But, it is becoming increasingly hard to find CD's and resist the urge to buy music online because of how easy it is, and with Amazon unveiling their new cloud music player it is going to be hard to resist the urge to use this FREE service. But what is this new cloud music player that is supposed to compete with Apple's Itunes, and is it really free?
Amazon's cloud music player gives the listener the ability to keep all their music online, they can upload music from their own computer and keep it online so tha
t they do not have to worry about not being able to listen to your own music on another computer. The second option they give you is to buy albums and songs from their own music library and have them directly put into this so called "cloud" where all your music is stored online. It is basically an online disk drive where you can store music you have purchased or imported from your own computer making it easier to listen to music from computer to computer.
Amazon also created an app so that Android users can use this service on the go as long as they have internet access, there are no iphone/ipod/ipad apps yet to use this service, some think it is due to the fact that Amazon created this service to compete with Apple, but just wait a few months and there will be an app that lets users use this service on their iphone/ipod/ipad without directly going on the internet.
The real question is, is this service really free like they describe it is? The answer to that is yes with a large BUT where the answer becomes no. The reason that they can say that this service is free is because Amazon gives each user 5 gigabytes of memory free online, that is roughly 1,200 MP3's. If a user wants more storage they have to pay $1 per gigabyte they want to upgrade, which can add up quickly depending on the amount of music users want to keep in this "cloud." There is a way to get more storage for free though, Amazon said that if a user buys an entire album and has it saved to the "cloud" their storage is immediately bumped up to 20 gigabytes of storage space for no extra cost, so needless to say its worth buying the one album for the more storage space. Amazon is offering this extra 15 gigabytes of storage space with an album to pull users away from the near monopoly that Apple has with Itunes. To go along with this offer any song that is bought from the Amazon music store doesn't count against your now 20 gigabytes of storage space in this "cloud," its very clear that they are saying if you wanna put music you bought from Itunes online its going to cost you.
So what are the pro and cons of this new "cloud" feature?
Pros:
- Users have the ability to keep their music online and listen to it wherever they have internet access, they also have the ability to download the same music onto their desktop and put it onto an ipod.
- Android app lets users listen on the go on their phone.
- Users can also use the "cloud" to hold pictures, Microsoft office documents, etc.
Cons:
- The service can end up costing the user a pretty penny if they want a of storage space.
- No Iphone/ipod/ipad app yet letting users easily use this on those devices (wait a few months and someone will develop something)
-Apparently Google and Apple are both developing this same type of program.
Amazon's cloud is a great idea that I imagine will compete with Itunes, but it is going to be hard to pull a significant amount of people away from Itunes when they are in the process of developing a similar program. I think as more apps are developed for this "cloud" for smartphones people will begin to use this service more.
The Amazon "Cloud" idea definitely got me thinking about making it easier to store music and listen to it on different computers and so on and so forth, but I will continue to buy CD's and Vinyl until they die.
