With the last remaining label having just inked a deal with Apple to launch iCloud, music industry insiders are now talking to the press about what they know about Cupertino’s upcoming music streaming service. Specifically, they’re answering the question everyone’s been asking all along: how much will iCloud’s music streaming cost?
According to sources speaking to the Los Angeles Times, iCloud’s music locker capabilities will initially be free with any purchase from the iTunes Store, similar to the way any album purchased through Amazon MP3 nets you 20GB of Amazon Cloud Locker storage.
After your free trial runs out, iCloud will charge a $25 per year fee for the service, while also supplementing iCloud with ads. We’re assuming these ads will be visual, maybe even iAds, but they could also be audio ads, like those favored by Spotify.
As for how much the music labels are getting, insiders say that Apple will share 30% of revenue from iCloud’s music service with record labels and an additional 12% with music publishers. Apple will take home the remaining 58%.
One thing to keep in mind is the $25 per year fee only refers to iCloud’s music streaming service. iCloud as a MobileMe rebranding we expect to cost $99 per year, although we could always be surprised.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
63 responses to “iCloud Music Streaming Will Cost $25 After Free Trial, Come With iAds”
Why would I pay for cloud service when I already own two physical disks…? It just seems silly to me. If I’m purchasing music through their store I should be able to have free space for all the music I purchase through iTunes. :\
Have you ever added up your on line operating costs? I mean ISP, 3G, MobileMe, eMusic, iTunes, Vonage, etc.,etc..
Then add up your DirectTv, Verizon or other equivalent telecommunications, etc.,etc..
Try it sometime.
I did several months ago and am still reeling.
Congress started to look a paragon of frugality.
Someone will eventually cut through this Gordian knot and become a modern Magellan.
I’m not going to give up my gadgets, but I sure hope someone finds a way to get my stuff a lot cheaper.
I really don’t see the point in paying to listen to the music you have already purchased. Products like Pandora, give you more for free. If I really only want to have my own music, then I can continue loading up my iPhone or a Wi-Drive(or similar). With the recent news of NAND memory prices dropping (as they continually do), this bandwidth hogging activity for something you already have, is just plain daft.
Good point, but how do you access your stuff remotely, or do you?
screwU? 2 bucks a month to listen to stuff already own? Seems kind of silly, since I shouldn’t be more than a couple hours from someplace to sync with my home computer. If I can’t plan that far in advance, I should hang it up now.
As part of MobileMe it’s certainly a value-added feature, but I still find 100 bucks a bit pricey. I can get a 2TB external drive and remote connection software for that money. ^9 bucks – including a Find My Mac/iPhone that really works would be a decent value. They also ought to include it as part of Apple Care. Even if just for a first year.
MobileMe has always been a one-stop-shopping package deal of things already included with my ISP along with stuff I can find online for free… or pretty close to it. Syncing has been a nightmare. Performance slow as hell. It really has NEVER lived up to its hype. The new MobileMe/iCloud better knock my effin socks off for $100/year.
$25 a year? That’s pretty neat. Spotify is 9€ a month, then again you get their entire music library for that…
Meh, I got enough space for music on my iphone so no need to stream…
“iCloud as a MobileMe rebranding we expect to cost $99 per year, although we could always be surprised.”
Hasn’t the rumor for quite a while being a relaunch of the service with most features being free?
Sure hope that will happen, would love to get Apples mail and calendar for maximum compatibility with my iphone and ipad
Well there are several music streaming apps in the appstore for just a few bucks, the catch is your computer at home will have to be the server…
I don’t get it. First off I have to buy the music. Then pay to stream my own music?
With Spotify I can stream the whole Spotify muisc library, but I can also add my own music and stream it from Spotify…
I’ve been following all the news on this iCloud service and I too “still don’t get it.” Sure, I understand the function very well — access to your music ANYWHERE. But the reason “I don’t get it” is because I don’t see any need to pay for that “convenience.” Heck, a housekeeper would be a “convenience” to me too, but I don’t want to pay for one!
With the economy still being in the tank, what intelligent middle-class person isn’t thinking about saving money? We sacrifice convenience to pay the bills. Clearly Apple too knows that, so they must be betting on revenue from younger people who are still living off their parents at home, hoping that as those youth get older, they will be hooked on iCloud and will keep paying the piper for it. As an AAPL shareholder I can certainly appreciate that revenue! But as a consumer, I shall steer clear of iCloud wallet-drain.
