Amazon turned up the heat in the online music arena with its improved Cloud Player service, which includes a new scan and match feature. Scan and match is similar to iTunes Match and lets customers create an online music library without uploading a single file. The service will scan your iTunes or Windows Media Player music library, search for matches in Amazon’s 20 million song library and add them to your online locker if the service finds a match.
Just like iTunes Match, the Amazon service will upgrade all your files to 256kbps for free. Once the files are made available online, customers can stream the content to their Kindle Fire, Android device, iPhone, or iPod touch. Customers can also access their library using a web browser, and soon their Roku streaming player or Sonos home entertainment system. The free Amazon Cloud Player service lets users store 250 songs, while the premium version, which costs $25 a year, bumps up that amount to a generous 250,000 songs.
Amazon also announced today that its separating its Cloud Drive service from its Cloud Player service. From today forward, Cloud Drive will be use to store files, while Cloud Player will exclusively store and stream music files. Each service will offer different subscriptions, with Cloud Drive starting at 5GB for free and 20GB for a very reasonable $10 per year.
[Via Amazon]
Starting today, Cloud Drive will be used for file storage and Cloud Player will be used for music storage and playback — each service will offer separate subscriptions. Customers can still use Cloud Drive to store any of their files in the cloud and access them from any web browser or by using the Cloud Drive Desktop Apps. Customers can store up to 5GB free and storage plan prices have been lowered to start at $10 per year for 20 GB. To learn how to get started on Cloud Drive visit www.amazon.com/clouddrive/learnmore.