There's been so much chatter about Apple iCloud that you'd think the streaming music service had already been announced and the deals inked. But it's still just a rumor until an Apple administrant takes the stage and unleashes the Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music competitor in a spate of superlatives. That hasn't stopped Businessweek from stepping up with a good summary of all that is "known" thus far, while giving us some insight into the particulars of how the service will work and the motivations to make it happen. One revelation, sourced from three people in the know, claims that Apple will scan customers' iTunes libraries (hello, LaLa) and quickly mirror the subjects on Apple's own servers -- no massive DSL-choking upload required. And Apple will do you the solid of "replacing" any low bitrate tracks with the "high-quality" versions it stores in its fully licensed music locker for streaming to your connected devices.



Of course, this value-add won't come free and will doubtless require a cable system fee. The cost to the consumer, though, is still very much unclear as is the service's integration with Apple's $99 per year MobileMe sham. And you know those rumors about MobileMe being offered as a free service? We wouldn't be thrown off guard* if it stays at $99 with iCloud being announced as a "free" feature update; aka, an $8.25 per month music public antenna recipient that also provides web access to your synced bookmarks, contacts, email, and calendar. Regardless, it's this cablevision model that has the major labels so enthusiastic as it will finally allow them to extort fees for all that pirated audio you may have stumbled upon since Napster was loosed on an unprepared music crowd a decade ago. All signs point to WWDC for this to get test but we're sure to hear more -- much more -- before the event kicks off on June 6th.

Apple's iCloud music service will automatically mirror your iTunes library using 'high-quality' tracks? primitively appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 May 2011 03:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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