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Apple signs Warner Music to its cloud-based music service
Need another sign that iTunes will soon be floating your library up to the cloud? Look no further than confirmation of Apple signing Warner Music, a deal that should see the label's music available in its upcoming streaming iTunes service. This is in addition to last week's confirmation that two major labels signed on, though its unclear whether Warner is part of the pair or is, indeed, a third. That might leave only one of the major labels left unsigned -- or maybe Apple's already locked down all four but doesn't want to kiss and tell. Yet.
Apple's cloud music service ready to rock and roll (Updated)
A report from AllThingsD suggests Apple has already inked deals with two of the four major record labels for its upcoming streaming music service. Apple's VP of Internet Services, Eddy Cue, is supposedly traveling to New York to complete negotiations with the remaining two music labels as early as Friday (today). This report contradicts an earlier report from Reuters which claims Apple has not yet signed any licensing agreements. Unlike Amazon's cloud music service, which launched without signing a single licensing agreement, Apple may have the blessing of the top recording companies, such as Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony and EMI. Industry insiders claim these agreements will let Apple stream higher quality music tracks, offer an improved user interface and incorporate other features that would not be available to Amazon's Cloud Player service. Industry executives that spoke to AllThingsD confirmed the music service would let iTunes users store their library in the cloud and access it from a variety of devices. Tracks purchased from iTunes as well as tracks stored on the user's hard drive could be added to this online digital locker. No word on when the streaming service will launch, but Apple is reportedly working quickly to tie up all the loose ends. Update: CNET is reporting that Apple has signed a deal with Warner Music Group to offer its music catalog on Apple's rumored streaming music service.
Apple's cloud music service ready for launch
A report out of Reuters claims Apple is set to launch its online music storage service. The service would allow users to store their iTunes content in the cloud and access it from an internet-connected device. Apple has yet to secure the licenses for the new service and is in the process of negotiating with the music labels before the service's big launch. No word on whether changes to MobileMe are included with this upcoming launch. Apple will reportedly beat Google to the punch and launch its music storage and streaming service ahead of the search giant. Hints of Google's foray into music streaming have appeared in the latest builds of Android, but the rollout of this service is reportedly delayed. Amazon has beaten both Apple and Google with its Cloud Drive and Cloud Player service, which lets Amazon users store their music library and other files in the cloud. Amazon's Cloud player can play back these stored music files using a desktop web browser or an Android device. You can use a relatively easy workaround to access Cloud Player on your iOS device as we described here.
Reuters: Apple set to launch cloud-based music service ahead of Google (update)
It's the rumor that wouldn't die, and Reuters is now reporting that Apple is finally set to launch a cloud-based music service -- presumably putting its massive North Carolina data center to some real work at long last. Details are still fairly light beyond that, but Reuters says that Apple's service will actually launch ahead of Google's similar cloud-based option, which it reports is now "stalled," citing "several people familiar with both companies plans." According to Reuters, the service will let folks store their music (and only music, apparently) on Apple's servers and then access it on any device with an internet connection -- and a copy of iTunes, we presume. Update: Peter Kafka, over at All Things Digital, backs up Reuters' claim with some additional detail. Unlike Amazon's approach with Cloud Player, Apple is actively seeking to license the music for its streaming service before launching. According to Kafka's sources, Apple has already secured deals with two of the big four labels and plans to launch "pretty soon." The deal would allow Apple to store a single master copy of a track on its servers and then share that track with multiple users. As Kafka describes the service, "The idea is that Apple will let users store songs they've purchased from its iTunes store, as well as others songs stored on their hard drives, and listen to them on multiple devices."
HP may bless webOS with cloud-syncing music store
Rumor has it that HP is preparing to enter the cloud-based music storage fray. A reader at PreCentral sent in what purports to be a confidential PowerPoint presentation indicating the TouchPad will launch with an HP-branded music and movie store, as well as a smart syncing service that caches frequently accessed media for local playback. This may very well be the "Music Synergy" that SVP Steven McArthur mentioned to us. Amazon has already launched such an app and it's all but official that Google is planning the same thing, so it only makes sense that the company would want to imbue webOS with similar powers. We can't verify these claims ourselves and the slide above is clearly a wonky Photoshop job, but it's would hardly be surprising after snatching up Melodeo and the streaming music service Nutsie. And, while webOS and Android are working to banish the quaint ritual of plugging your cellphone into a computer, we can only imagine what the Lala team is up to -- maybe Jobs has them washing his turtlenecks.
