Tech Industry

Businessweek describes Apple's iCloud music service

Seth Weintraub | May 26 2011 - 11:01 pm PT

Businessweek helps to paint the picture of what Apple’s cloud music service may look like:

Apple’s music service, which Engadget and other tech blogs are already calling iCloud, might well represent the future of recorded music. Armed with licenses from the music labels and publishers, Apple will be able to scan customers’ digital music libraries in iTunes and quickly mirror their collections on its own servers, say three people briefed on the talks. If the sound quality of a particular song on a user’s hard drive isn’t good enough, Apple will be able to replace it with a higher-quality version. Users of the service will then be able to stream, whenever they want, their songs and albums directly to PCs, iPhones, iPads, and perhaps one day even cars. And the music industry gets a chance at the next best thing after selling shrink-wrapped CDs: monthly subscription fees, à la Netflix and the cable companies. “We will come to a point in the not-so-distant future when we’ll look back on the 99¢ download as anachronistic as cassette tapes or 8-tracks,” says Ross Crupnick, a music analyst at NPD Group.

Perhaps most interesting in all of this is that the Music Labels have been whining and moaning about how Apple dominates digital music and they have no control over anything including pricing. And now they are giving Apple another huge lead on their competitors with this service which many believe will be unveiled at WWDC next month. Fool me once, shame on you….?