Apple's Lala team will soon put iTunes into the Cloud?
TechCrunch this morning has a guest post by MP3.com founder Michael Robertson on what Apple plans to do with Lala.com. Contrary to some predictions, Apple doesn't plan to have a subscription based service according to Robertson. Instead, he sees Apple using Lala's ability to upload music to the cloud, classify it, and then play music from a browser. Any browser including a smartphone browser....
What is of value is the personal music storage service which was an often overlooked component of Lala’s business. As Apple did with the original iPods, Lala realized that any music solution must include music already possessed by the user. The Lala setup process provides software to store a personal music library online and then play it from any web browser alongside web songs they vend. This technology plus the engineering and management team is the true value of Lala to Apple.
That's a lot of storage space. Consider some colleagues that have 100GB+ music collections. If Apple wants to index everyone's full collection, they'll have to have some ability to cross reference music built in. For instance if two peole both own the Beatles White album, Apple should just point both users to the same music database rather than storing both users' music separately. Or perhaps they'll only offer to "Cloud" music that is purchased from iTunes?
That being said, it might be hard for Apple to differentiate between different CD rips (different encodings, name changes, meta data etc.) so the same song may look similar to any computer algorithm that is trying to group music. Robertson isn't phased by music collection size:
An upcoming major revision of iTunes will copy each user’s catalog to the net making it available from any browser or net connected ipod/touch/tablet. The Lala upload technology will be bundled into a future iTunes upgrade which will automatically be installed for the 100+ million itunes users with a simple “An upgrade is available…” notification dialog box. After installation iTunes will push in the background their entire media library to their personal mobile iTunes area. Once loaded, users will be able to navigate and play their music, videos and playlists from their personal URL using a browser based iTunes experience.
In any case, this type of system is going to require some serious datacenter space. Much more than Apple currently deploys with MobileMe iDisk use. That means we're probably seeing why Apple purchased that North Carolina data facility.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Facebook
Google
YahooLatest Stories on 9 to 5 Mac
- 9to5mac: What's the best value in monitors?
- Dell S2009W 20" Widescreen LCD Display for $89 + free shipping
- 10.6.3 Pre-release hits unsuspecting updater?
- Steve Jobs helps pass California organ donation bill
- Updated iTunes Connect: Submitting iPad Apps Interface
- Apple is now accepting iPad apps to the App Store
- Intel falling behind on new laptop chips, Apple may not be first in line
AAPL Stock Coverage
222.25-2.4001
9to5 Toys
HP xb4 Laptop Media Docking Station for $80 + free shipping
Samsung WEP-301 Bluetooth Headset for $0 after rebate + free shipping
Wrightwood Collection Red Oak Computer Desk for $180 + free shipping
Real Estate Financing and Investing for iPhone downloads for free
3 Point Hoops Basketball for iPhone downloads for free
Poll
Recent comments
- Not even Apple sells a $2000
13 sec ago - And how about great monitor,
8 min 24 sec ago - what cable would I need to
16 min 42 sec ago - i sent it to this ---->
17 min 15 sec ago - I know... maybe "obsolete"
18 min 41 sec ago - The 28 inch I-INC from
19 min 11 sec ago - What were you running from
22 min 58 sec ago - Dev Connection is $100 (not
27 min 3 sec ago - I think Apple has never
32 min 10 sec ago - You're seriously going to
1 hour 2 min ago
Who's online
There are currently 3 users and 0 guests online.
Online users
- admin
- lfine39
- Luke Bornheimer
Comments (17)
I don't think they can do this because people have different quality songs. I have some stuff I have purchased off of itunes, but I also have a bunch of CD's ripped in lossless. I think they will have to supply our own disc space.
I think, if they're going to "cloud" everyone's music then the version you stream would be whatever iTunes offers (so as of now, 256kbps). I mean, I rip in lossless for my home but 320 on iPods.. but if I could have all of my music in the cloud at 256 (or even 192) I would take it... it's only giving me MORE - I'm still free to fill my iPod with whatever quality I want, I'm still free to carry around all of my music in whatever format/rate I want, but iTunes Cloud ALSO offers me it at 256kbps.
I am sure this would be only for content a user purchased from iTunes.