Google snags PushLife, will probably use it to push music to your Android phone
At last year's Google I/O we were tantalizingly teased with the idea of music streaming to our mobile devices. Since then, there have been hints and leaks, but nothing official from Google on when or how this new service would be rolled out. Well, now we can add a big piece to that puzzle with the news that Google has acquired mobile entertainment company PushLife, which has been developing a music app of its own for the Android and BlackBerry platforms. PushLife offers one-click purchases from an integrated music store, an overview of tunes you have both on your smartphone and on your computer (with the ability to access both sets on the phone), and automatic playlist syncing with iTunes or Windows Media Player libraries. There's even more fanciness, such as recommendations based on the song you're playing, artists bios and photo galleries, plus the inevitable Twitter and Facebook integration. The Canadian startup is believed to have cashed in to the tune of $25 million and will soon be shutting down its independent operations. Also soon: Google I/O 2011. Hint, hint, Google! Demo video after the break.
Sony's Music Unlimited streaming service coming to NGP, will hit Xperia Play this year and PSP 'in a matter of weeks'
It may sound patently obvious at this point, but there's still cause to celebrate -- Sony's streaming subscription music service, Music Unlimited, is headed to both the PlayStation Portable and its pair of divergent spiritual successors the Next Generation Portable and Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play. Eurogamer sat down with Sony Network Entertainment VP Shawn Layden, who spread the news readily, confirming that the service would be activated (at least in the UK) on PlayStation Portable "in a matter of weeks." Meanwhile, Android phones including the infamous PlayStation handset will get Music Unlimited "this year," and SNE "will make it happen" on the NGP as well, presumably sometime after the company reveals when its beast of a portable game station will actually come out. All in the name of taking your tunes with you wherever you happen to travel -- a concept that's getting rather popular right now.
Amazon negotiating for Cloud Player music licensing deals after all?
Publically, Amazon wants you to think it doesn't care about licensing the music that it will let you store in the cloud, but privately we're hearing the company is scrambling like mad to work things out with angry music labels as we speak. Specifically, the Wall Street Journal cites a pair of anonymous sources who say Amazon's actually negotiating deals with the four major labels right now -- though Amazon won't confirm such a thing -- which the e-tailer hopes to close in a matter of weeks. What's more, they say Amazon may move to a system that compares users' uploaded songs with a database of those tunes it's managed to licence should the deal go through -- a system much like Sony's Music Unlimited, by the sound of it. It shouldn't come as any surprise, then, that the Journal quotes Sony Music chairman Martin Bandier in its final paragraph, who makes his pointed indignation at Amazon's announcement heard: "This is just another land grab. I can't make it any plainer than that. It's really disrespectful, and of course we are considering all of our options." Nothing like a little bit of mainstream media coverage to help pressure a business deal.
Amazon launches 'cloud locker' music service
Amazon announced Cloud Drive and Cloud Player for the Web and Android, a new web-based service that lets you store your music and other files in the cloud and access them on the go. Streaming music is possible using a web-based player compatible with the Mac and PC as well as an Android application. The Cloud Drive service competes with online storage solutions like Dropbox by letting you upload music, video, photos and other documents to an online locker. The service provides you with 5 GB of online storage space for free, and additional storage capacity is available for a minimal fee. The paid service includes 20 GB of storage for $20, 50 GB for $50 and so on. Amazon's Cloud Player service is free and brings music streaming to the masses who shop Amazon's web store. Amazon apparently launched the service without the blessing of the recording industry and is working on securing post-announcement licenses. The online retail giant is forcing the music industry to play its hand and either support the service or risk appearing as the bad guy by shooting Amazon down. It's a gutsy move, but one that Amazon needs to make if it wants to catch up with its competition. Speaking of competition, read on to find out how Amazon is taking on Apple's popular iTunes music service.
Android Honeycomb's music app extracted, brings cloud sync and streaming to phones
Those who are familiar with Android Honeycomb might have already come across its music player's cloud syncing feature, though previous attempts to port said app to phones hadn't been successful. Whatever it was that kept crashing the app back then, it seems to have fixed itself -- after xda-developers member WhiteWidows slapped the leaked app onto his rooted EVO 4G, the phone started to automagically sync his tunes to his Google account. The modder then swapped in an empty SD card, but he was still able to stream music straight from the cloud after checking the "Stream music" option in the app. Pretty neat, eh? That said, we do wonder if Google will be able to handle the exabytes worth of high-quality Justin Bieber and Spice Girl tracks.
