[Crimson]

Here's a brief description from Apple. Any thoughts?

I like the convenience feature of having an occassional iTunes purchase available on all iDevices, but I'm not too keen on having my entire library available in the cloud, especially at 256kbps for content I already have at 16/44.1.

Oh, and could I please get a refund for all the years I paid for a .mac account?

[skunark]

I'm pretty mixed on this right now since it only grants you a 256 kbps version.    If it was a lossless format, then sure this would be the best way to back up the file assuming their copy was a perfect rip.   

Now, only if they would do the "iTunes Match" with my DVDs, that would be rather amazing I think. Hopefully though the Movies and TV Shows that I've purchased over the years can be included as well.  I will no longer have to worry about my SouthPark and Top Gear files getting corrupted and could free up several hundred GB of drive space.

Now I just need a Linux Client and all will be well. *holds breath*


I am a bit curious about if they are deciding not to check if one has the CD.    If there's no checks, it's probably worth it for college students to sign up on

[skunark]

I don't believe Apple has addressed how to split an account for the situations when your kids move out or a divorce happens.    Now that you can have up to ten devices, it's easier to share but just as difficult to split.

[Pez]

Oh, and could I please get a refund for all the years I paid for a .mac account?

Seriously I was always skeptical about keeping mobileme, but this just pisses me off.

[eclein]

It keeps crappy versions so I won't use that feature but itunes syncing will be history----YEH!!!!!!! I can't remember how many times I went through all my little boxes for each tune and decided to sync or not only to forget a major little box and loose all my data until I took a few hours to sync it all again...what a huge PITA!!!! I was gonna buy Android Tablet instead of ipad2 because of itunes but now its ipad2 because a couple more months of syncing I can deal with because the end is near!!!!!!!!
NO MORE ITUNES SYNC!!!!! YES!!!!!!

[Crimson]

Well, just found out MobileMe is being discontinued:

Dear MobileMe member,

We'd like to share some exciting news with you about iCloud — Apple’s upcoming cloud service, which stores your content and wirelessly pushes it to your devices. iCloud integrates seamlessly with your apps, so everything happens automatically. Available this fall, iCloud is free for iOS 5 and OS X Lion users.

What does this mean for you as a MobileMe member?

When you sign up for iCloud, you'll be able to keep your MobileMe email address and move your mail, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks to the new service.

Your MobileMe subscription will be automatically extended through June 30, 2012, at no additional charge. After that date, MobileMe will no longer be available.

When iCloud becomes available this fall, we will provide more details and instructions on how to make the move. In the meantime, we encourage you to learn more about iCloud.

Sincerely,

The MobileMe Team



   

[skunark]

iCloud is the mobile me service minus the 20GB of online storage, but I believe you do get 5GB now.  I think that matches Googles service.   There's enough "free" email, CalDAV/CardDAV services out there that the mobileme was terribly overpriced.

It would have been nice to exit early with a prorated refund.  I don't see the benefit of extending the service out for another year.

[chrisby]

Is Steve Geoff Peterson's long lost brother, without the limit of 12ft from an outlet?

Seriously though,  I guess it's still a leftover from the days of retaining physical media (I still keep all the CD's ripped to iTunes), but the idea of storing all my data "in the cloud" doesn't quite appeal.  But what's the impression from the video demo of the new OSX - Lion?  It looks to include a lot of usability features that my wife who loves her MBP (too much  ?) would find particularly helpful  - too soon to jump on board such a major rewrite?   

[wilsynet]

Seriously I was always skeptical about keeping mobileme, but this just pisses me off.

I'm no Apple apologist, but what are you upset about?

If you kept MobileMe before, presumably it represented some value to you.  If you didn't value it, then you shouldn't have purchased it.  It was always entirely up to you.

Now they're saying that going forward the service will be free.  It's not clear to me what you've lost.  If you renewed recently, say in the last month, I believe you can ask for a refund, although the refund policy related to MobileMe and iCloud have not yet been clearly articulated.

