iTunes In The Cloud Beta Ready For Download Now
A large piece of what Steve Jobs announced for music yesterday at Apple's WWDC2011 is now available. If you're in the US or Canada then iTunes 10.3 beta (aka iTunes In The Cloud) is ready for use. Beyond the PC or Mac, you must be an iOS 4.3.3 users on an iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 (GSM only, sorry Verizon subscribers), iPad and iPad2, or 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch. Key iTunes In The Cloud features include:
New purchases download automatically on all Apple device.
iCloud automatically downloads any new music purchase to all your Apple devices over Wi-Fi or 3G. Buy a song from iTunes on your iPad at home, and you'll also find it automatically on your iPhone, for example.
Your past purchases can be automatically synched to all Apple devices.
Download music you’ve previously purchased on iTunes to all your devices. When you buy music from iTunes, iCloud stores your purchase history.
Not Available Until Fall
The benefits of iTunes in the Cloud for music you haven’t purchased from iTunes for $24.99 a year.
Here’s how it works: iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality. With 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, most music is probably already in iCloud, but you can upload is what iTunes can’t match. As Apple is quick to point out, that's faster than Amazon or Google.
Missing In Action
The new iTunes may auto-synch all your Apple devices, but missing is a streaming music service (like MOG or Rdio) and the ability to stream your own music directly from the cloud (like Google and Amazon).
Download iTunes In The Cloud Beta here.
If I have an Apple device then it will now do what it should have always allowed me to do. Buy a song from iTunes and not have to download to an external hard drive and then try to re-upload to my other Mac.
Nothing groundbreaking here, but definitely a move in the right direction for Apple after they purchased LaLa and killed that service a year ago, when alot of us thought that Apple would launch their “cloud-based” music service. Which the iCloud is not really a cloud-based music service anyways – still downloading and uploading going on in many circumstances.. but still a good thing.
The future of music started 11 years ago when Michael Robertson at MP3.com launched their MP3 locker service. It has taken the RIAA 11 years to finally allow this with a measly payoff from Apple of $150 million.
Which the artists will receive $0.00
Power to the people and the independents.
Big labels are going down and this is only the 21st sign of that happening.
-kutre
You cant download the iCloud beta at the moment!!!
The service is currently in developer preview only.
Yes it is available. You just have to download the new version of iTunes.
So, if I don’t have any Apple handheld devices iCloud won’t work for me right now even if I’ve downloaded the beta? Is that right? Because I’m not seeing anything in the 10.3 version showing cloud access.
Very informative.
Ok so I download music on my laptop….I couldn’t get it with sync. So I go on itunes on my iphone and I can download the new music from there. I have no idea if it’s working or not. There are these little clouds and when I click them the name of the song falls out! On the bottom right is the red oval with a number in it that doesn’t change and keeps flashing!!!!!! Instructions please anyone!