Amazon today announced a significant upgrade to its Cloud Player music service, bringing iTunes Match-like "scan and match" technology to assist users in making their entire music libraries available in the cloud. The upgraded service also mirrors iTunes Match in delivering all matched tracks at 256 Kbps, even if the user's original material is at a lower quality.
New Cloud Player features include:
- Amazon MP3 purchases — including music that customers purchased in the past — are automatically saved to Cloud Player, which means that customers have a secure backup copy of the music they buy from Amazon, free of charge.
- Amazon scans customers’ iTunes and Windows Media Player libraries and matches the songs on their computers to Amazon’s 20 million song catalog. All matched songs – even music purchased from iTunes or ripped from CDs – are instantly made available in Cloud Player and are upgraded for free to high-quality 256 Kbps audio. Music that customers have already uploaded to Cloud Player also will be upgraded.
- Any customer with a Kindle Fire, Android device, iPhone, iPod touch, or any web browser — and soon, a Roku streaming player or Sonos home entertainment system — can play their music anywhere.
Amazon Cloud Player is available in free and paid tiers, with the free tier limited to 250 tracks, although tracks purchased from Amazon do not count against the total. Amazon's Premium tier costs $24.99 per year and allows users to store up to 250,000 tracks in the cloud, with tracks purchased from Amazon similarly not counting toward that limit. Apple's iTunes Match service is also priced at $24.99 per year, but currently limits users to 25,000 tracks, excluding those purchased through iTunes.
As part of the upgrades, Amazon is separating Cloud Player from its Cloud Drive service, which offers file storage in the cloud. Users with paid Cloud Drive storage plans will keep their current plan and receive free access to Cloud Player Premium for the remainder of their subscription periods. With the split in Cloud Drive and Cloud Player services, Amazon is also reducing pricing on Cloud Drive storage plans. Beyond the free 5 GB plan, users can choose from paid plans starting at $10 per year for 20 GB and moving up to a maximum of 1000 GB for $500 per year.
Wednesday February 19, 2025 8:02 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple today introduced the iPhone 16e, its newest entry-level smartphone. The device succeeds the third-generation iPhone SE, which has now been discontinued.
The iPhone 16e features a larger 6.1-inch OLED display, up from a 4.7-inch LCD on the iPhone SE. The display has a notch for Face ID, and this means that Apple no longer sells any iPhones with a Touch ID fingerprint button, marking the ...
Tuesday February 18, 2025 12:02 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Over the years, Apple has switched from an aluminum frame to a stainless steel frame to a titanium frame for its highest-end iPhones. And now, it has been rumored that Apple will go back to using aluminum for three out of four iPhone 17 models.
In an investor note with research firm GF Securities, obtained by MacRumors this week, Apple supply chain analyst Jeff Pu said the iPhone 17, iPhone...
Thursday February 20, 2025 5:06 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Now that Apple has announced its new more affordable iPhone 16e, our thoughts turn to what else we are expecting from the company this spring.
There are three product categories that we are definitely expecting to get upgraded before spring has ended. Keep reading to learn what they are. If we're lucky, Apple might make a surprise announcement about a completely new product category.
M4...
Wednesday February 19, 2025 11:38 am PST by Juli Clover
Following the launch of the iPhone 16e, Apple updated its iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia pages to give a narrower timeline on when the next updates are set to launch.
All three pages now state that new Apple Intelligence features and languages will launch in early April, an update from the more broader April timeframe that Apple provided before. The next major point updates will be iOS ...
Friday February 21, 2025 1:08 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple finally released the first beta of iOS 18.4 to developers for testing purposes, and while the beta is lacking some of the Apple Intelligence features we were hoping for, there are some notable new additions.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
Priority Notifications - Apple Intelligence
There is a new Priority Notifications feature that can show you your most...
Thursday February 13, 2025 8:07 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In a social media post today, Apple CEO Tim Cook teased an upcoming "launch" of some kind scheduled for Wednesday, February 19.
"Get ready to meet the newest member of the family," he said, with an #AppleLaunch hashtag.
The post includes a short video with an animated Apple logo inside a circle.
Cook did not provide an exact time for the launch, or share any other specific details, so...
Friday February 21, 2025 8:01 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple has confirmed that its custom-designed C1 modem in the iPhone 16e has nothing to do with the device's lack of MagSafe support, according to Macworld.
Following the launch of the iPhone 16e, there was some speculation online about how MagSafe magnets might have interfered with the C1 modem's cellular connectivity performance, and this was considered to be a potential reason for the...
Friday February 21, 2025 11:06 am PST by Juli Clover
In iOS 18.4, there's a new Ambient Music option that can be added to Control Center. There are four different sound categories, including Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing.
Each category can be added to Control Center separately, and tapping one plays a random selection of sounds or music from that particular category.
You can't choose what's playing from Control Center, but if...
Because Apple charges for every little thing that should be offered for free. For example, Mac OS X Mountain Lion.
But ML is free for those who bought a Mac after the WWDC keynote. But why should Apple make ML free to everyone who bought a Mac in the last 4 years? And, really, at $20 bucks it's pretty much free. What Microsoft Windows OS update was ever $20 for the general public?
You can make the case Apple overcharges for some things like the Magsafe to Magsafe2 adapter or Airport base stations or Thunderbolt cables, but ML isn't one of those.
