Credit: David Sedlmayer, used under a Creative Commons license.
Today is the day that will bring us one step closer to the death of the cloud. That crucial new part of the internet that is gaining popularity due to the likes of Hulu, Netflix, MobileMe, DropBox, Crashplan, etc. is about to get another blow — AT&T on Monday started restricting the amount of data its millions of broadband customers are able to use in a month. Data is now restricted to as little as 150GB a month.
That isn’t good news — users should an uproar over the whole thing. It means that a large number of people using broadband in the U.S. will be severely limited in what they can do online. They might risk extra charges or even total loss of their broadband access. This comes as Apple is rumored to be on the verge of introducing a more Cloud-based model of computing for millions of customers.
Hints of Apple’s upcoming cloud-based storage service – now dubbed iCloud following the company’s takeover of the iCloud.com domain – have been found within the third release of the Mac OS X Lion developer preview under the ‘Castle’ codename.
First discovered by Consomac.fris a ‘Find My Mac’ feature thought to offer the same functionality as the ‘Find My iPhone’ feature built into MobileMe. What’s more interesting, however, are the strings that indicate users can upgrade from MobileMe to a service called ‘Castle.’
‘Castle’ is believed to be the codename for iCloud – the cloud-based storage service that Apple is currently developing. The service is expected to offer users a way of storing their music and other content in a digital locker, which they can then stream to internet connected devices such as the iPhone and iPad, and save storage space which would usually be taken up by storing content locally.
The service got its ‘iCloud’ name after Apple purchased the domain from a Swedish company called Xcerion, who offer a similar storage service. Xcerion received $4.5 million to rebrand the service and give up the iCloud.com domain.
Apple has reportedly purchased the iCloud.com domain for the new cloud-based storage service it is currently working on, paying $4.5 million to the previous owners who have now rebranded their service. Visitors to iCloud.com are currently redirected to the new service – now called CloudMe – but it is believed Apple will take over the domain when it’s ready.
The report comes from GigaOm, who cites a source familiar with the company:
My source, who is familiar with the company, says that Xcerion has sold the domain to Apple for about $4.5 million. Xcerion hasn’t responded to my queries as yet. At the time of writing, the Whois database showed Xcerion as the owner of iCloud.
MacRumors also received some information on the iCloud rebranding last week, but were unable to obtain enough information at the time to link the change to an Apple takeover.
Apple’s upcoming cloud-based storage service – also dubbed a ‘music locker’ – will purportedly be a solution for storing music and other content online which can then be streamed to internet connected devices, such as the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.
The most recent speculation has suggested that Apple is currently in the process of signing deals with all of the major music labels and getting the service ready for launch. An announcement is expected at WWDC in June.
An Apple cloud service has been one of the main focal points for a lot of recent speculation, and a new job listing on the Apple website confirms that the company is currently putting together a crack team of people to build “the future of cloud services at Apple.”
The listing is for a “Cloud Systems Software Engineer” – a full-time role in a “small team” based at the company’s main Cupertino campus. In true Apple style the listing doesn’t reveal a lot of information about this cloud service, however, it does state that the team will be responsible for writing software “which forms the foundation” for some of Apple’s “most exciting new products and services.”
Apple’s only attempt at cloud services so far has been MobileMe, which has left a great deal to be desired for many of its users. Recent rumors claimed that a revamped MobileMe service would soon go live, featuring a digital storage function similar to iDisk which would enable users to store content that could be streamed to iOS devices.
Since Apple has only just started advertising for people to build their new team, it doesn’t look like the cloud service will be launching anytime in the immediate future. It is believed cloud services will be a big part of iOS 5, so the first we hear about it could be at WWDC in June.
Interestingly, since this job listing became famous, it seems to have been removed by Apple.
Late tonight, Amazon took the wraps off of Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player, free services for network storage and playback of MP3s and DRM-free iTunes audio files. Just as Ed predicted. Anyone with an Amazon account can sign up for 5 GB of space, and then you just upload your music library for access through any Flash-based browser or a brand-new Android app. From now forward, any Amazon MP3 store purchase will automatically be added to your Cloud Drive and won’t count against your storage quota. Larger capacities are available at $1 per GB per year starting at 20 GB.
