iCloudy
Apple today announced iCloud, iOS 5, and Mac OS X Lion. All expected. I followed along on Engadget — Macworld’s live feed was too buggy with its “live” updates — and my initial thought was: “Apple is knocking this out of the park.”
I still feel as though this is a major move forward for Apple, but in seeing the inevitable “what does this mean for Dropbox, or Rdio, or Instapaper” posts trickle down through my Twitter feed, I’m left with a lot of questions, and few answers.
iTunes and MobileMe in a post-Lala World
I’m a grudging MobileMe subscriber. Grudging, because if it weren’t for the loss of my .me email account, I’d probably be an ex MobileMe subscriber.
It’s not that it’s worthless, it’s that it’s just barely worth the $99 a year.
Apple’s recent-ish acquisition of Lala, the SYOM (Stream Your Own Music) service has me hoping that sometime in the near future, there will be some added value to MobileMe.
In my ideal world, $99 a year buys me:
- 5 GB of Space on a server dedicated to whichever portion of my iTunes music library I wish to sync, or the whole thing if it’s smaller than 5 GB. (Extra space can be purchased for extra cash.)
- A license to stream that music to my iDevices, through the iPod application.
- The ability to *share* that stream, as a playlist, with other members of MobileMe. Say, 5 at a time?
- Conversely, the ability to listen to the streamed playlists of other MobileMe subscribers. (Even limited Pandora-style controls would be acceptable, though full control—pause, play, skip, back—would be better.)
- A method of creating live or pre-recorded podcast-styled streams/playlists, and a way to integrate iAds. User generated radio stations, essentially. (Imagine if an iPad/iPhone app would allow dynamic stations with pushed song requests: “Hey, I’m listening to your stream and if you liked that last song, play this next…”
- A robust social engine: Achievements, recommendations, etc.
To do this, I presume Apple would have to hand over a portion of the $99 subscription fee to the record industry. That’s fine. A lot of people simply want Apple to lower the $99 fee—or do away with it altogether. I would argue that using a percentage of it as a bargaining chip with the record industry for added value makes more sense.
This would be win/win/win for Apple, the Record Labels, and MobileMe Subscribers:
- Apple adds value and (likely) adds paying customers to their MobileMe service. Links from streamed content could provide direct traffic to the iTunes Store, as well.
- Record Labels still sell songs individually via iTunes, but get a second source of revenue by selling the bundled MobileMe license to stream the content.
- MobileMe subscribers simply see added value to $99 they’re already spending.
