The so-called celestial jukebox that digital-music dreamers havebeen talking about since the 1990s got a little closer Tuesday whenAmazon launched its Cloud Player.
This service doesn't provide online access to all the world'srecorded music, as that vision specifies. But it does let you listento your collection from any Internet-connected computer with a Webbrowser as well as Android smartphones and tablets, and that'snothing to scoff at.
Other companies have done this - see, for instance, MP3tunes.comand SugarSync - but Amazon is on far more people's browsers and runsthe second-most-popular music download store in the United States.
That makes Cloud Player and its Cloud Drive Web storage achallenge to Apple's iTunes - and a major hint about where digitalmusic is headed.
The easiest way to think of Cloud Player and Cloud Drive is as areplacement for the USB connection used to sync a phone to acomputer. In other words: The network is not just the computer butthe cable as well.
You just need enough bandwidth - figure at least 750 kilobits persecond, or about three times the 256 kbps "bit rate" of an AmazonMP3 or iTunes download - and an Amazon account with a valid U.S.billing address.
The Seattle retailer provides 5 gigabytes of storage free; buyingan MP3 album from it ups that quota to 20 GB for the next year.
You can sync new Amazon MP3 purchases to your Cloud Driveautomatically and can transfer songs from a Mac or Windows computerwith Amazon's MP3 Uploader. Contrary to what its name suggests, itwill also upload AAC files bought from iTunes, provided they're notlocked with the "digital-rights-management" system Apple retired inApril 2009.
That program does not handle Microsoft's Windows Media Audioformat, podcasts or audiobooks (though you can upload files of anykind to your Cloud Drive through a browser).
The MP3 Uploader could be quicker to install - it earns a demeritfor requiring an installation at all on a Mac, courtesy of the AdobeAIR software it runs on. But it quickly identified one computer'siTunes library and another's Windows Media Player collection anduploaded those files as fast as a Fios connection would allow: abouthalf an hour for 306 songs in the latter test.
(Cloud Player's terms of use let Amazon "disclose your accountinformation and Your Files." Spokeswoman Cat Griffin wrote that "wework very hard to establish customer trust" but did not elaborate onthat clause. I wouldn't store anything too personal until it'sclearer.)
Amazon's Cloud Player browser interface worked as advertised inSafari on Mac OS X, Firefox in Windows and Linux, and InternetExplorer 8 in Windows. Entering my Amazon username and passwordyielded all the songs I'd uploaded, complete with the correct albumart and sortable by song, artist, album, genre or playlist.
Pausing, resuming playback and skipping to the next song happenedalmost as fast as if these MP3s and AACs had been on each computer.And by selecting them and clicking a "Download" button, I couldarrange that, too.
Amazon's Android program works like the Web app but can't sort bygenre. It can apparently ride out bandwidth hiccups - it played backuninterrupted on a Metro run from Rosslyn to McPherson Square thatusually has calls drop - but also crashed several times.
A different playback issue emerged Wednesday afternoon, when Ihit a poorly disclosed limit of five devices in 24 hours.
An iPad, iPhone or iPod touch won't push you over that limit.Amazon hasn't even shipped its MP3 store app for Apple's mobiledevices, where it would compete with the iTunes Store and,presumably, get vetoed by Apple.
Browser playback doesn't work in those gadgets either, althoughyou can select an individual track for download and wait for Safarito play it.
Although Amazon has competition from smaller companies, it facesnone from Apple. The company behind iTunes bought a popular cloudservice, Lala, in late 2009 but shut it down months later and hasyet to reintroduce anything like it.
Major record labels - which sued one of the first cloud musicservices, My.MP3.com, into oblivion a decade ago - might notappreciate Cloud Player. (The Recording Industry Association ofAmerica declined to comment.) But this service's requirement of anAmazon account login, which no sane user would want to share, shouldhelp insulate it from legal challenges.
Cloud Player could, however, face a much tougher problem: Thebandwidth caps imposed by wireless carriers and even some ground-bound broadband providers. They could make this proposition tooexpensive for even avid music fans.
No comments:
Post a Comment