They are NOT going to put everyones entire iTunes library on their servers. They wouldn't want to be held responsible for enabling somebody to play music from a "borrowed" and ripped CD.
They will know what you purchased, and they can just "point" you to the song. It doesn't mean they have to make a million copies of the same song for a million users.
Lala already does this. They scan the metadata, not the file. If the song, based on the metadata, is alreay on Lala's databse, they simply point the user's account to that existing file. If it's not on the database, then the file is uploaded in the background and, voila, the song is in the database. Doing it the other way is preposterous.
yeah 100 GB per user is a lot, but how many of the songs are in more than one person music gallery? technically they don't need to be stored more than once, and most of the music is being stored by iTunes store for us to purchase already anyway....
The best way to work is to only have one set of actual music file. Say everything in the iTunes catalog since Apple already has those on file. Then just point to songs from a users play list to the one actual file. This would work off meta data so if you have songs not recognized then they just won't be available through this new service.
Then what about pirated music? Will the service seek these out and warn Apple or will it just ignore them because it doesn't recognize them as I listed above?
And for the people wondering about the quality it's recorded in, don't expect your lossless copies to be uploaded. You'll gear the same file format Apple uses in their purchased iTunes music. You still get to keep the lossless copy on your computer but just won't have access to that version from the web. No big deal! Sync it to your iPod if that's all you can listen too.
As much as I dislike the idea that my usic collection is being "housed" elsewhere I really like the "accessible from anywhere" idea ... and if this solves the issue of having to try to coordinate a houseful of music (mine, my wife's, my son's) so that we have one massive collection, count me in (I think).
It really pisses me off when I see these rumor sites throws question marks in the blog titles everywhere... How the hell am I supposed to know if Apple and Lala is putting contents in the cloud... you are the one saying it.
Because it is a RUMOR, you genius.
Though I'm hoping this is not the case, I think the ability to have your songs in the cloud would be a reason to buy from iTunes and would NOT be available for your entire collection.
I think Apple is looking to add reasons to buy stuff from iTunes. I still prefer buying the CD, ripping lossless and then converting for my iPod (but keeping lossless for future use/back-up)... BUT if I could get all of my iTunes music available to me almost literally everywhere in this cloud, then I might have to consider switching.
I agree with other commenters; you will log into your Apple account and it will allow you to stream music you have purchased. This adds a reason to purchase music through iTunes, doesn't involve uploading songs and is the only thing that makes commercial sense.
Robertson has a pretty lousy track record of predicting tech trends. I worked with him when he was telling everyone how the iPhone would flop because it didn't have a keyboard. He then dished on the iPhone several times in his blog, trying to keep it at bay.
Oops.
Tina
I agree with Tina. Robertson is not to be trusted.
http://freespire.com
John
No Orwellian"Cloud" crap for me. Give the U.S. better broadband speeds and nationwide wireless availability. I'll maintain my own storage and distribution.
What's to stop the FCC from getting a warrant to look through peoples media libraries, and look for media tagged as illegal downloaded? Couldn't they come up with some scheme to basically give out "undercover" files and wait for people to download them, or does that sound too ridiculous?
Psonar already offers unlimited cloud storage and streaming of your own music for free to any internet-connected device including mobiles (plus you can use it like iTunes to copy your music to and from all of your devices ? not just those in Apple world.)
Rich discovery and social features follow early in 2010.
Check it all out at <a href="http://www.psonar.com/">www.psonar.com</a>
Kind of funny, ...what lala is doing is A LOT like what Robertson and mp3.com got sued out of business for by the RIAA. When was that, back in 2001? They had sw that would scan your physical CDs (one at a time) and match them with their jukebox in the cloud (ahem, "sky" back in those days). Then you could stream them anywhere via a browser. Of course the landscape has changed quite a bit since then. The RIAA is desperate for a business model and lala has built a decent one. Bottom line, mp3.com was ahead of its time. Lala is doing it better (though they seem way to lax about scanning pirated mp3s... lala, please stay out of court!). I'd be glad to see iTunes integration as long as they don't take away lala's FREE previews (yes, listen to whole tracks before you buy them, real nice...).stu.
Post new comment