The much-rumored Apple cloud music service is reportedly ready to and it will beat Google’s offering to the market.
Reuters is reporting that Apple has “completed work” on its cloud music service and this will likely act as a digital locker for content that users have purchased. The goal is to give users access to their content, no matter which (iOS or Mac, I’m guessing) device they’re using. The report says that the Apple cloud music service hasn’t secured new licenses from the music labels, which indicates that there will not be a subscription music option.
If that scenario sounds familiar, it should. Amazon has just launched its Cloud Player and this enables users to upload their tracks to Amazon’s servers and then play these on any device they want to access it from.
The music labels are freaking out over this but Amazon insists that there’s no new licenses needed because it’s no different than users accessing their physical hard drive. Unlike something like MP3.com, Amazon may be in the right legally because it does require users to upload these files once.
As for Google, it has been promising a way to stream your home tracks to your Android phone for about a year but we haven’t seen much from this. We spotted this feature in a leaked version of the Android Music player but rumors suggest that the search giant is getting nowhere with the music labels.
While it may not need licenses to let users stream their own tracks, the so-called Google Music wants to be able to sell tracks from the Android Market too and that definitely takes music industry cooperation. The negotiations could also be muddled by Larry Page taking over Google, Reuters speculates.
I think it’s just a matter of time before the Apple cloud music service lands but I don’t expect it until WWDC in June. Google has its big I/O Conference next month, so it could still debut its cloud music service first.
[Via Reuters]