iTunes Match rival stores music in the cloud for access anywhere
Amazon has launched it Cloud Player in the UK allowing users to store and access music in the cloud.
The new service let Amazon customers keep their music library in the cloud as a rival to Apple's iTunes Match. Users can access the Cloud Player from a number of devices including Android, iOS and web browsers on PC or Mac. See also: Audio reviews
Greg Greeley, vice president of retail at Amazon said: "The launch of Cloud Player in the UK means that customers can buy anywhere, play anywhere, and keep all of their music in one place without the need for constant software updates, or drives and cables to move and manage their music."
Any music purchased on Amazon's MP3 store will be automatically added to the Cloud Player on first use. User can also scan their iTunes or Windows Media Player libraries and songs matching Amazon's 20 million track library will be added to the Cloud Player in 'high-quality' 256Kbps audio.
Cloud Player if free for the first 250 tracks and those wishing to store more music can pay an annual fee of £21.99 for Cloud Player Premium which allows 250,000 tracks.
Apps are available for Android smartphones and tablets and iPhone or iPod Touch. Supported web browsers include Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari Mac and Chrome.
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Comments
John Myers said: Amazon will automatically delete purchased songs from CloudPlayer accounts if later after the purchase Amazon no longer offers thesesongs for sale This is according to the Amazon MP3 help staffAmazons Cloud Player is not a safe place to store songspurchased from Amazon Amazons help staff highly recommends saving a copy ofall songs somewhere else Of coursethey recommended Amazons Cloud DriveMy theory not confirmed is that Amazons Cloud Player onlystores links of our songs to the actual MP3 in their catalog database Thiswould minimize the size of the Cloud Player database and its cost Howeverwhen the songs are no longer offered for sale then the MP3 files are deletedfrom Amazons catalog and so the links in our Cloud Players accounts nolonger function This is just a theory But if true then it is likely songsthat we have imported not purchased from Amazon and matched in Amazonsdatabase could also disappearThe bottom line and fact is that the Cloud Player isnot a safe place over the years to keep songs that one has purchased fromAmazon It is deplorable that Amazon does not make this clear to its customers