[wilsynet]

I like the convenience feature of having an occassional iTunes purchase available on all iDevices, but I'm not too keen on having my entire library available in the cloud, especially at 256kbps for content I already have at 16/44.1.

If you pay for the iTunes Match service, then the content you already have at 16/44.1 is now available as 256kbps content in the cloud, but there's nothing to be not keen about.  It's available for you to get from the cloud on all of your devices, but it doesn't remove the 16/44.1 content you already have.  The functionality you always had still exists, and iTunes Match merely adds more functionality and convenience features.

Oh, and could I please get a refund for all the years I paid for a .mac account?

Let's say that your local movie theatre started giving away a small bag of popcorn with every movie.  Do you think you should get a refund for all of the years you went to the theatre and bought popcorn?

My guess is that you're being somewhat tongue in cheek, but I can't help but think there's some undercurrent of resentment.

[MaxCast]

Why don't they just let you stream from your main computer to any of your iso devices anywhere?

[Robert57]

It appears that the iTunes Match service will NOT stream the music, but will only allow one to download the songs (in aac), at least initially. This pretty much rules this out as an attractive way to listen to huge playlists on an iPhone or iPad on the go.

[wilsynet]

Streaming your whole music collection from Apple to all of your devices would be terrific.  The reason why they are not likely to support something like this in the near future comes down I think to cost.

Remember that they provide the basic iCloud service offering for free with no ads.  Downloading already iTunes purchased songs to all of your devices has limited exposure as you only have so many devices and you would rightly expect that the download happens no more than once per device per song, and that for the iPad / iPod Touch / iPhone there's a limited amount of storage anyway.

Streaming on demand to any device in an unlimited way would change the economics dramatically.  Apple needs to pay for the bandwidth somehow.  They couldn't offer the streaming service for free; they'd have to either charge for it or fund it with advertising dollars.

What's the business model of various streaming services?

Pandora - advertising and subscription fees.
Last.fm - advertising and subscription fees.
YouTube - advertising.
Hulu - advertising and subscription.

So if Apple wants to do this without advertising revenue and wants to give to at no cost, then they're going to need to limit the spend and that means limiting functionality.

Yes, Apple is charging for the iTunes Match service, but that $25 / year is going to the bandwidth costs of allowing you to download any song from your personal, non-iTunes purchased, self-ripped library to all of your devices.  Whether that represents sufficient value to you or not, well, that's up to you.  How much of this will be profit, I'm not sure, and you can bet that the record labels are taking a cut from this.  Even so, I doubt $25 per year would cover unlimited streaming.

Apple isn't doing this out of the goodness of their own hearts of course.  There's certainly upsell opportunities, and they strengthen the Macintosh / iPhone / iPad ecosystem and value proposition.

[JohnR]

Well, just found out MobileMe is being discontinued:

I'm thoroughly confused. Well, that's what usually happens when the Marketing Morons get ahold of the "cloud." BTW in case none of you were aware, AudioCircle is already running from the "cloud." It used to be called a virtual private server, now it's "in the cloud" along with a whole truckload of incomprehensible gumpf that I frankly couldn't be bothered deciphering.

Anyway, I use MobileMe for syncing my contacts and Calendar. If I get the same thing for $25 that's great, but there's no way I'm putting my whole music collection on Apple's servers. It makes no sense at all, especially since I live in a country that still has bandwidth limits.

Anyway, I thought Grooveshark already did it.

[WC]

I'm thoroughly confused. Well, that's what usually happens when the Marketing Morons get ahold of the "cloud." BTW in case none of you were aware, AudioCircle is already running from the "cloud." It used to be called a virtual private server, now it's "in the cloud" along with a whole truckload of incomprehensible gumpf that I frankly couldn't be bothered deciphering.

Anyway, I use MobileMe for syncing my contacts and Calendar. If I get the same thing for $25 that's great, but there's no way I'm putting my whole music collection on Apple's servers. It makes no sense at all, especially since I live in a country that still has bandwidth limits.