Big mistake to keep charging for MM. They’ll regret that one.
I don’t get it- Apple has been the master of portable devices for the past 10 years- why would they expect people to pay $25 for limited amount, lower quality access to music when you can carry it around in your pocket?
I don’t like this model. If I’m PAYING for the privilege of downloading music the least apple could do is not spam me with adds.
I could understand if I wasn’t paying and the service was free(they have to make some cash), but not with money coming out of my pocket.
Apple is once again shooting for where the “puck” will be, not where it is now. Sure we all have desktops computers and hard drives for storage NOW, but Jobs firmly believes the future of computing is mobility. Imagine a time when nobody HAS TO have a desktop at home and worry about failing hard drives. All our needed content resides in a vast, protected, backed-up datacenter (maybe just like Apple’s new one) and we can access it anytime, anywhere with always-on connections from any number of mobile devices (of varying sizes)…
iCloud.
I use Pogoplug that routes files through their website from my local HD. No monthly charges.The
problem is that it takes a long time to load and not all files are compatible. I can access it from anywhere. Dropbox is good too, but you have to pay over 2 GB.
Finally, the voice of reason. How could the rest of you be so short-sighted? Personally, I’ll be streaming from the “sooper-expensive” icloud on my “oversized-iphone”.
Ah, yes… Mo—bility… And Sec—urity… Imagine that future puck in the Digital Garden of Eden, where we all have no local storage whatsoever and Steve Jobs himself holds all your confidential data in the palm of his hand. For truly, everyone knows how local hard drives fail no less than once a week, how backups spontaneously combust, and how hackers steal data from your home computers daily, making the Apple iCloud a merciful Savior indeed. Not to mention the convenience of being able to listen to all that music an-y-where! Heart flutters! Yes, imagine the sheer ecstasy whereby we all get locked into monthly contracts which dictate we pay every last dime to Apple for such glorious protection and convenience. And all the while we shriek with delight upon being visually fondled by a never ending stream of cunning iAds which compel us to taste of the fruit and contribute the petty few pennies we have left. Ah, but what a joyous paradise that shall be. Oh, iCloud! Come to us swiftly!
If you’re paying for something that also has ads you might as well hang a sign over your head that says “Idiot.”
Many people pay for cable and ads show up for 2 minutes every 8 minutes…
Well, I for one have never been a part of that “many people” group. :-)
LA times is a bit off according to my sources.
It’s not buy something and get the whole service for free like Amazon does.
It’s free to stream just the music you bought on itunes. but if you want to upload your whole library and stream everything that is on the itunes server regardless of source, you have to pay
How about FREE to sync data between Apple devices (like MobileMe), Up to 4GB of FREE file storage on iCloud (like DropBox but more storage), FREE streaming of content purchased outright (or already owned) by you (scan and match on iCloud). For all of this “free” stuff you are subjected to iAds. Add a $25 per year iTunes subscription for streaming music that you DO NOT own and VOILA… you have the complete iCloud experience. Lion + iOS 5 + iCloud = A powerful, integrated, mobile data solution.
Apple sells more hardware because “it’s just easier and it just works”, current customers are shickled titless with the added value that was instantly added to their current Apple devices and the music labels and publishers all get their cut. Everybody’s happy, no?
I’ve had a few hours to mull this over, and I’ve gotten it down to this:
I pay 25 bucks a year for the privilege of listening to a closed circuit commercial radio station where I also have to pay the music licensing fees AND program the music myself.
Such a deal…
Talking as an international customer, I feel this is not gonna work with this pricing. You have to give people properly featured products. And this pay-for-year thing is a bit annoying. I preferred the old good times when you bought a product for using it forever.
BTW, if MM will include an iPad-oriented iWork, lots of gigas and so., maybe next year when my SugarSync account expires I’ll try it…
With this new service, Apple will have completed their transformation into Big Brother himself. It’s been a fun journey from the original Mac commercial where they smashed Big Brother’s image, to the day where they have become Big Brother
I think we all will be surprised.
I would pay for services w/o ads. Actually, with flickr, I do now.
…and I dropped cable because I’m tired of being taken.
Don’t really need to… I have an iPod Touch :\
I really hope they bring Spotify to the US. :\
the trial will actually determine for me whether i need the service at all, or not
Well, I was almost right! Just a few details off…