In almost every regard, it’s exactly like Lala, the totally amazing cloud music service that Apple bought almost a year and a half ago and then promptly shut down. The only difference is that Lala also offered 10-cent song purchases for cloud-only use (as opposed to downloaded for offline use). This makes it all the more ridiculous that Apple still doesn’t have a cloud music service released. We’ve been hearing for some time that the iTunes Locker will arrive any day to offer something comparable, but Amazon’s move shows just how much Apple has slow-played its move toward streaming.
It would actually be fascinating to see Amazon release an iOS client for Cloud Player to really hold Apple’s feet to the fire. My over-riding concern with what I’ve heard about iTunes Locker is that Apple wouldn’t even match Lala’s old ability to offer songs from your entire music library and would instead offer access only to iTunes purchases. With Amazon offering something this simple and successful, Apple will have to go all out. This is why real competition is a very good thing for Apple users — it forces the company to leap over its own bar, not just hit it. Moreover, it will mean pushing ahead even if terms with record labels aren’t perfectly favorable.
— Sent in by everyone in my Twitter feed.
UPDATE: I’ve just discovered that if you visit your Cloud Drive through Mobile Safari, it is possible to play back audio on an iPhone, but only one track at a time through downloads. Hardly a useable solution, but an interesting trick nonetheless.
Now, far more useful is that you can also play back video loaded into the Cloud Drive on an iPhone, so long as it’s in a format Safari supports (preferably H.264). Amazon isn’t making a big deal out of video yet, but there is definite potential here. Especially if the geniuses at VLC or Plex figure out how to pull down a stream from your Cloud Drive…
Sick of waiting for Apple to make up its mind on when its going to pilot iTunes into the cloud? Skeptical that Google’s going to do it any quicker? Recognize Spotify in the United States for what it is: a pipe dream that the music publishers will never let happen?
Time to throw your collected tracks online yourself, and cloud-streaming music service mSpot is here to help you make that happen, in conjunction with a free, just released iOS app.
Judging by the video above, mSpot’s actually got me interested: $3.99 for 40GB of online storage is actually a pretty decent price, especially given the slickness of their web interface. I’m about to move, shipping my iMac over and working entirely on my 64GB MacBook Air for the next month… maybe it wouldn’t be a shabby idea to throw my music collection up on mSpot before I leave.
This past week finally saw the unveiling of Google’s long-awaited Chrome OS. Surprising few to none, the big revelation is that Chrome the browser is actually the entire operating system. Using cloud web applications, it will be possible to run a bunch of desktop-ish apps on a Chrome-based netbook at home, then go to work, fire up Chrome on Mac or Windows on your work laptop, and have the same experience there. Pretty snazzy stuff.
It’s yet another take on what cloud-based consumer computing could be (insert “network computing” if you’d like to relive 1996), an heir to the promise of Java and so many others. And it looks to have some legs, even if we’re still quite some ways from seeing commercially available hardware ready to run on it. Many developers will create apps for the platform, and its write-once, read-anywhere (WOMA!) promise is mighty seductive. It would be very easy to imagine a world in which no one develops for traditional desktop operating systems anymore, except for professional applications like video editing and design work. Sounds like bad news for Apple, right?
Despite wild speculation and user interest, Apple has yet to launch any cloud-storage and streaming functionality to iTunes, but that’s not to say you’re completely out of luck if you want to access your music no matter where you are: a new cloud-based streaming site named Mougg has just launched, and best of all, it’s free to try out.
Over the years, Napster has pupated from an illegal peer-to-peer music sharing network to a streaming audio subscription service, and today marks another surprising evolution in a brand that has, over the past decade, meant all things to all men: it’s now an iPhone app.
10-4, you heard that correctly: Apple has finally approved Napster on iTunes as a free application. Weighing in at just 1.8MB, Napster will stream over 10 million songs to you on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, provided you’re willing to give a Hamilton a month to Napster LLC (which the App Store listing proudly reminds us is “a Best Buy company”) for their Napster plus Mobile Access subscription.
Okay, it’s not the long delayed U.S. launch of our favorite streaming music service, Spotify. None the less, it’s great to see so many options for streaming your music start hitting the App Store, and I think it heralds great things for Apple’s own entry into the Cloud: clearly, whatever Apple’s got planned, they don’t think existing services like Napster or Spotify are a threat. iTunes Live, when it comes, is going to do things we didn’t even know we wanted.