Apple working on unlimited downloads of purchased iTunes music, setting MobileMe free?
You know all that rumor and speculation about Apple launching a subscription-based streaming music service? Forget it -- at least until the next rumor comes along. Bloomberg is citing three people with knowledge of private talks between Apple, Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music to make purchased music more easily accessible to iTunes users. Two sources claim that an agreement could be announced by midyear. Contrary to popular speculation aroused by Apple's purchase of Lala, they're not talking about streaming music from Apple's new North Carolina data center scheduled to come online in the spring. According to Bloomberg's sources, Apple is instead, planning to offer unlimited downloads to any device linked to the same iTunes account. So, purchase a track on your iPhone and download it again for free to your iPad without having to go back and tether the mobile device to your PC or Mac for a sync. Hard disk crash? No worries, there's a permanent backup in the cloud. Of course, there's nothing preventing Apple from providing unlimited downloads in parallel with a streaming service except for the labels and artists who prefer the higher revenues paid out by download services. Then again, if it was left to them we'd still be buying our music on $15 CDs. Incidentally, one Bloomberg source was also caught blabbing about Apple's plans to overhaul the MobileMe service to store pictures, video, and other online content sometime this year. Better yet, it could drop from $99 per year to free -- something already reported by the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago.
Sony Music Unlimited now streaming tracks to the US
Let's hope Sony's new streaming music service -- just launched today for the US, Australia, and New Zealand -- isn't as unwieldy to use as its "Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity" moniker suggests. The service features six million tracks from Sony Music Entertainment, Universal, EMI, and Warner and is available on Sony's own devices including the PS3, Blu-ray disc players, Bravia televisions, and VAIO PCs. It'll also be available on Android smartphones soon with an iOS app coming later this year, assuming Apple's new subscription debacle doesn't derail Sony's plans. A basic membership provides an interactive radio experience for $3.99 per month while a premium $9.99 per month service gives subscribers on-demand access to the Music Unlimited library with the ability to manage your music through playlists and the like. Sony also provides a useful service that scans your local library and playlists to "jump start" the organization of your Music Unlimited collection. Wonder how it'll work on the NGP and PlayStation tablet?
WSJ corroborates the mini-iPhone, says Apple may make MobileMe free (update: 'edge-to-edge' screen)
The Wall Street Journal has weighed in on rumors of Apple's smaller iPhone, and citing "people familiar with the matter" the publication says that the rumors are likely true. One such familiar person reportedly saw a device half the size of the iPhone 4, bearing the codename "N97," and said that the handset will be only about half the size of the original, and at only around half the price too. Amazingly, those anonymous sources continued to divulge information, expressing the idea that Apple could finally make its MobileMe cloud service suite free, and that it just might be the platform from which Apple could finally launch a streaming music platform and lessen the need for all those gigabytes of flash storage in your pocket. We'll let you know if or when any of that happens, okay? Update: The WSJ's source proved even more talkative after getting an eyeful of the Samsung and Sony announcements this morn; the publication's article has been updated to read that the device is "significantly lighter" than the iPhone 4, has an "edge-to-edge" touchscreen, and "voice-based navigation" of some sort.
Sonos nabs streaming support for XM Radio, Lithium listeners start a minor mosh pit
Look, we get it. You sunk $87,342.12 into a Sonos whole-home streaming solution, and your buds won't stop pestering you about its inability to stream XM Radio. Thankfully, the stars have aligned just in time for your impending Super Bowl bash, and it's just about time for you to start fantasizing about what their faces will look like when they're ushered into your adobe by Heart-Shaped Box. Thanks to the eagle-eyed Dave Zatz, it looks as if some sort of final blending has gone down between Sirius and XM, with a merging of accounts (presumably) making it possible for Sonos to now stream XM Radio; if you'll recall, the system has had the ability to stream dedicated Sirius channels for a good while now, but particular XM stations have been left out of the mix prior to this weekend. Hit the source link to find out what password changes are needed to get things in sync, and be sure to try it all out before bragging to said buds -- wouldn't want to eat crow after taking all of that flack, now would you?
