iTunes Store Deletes Amazon Cloud Music Player

Guest post by Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

Earlier this month, Evolver posted about how to play the music stored in your Music Beta by Google account on your iPhone using an app called gMusic. Today, we had planned to do the same for aMusic, a $2 app that lets you play music in your Amazon storage locker on iOS as well. Just one problem: It can no longer be found in iTunes.

We hear this is due to that ominous phrase: “legal issues with the music industry.” From the looks of things, labels were not too pleased with the way this app united Amazon’s cloud music lockers with Apple’s iOS devices.

However, gMusic, which we have tested, is still live in iTunes, so whichever music industry person or people was responsible for deleting aMusic doesn’t appear to have the same problem with gMusic.

That said, gMusic could be on its way out too, because Apple has delayed approving an update to that app for an unspecified reason.

Here’s the full statement from James Clancey of Interactive Innovative Solutions (IIS) to Evolver.fm about the state of his company’s aMusic and gMusic apps:

There are some legal issues with the music industry. The aMusic [app] is down temporarily. It will be back. Unfortunately I do not have a specific date when it will be back.

Also, Apple has been delaying my gMusic update. I submitted it 2 weeks ago. Every other update I have submitted within the 2 weeks has been approved in under 8 hours. So not sure what the deal is.

Begun, the cloud music wars have — and IIS appears to have waltzed right in the middle of it, by creating apps that put the music stored in Amazon’s and Google’s clouds onto the iPhone.

Until recently, it was possible to play music from the big three clouds (Amazon, Apple, and Google) from the same iPhone (so far as we can tell, Dropbox can play cloud music too, but only via the web). You could use them essentially the way we used to use cassettes for mix tapes, increasing your cloud-based music capacity without paying more.

For example, you could upload new music discoveries to Music Beta by Google, mirror your old favorites to Apple iCloud, and put all your workout music and perhaps a few niche genres on Amazon Cloud Drive.

However, separating music clouds from their mega-sized motherships turns them into commodities. If you can use all three of these music clouds with the same phone just by tapping a different app, you’re unlikely to develop an exclusive reliance on one or the other, which is what each of these companies hopes will happen (see also: “iCloud Is Like a Roach Motel You’ll Love Anyway“).

Clancey says aMusic’s deletion from iTunes is temporary, and that aMusic will reappear in the iTunes app store soon.

Having witnessed other “legal issues with the music industry,” we’re not holding our breath.