, $9.99/album. If you’re in an area that doesn’t have a wireless connection you won’t be able to play ANY of your music.įor at least the next 5–10 years, most people will still want to still own their important music. It should have deals with record labels so they can scan your music and then simply access the standard version on the server and stream that to you mobile device.Īnother issue is the expense of having the music in Cloud Drive and then streaming to your device if you’re using wireless broadband versus Wi-Fi. Amazon really shouldn’t require you to upload your music. Here’s my main problem with Cloud Drive: Why would you take the time to upload your music to Amazon if you couldn’t always play them? Backing up your music is a good idea, but there are lots of ways you can do this.
You can use third-party software to sync your music library to other mobile devices such as Android SmartPhones and tablets. You can do that easily using iTunes and cable sync to your iPod, iPhone or iPad. These examples are the reason that the Amazon Cloud Drive service isn’t going to succeed in any major way is that you can pretty easily play your music on your mobile devices without having to go through the trouble of uploading them to Amazon just to stream them to your mobile devices. Finally, we play Pandora when we want some background music. I use my iPad to play my music on a flight because it has a long battery life and playing music on the iPad doesn’t run down the notebook’s battery. I also have an iPhone and iPad in which I’ve synched up my iTunes library that I use while walking with Fritzie.
I also have a rather old iPod that sits in the kitchen to play some of our favorite old songs. iTunes has a built-in player that I use with my notebook PC. Record labels with distributors such as Apple, Rhapsody, Yahoo and Amazon are trying to figure out the answers. Since everyone can now store music anywhere and very often have a wireless connection to play music, the questions are: How is it best to find and play music in which you’re interested? Do you need to own any of it or simply rent? Answering these questions is core to the future of music. Sometimes, I prefer to listen to my own music, while at other times I like to listen to radio stations supplied by firms such as Pandora. I love to listen to music whether it’s while I’m writing this column, on a flight or when I’m walking our little Dachshund, Fritzie. Seems like a good idea, right? I don’t think it will be successful.
Currently, the streaming is only to Android devices but streaming to other mobile platforms is pending.
You upload the selected music to the Amazon Cloud Drive server (5GB is free), download an Android mobile player, and the Cloud Drive streams your music to your Android mobile device. It seems straightforward you create an Amazon Cloud Drive account and select the music you already own but want to access with your mobile devices. Last week, Amazon announced its new Cloud Drive music service.