Sony's Music Unlimited service infiltrates France, Germany, Italy and Spain, offers streaming tunes
See this message? You no longer have to if you live in France, Germany, Italy or Spain, as Sony's rolled out its Music Unlimited subscription streaming service in each aforementioned nation just yesterday. Basically, it's the same deal that launched in the UK last month, but at a slightly cheaper price given the exchange rate: €3.99 a month buys you a virtual radio station that streams millions of songs to your Sony TVs, Blu-ray players or PS3 -- with portable devices and phones on the way -- while €9.99 upgrades to a premium plan that lets you select tunes on demand and generate playlists. Next stop: North America. PR after the break.
Shazam and Spotify team up on iOS and Android apps
In yet another sign that Spotify has gone mainstream the company has just announced a partnership with Shazam -- the ubiquitous mobile music identification service. Under the deal, Shazamers will now be greeted with a "Play in Spotify" feature for all music discovered. The feature will be fully integrated in Shazam's free app "soon" and is available now for the premium apps on Android and iOS wherever Spotify is available, namely, the UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, Spain and the Netherlands.
Spotify comes to Logitech Squeezebox, makes non-Europeans mildly jealous
Spotify still won't say when its streaming music service will come to the US, but its 10 million songs will play on two more devices from here on out: starting today, the Logitech Squeezebox Touch and Squeezebox Radio can get their 320kbps groove on. (Sonos, eat your heart out.) A free beta version of the music app should appear on the MySqueezebox website at any moment -- though it doesn't seem to be there right now -- followed by "a full rollout expected in the very near future," a promise which we can't quite translate, but might mean support for even more devices down the road. Of course, Spotify's something of a given for Logitech's next Squeezebox, if it happens to run Android. PR after the break.
iHome gives further details on AirPlay-ready speakers
iHome's first AirPlay compatible wireless speaker system didn't make it out for the holiday season as expected, but they have just released further information on the system, now known as the iW1. We first got wind of the iW1 last September. Back then we simply knew that it would be a wireless speaker that incorporates Apple's AirPlay technology, and that it runs off of a rechargeable battery. It streams digital lossless audio from your iTunes library and compatible device (using Apple's Remote app or iHome's own custom app). Today, iHome has shared some additional tidbits, including: Multiple iW1 speaker support -- enjoy music streamed all around your house simultaneously with AirPlay and multiple iW1 speakers Built-in rechargeable li-ion bettery with included charging base Studio Series speakers -- high performance audio featuring Bongiovi Acoustics DPS with specially tuned woofers and tweeters with a clean, efficient Class-D amplifier iPhone / iPod / iPad docking, charging and local audio playback via USB cable A capacitive, backlit, touch-sensitive control panel Electricpic reports that the iW1 will retail for £299 (roughly US$465 as of this writing) and should be available around February or March of this year. That's quite a steep price, but just slightly undercutting Sonos ZonePlayer 120 at US$499 (we recently reviewed the $399 Sonos S5). [Via MacRumors]
HTC Media Link DLNA streamer review
Apple's AirPlay might be getting all the attention lately but it's hardly the first solution for wirelessly streaming media to the television. Far from it. In 2003, the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) formed with its first set of interoperable products hitting the market in 2004. Since then, the alliance has certified thousands of products supported by more than 245 member companies, 29 of whom are listed as "promoter members" including such heavyweights as Sony, Nokia, Samsung, Toshiba, Verizon, AT&T Lab, LG, Qualcomm, Cisco, Microsoft, Panasonic, Intel, HP, and Motorola. Pretty much everyone but Apple. Recently, HTC joined the DLNA ranks with the introduction of two smartphones -- the Desire Z and Desire HD -- and a tiny media streamer known as the HTC Media Link, HTC's first attempt to gain a foothold in the living room. Over the last week we've been testing the Desire Z (a Eurofied T-Mobile G2) with the Media Link, lazily streaming video, music, and images around the house using a myriad of sources and controllers from Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, and Western Digital. How did it perform? Click through to find out. %Gallery-112218%
JBL's AirPlay-enabled On Air Wireless speaker dock hits the FCC
JBL was one of the first companies besides iHome and Denon / Marantz to announce support for Apple's AirPlay technology, so it's no surprise that the company's On Air Wireless speaker dock just hit the FCC, complete with its manual -- we've been hearing that AirPlay will be all over the place at CES 2011. The On Air Wireless seems like a fancier riff on JBL's On Air line of speaker docks and alarm clocks -- it features that familiar swoopy-loop design but adds in a large color LCD display that displays album artwork while streaming music. Looking at the manual, the display also makes WiFi setup and configuration a little easier, which is nice. All in all, it looks promising, but we'll see what price and availability looks like when we get to CES.