Anyway, I thought Grooveshark already did it.

If all you want to do is sync contacts and calendars that will be free under iCloud. The only thing that costs money is the music match service.

[Crimson]

Since the blurbs say that iCloud will sync mail/contacts/calendar, is it safe to assume I'll still have my MobileMe mail accounts?

[craig223]

Apple is putting in a HUGE data center about 15 minutes from my office.  There is all sorts of speculation on what the place will be hosting.  The iCloud could be part of it, but most speculation revolves around a NetFlix competitor that is yet to be announced.  My guess --> Apple is working on a new streaming model that allows you to purchase a movie/song/book/whatever and never take physical delivery.  They will store it in their iCloud system and let you use it when you like.  What is not included is a streaming service of digital media that you choose from for a flat fee, but never own.  This setup keeps Apple in good graces with the content publishers, who get paid when media is purchased (old school model). 

This brings up a host of questions.  Do you want the ability to read a book more than once?  Do you watch movies multiple times?  I listen to music multiple times, no question.  My kids occasionally trash an iPod and if it was not synched, you lose your music but not your apps.  The iCloud will help with this problem.  Love NetFlix because of all of the movie choices and no dealing with physical media or purchasing something that may only be viewed a few times. 

The future may see no media stored in your house, just streaming devices.  No CD players, turntables, DVD players and devices that can capture and record a digital stream may be illegal. 

[WC]

Since the blurbs say that iCloud will sync mail/contacts/calendar, is it safe to assume I'll still have my MobileMe mail accounts?

Yes, you will still have your email accounts. You just don't have to pay for it.

[wilsynet]

Anyway, I use MobileMe for syncing my contacts and Calendar. If I get the same thing for $25 that's great, but there's no way I'm putting my whole music collection on Apple's servers. It makes no sense at all, especially since I live in a country that still has bandwidth limits.

As said earlier, they're not getting rid of contacts and calendar syncing, they're not even asking you to pay for it.  Free.

The point of iTunes Match for $25 per year is not to put all of your music in the cloud -- it's a bit more subtle than that unfortunately.  The music that you already have on your computers will stay on your computers.  What they'll do is scan the music files that you have, see if it matches a song they already have in iTunes, and make it available to the rest of your computers for download as a 256K AAC file.  The idea is to relieve you from moving the music files around to all of your computers.  It is a fairly irritating manual process to keep your songs in sync across your computers and devices.

If you are an audiophile that has multiple computer sources and you want your 44.1/16 files to be preserved pristinely on all of them, this isn't the solution for you. 

If, on the other hand, you've ripped a bunch of music on one of your computers *and* you want to make the music conveniently downloadable on your iPhone and 256K AAC is good enough for your iPhone, then this does the trick.

Further, if you have a home computer and a work computer, and you want access to your music collection and (once again) 256K AAC is good enough on your work computer, then this is also a pretty reasonable solution for you. 

For example, all of my digital music is hosted on a Mac Mini and that Mac Mini is the transport for my main stereo rig.  I also have a Macbook Air which I carry everywhere with me, but I couldn't give two hoots if the Macbook Air has 44.1/16 lossless rips.  It would be nice to have the 256K AAC files available to the Macbook Air when I'm at Starbucks, on the road, or in the office.  Yes, I could transfer the files myself, but wouldn't it be nice if I didn't have to do that every time I ripped a new CD?

While it is an imperfect solution (not streaming, only 256K AAC), it is a reasonable service from a convenience point of view.  The idea is to provide easy (but not perfect) access to all of your music in a consolidated way and let you take it with you wherever you happen to be.

Your lossless rips are exactly where you left them.  Your music is not transferred into the cloud, it's merely *available* through the cloud.

[wilsynet]

Since the blurbs say that iCloud will sync mail/contacts/calendar, is it safe to assume I'll still have my MobileMe mail accounts?

Yes, you will still have your MobileMe mail account.  As I understand, they won't charge you for it up to 5GB of storage.