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.
Tuesday November 19, 2024 12:12 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Barclays analyst Tom O'Malley and his colleagues recently traveled to Asia to meet with various electronics manufacturers and suppliers. In a research note this week, outlining key takeaways from the trip, the analysts said they have "confirmed" that a fourth-generation iPhone SE with an Apple-designed 5G modem is slated to launch towards the end of the first quarter next year. In line with previo...
Sunday November 17, 2024 5:18 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple released the AirTag in April 2021, so it is now three over and a half years old. While the AirTag has not received any hardware updates since then, a new version of the item tracking accessory is rumored to be in development.
Below, we recap rumors about a second-generation AirTag.
Timing
Apple is aiming to release a new AirTag in mid-2025, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman....
Wednesday November 20, 2024 3:42 am PST by Tim Hardwick
AT&T has begun displaying "Turbo" in the iPhone carrier label for customers subscribed to its premium network prioritization service, according to reports on Reddit. The new indicator seems to have started appearing after users updated to iOS 18.1.1, but that could be just coincidence.
Image credit: Reddit user No_Highlight7476
The Turbo feature provides enhanced network performance through ...
Tuesday November 19, 2024 10:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released iOS 18.1.1 and iPadOS 18.1.1, minor updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating systems that debuted earlier in September. iOS 18.1.1 and iPadOS 18.1.1 come three weeks after the launch of iOS 18.1.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. Apple has also released iOS 17.7.2 for...
Sunday November 17, 2024 3:03 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
While the Logitech MX Master 3 is a terrific mouse for the Mac, reports claiming that Apple CEO Tim Cook prefers that mouse over the Magic Mouse are false.
The Wall Street Journal last month published an interview with Cook, in which he said he uses every Apple product every day. Soon after, The Verge's Wes Davis attempted to replicate using every Apple product in a single day. During that...
Monday November 18, 2024 1:07 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
In a research note with Hong Kong-based investment bank Haitong today, obtained by MacRumors, Apple analyst Jeff Pu said he agrees with a recent rumor claiming that the so-called "iPhone 17 Air" will be around 6mm thick.
"We agreed with the recent chatter of an 6mm thickness ultra-slim design of the iPhone 17 Slim model," he wrote.
If that measurement proves to be accurate, there would be ...
Tuesday November 19, 2024 10:52 am PST by Juli Clover
The iOS 18.1.1, iPadOS 18.1.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.1 updates that Apple released today address JavaScriptCore and WebKit vulnerabilities that Apple says have been actively exploited on some devices.
With the JavaScriptCore vulnerability, processing maliciously crafted web content could lead to arbitrary code execution. The WebKit vulnerability had the same issue with maliciously crafted...
Tuesday November 19, 2024 10:36 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple has partnered with select merchants to offer Apple Card users three percent Daily Cash back on their purchases, and two new companies were added to the partner list today. When purchasing goods and services from Booking.com and ChargePoint, Apple Card users will now get more cash back.
Booking.com is a site for reserving flights, cars, cruises, and hotels, while ChargePoint sells...
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.
