Apple’s iCloud is the “cloud” service from the Cupertino company, officially presented during WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference). However, the solution proposed by Apple for uploading your music to the cloud doesn’t please everyone and is causing controversy. Let’s find out why.
As anticipated in recent days, the official announcement has arrived regarding the new serviceApple callediCloud. Music, various files, and all documents fly into the data cloud, allowing you to upload and always have all your favorite playlists available. It is also interesting because, at the moment you make any changes on one of the devices, all the others – provided they are already paired with your account – will also be automatically updated.
So far – one might object – it doesn’t seem radically different from the more classiccloud computing services already in existence; however, there is a difference, and it lies in the price of the service related to music.
Yes indeed, to upload your entire, and I mean entire, music collection toiCloud there is a fee, in the order of $24.99 per year. This way, you can have pieces and albums downloaded oniTunes available, but also your personal collection that perhaps now resides on your PC.
From many corners of the web, there are shouts of scandal, already renaming the payment of this sum with the words “pardon” and “amnesty“, given that in this way one can bring albums downloaded outside ofiTunes to the cloud, even those obtained illegally.
A move that would somehow compensate for the scourge of piracy? And what about all those MP3 songs we own, after ripping them to our PC directly from a regularly purchased original CD?
A dilemma that perhaps has not been considered but which would weigh on those who still love to buy physical formats of new albums, rather than “cold” MP3s via iTunes or any other online store.
Returning to thefeatures of iCloud, where will the data physically reside on the cloud? In the newApple data center located in North Carolina, recently built with an expenditure of a good billion dollars. A significant sum that must be recovered in some way…
Beyond the music functionality, iCloud probably aims to win back those users who, until now, to synchronize mail, calendars, and various activities, have opted forGoogle services as they are completely free.
Also Apple made something similar available a long time ago – MobileMe – but it was paid: not surprisingly, this project was not very popular, chosen by a handful of users who – compared to the usual numbers that Apple achieves – represents a negligible percentage and therefore a partial failure of the service (in terms of audience, not product quality).
Therefore, the era of PCs as physical media for “storing” files, music, ebooks, etc. is officially over: the era of clouds has begun.
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