Amazon jumped head first into the music streaming market with the debut of its Cloud Drive and Cloud Player for Android. The online retail giant was rumored to be working on a music storage and streaming service and the cloud-based system is now available for customers to try.
Amazon’s system uses Cloud Drive, an online music storage locker, and Cloud Player, a web-based streaming client compatible with a desktop PC and your Android handset. Cloud Drive is available to US customers and all Amazon mp3 purchases can be saved to this online digital locker. It also supports uploads from your computer and lets you store music, videos, photos, and documents online. Cloud Drive is available with 5 GB of free storage and upgrades are available for a small fee (20 GB is $20 per year, 50 GB is $50, and so on)
Once you have built your online library, you can get access to your files from any web-connected computer. Music files can be streamed with the Cloud Player application which is available as a stand-alone web application or an Android app. The online version can be launched from any web browser and works on both the Mac and the PC. The Android version of Cloud Player is available within the Amazon MP3 application which can be downloaded for free from the Android Market. Amazon has not mentioned any pricing in its initial documentation so this streaming service is free thus far.
Point your browser to Amazon’s website for all the details or check out the press release on the second page. If you give it a whirl, let us know what you think in the comments.