Amazon Offers Unlimited Cloud Storage

Amazon's Cloud Drive and Player are now "unlimited," the company announced Wednesday, but a closer look reveals there are still some limits that may make music lovers look for another service as competition mounts in cloud media streaming.

The Seattle-based company's cloud service is now available for people to store and retrieve of unlimited amounts of music files for $20 a year. Non-music files will still have the 20-gigabyte limit of the free service, however, which isn't a lot of room for people looking to store videos or photographs virtually.

Also, "unlimited" in this case doesn't mean it's forever or even for anyone to use. Cloud Drive customers will have to pay to access unlimited storage, although non-paying customers can still upload 5 GB of music files from other sources to the Cloud Drive. They can also upload an unlimited amount of files if they've purchased them from Amazon.

Amazon, which entered the cloud game first, is also offering an iPad app for its cloud storage service. Since Apple will not be unveiling the iCloud until fall, Amazon is hoping to lure iPad users to its Cloud Drive in the meantime, deterring them from joining iCloud when it finally rolls out.

The host of new features and services may be Amazon's way of heading off mounting competition in cloud media services.

While Amazon was the first out of the gate, Apple's iCloud launch is expected to revolutionize cloud offerings. Apple could lure as many as 150 million users with the service, which is expected to debut around the same time as the much-anticipated launch of the iPhone 5.

While Amazon's cloud is still somewhat limited, Apple's iCloud promises to allow people to store and upload music, photos, books, calendars and much more. Furthermore, users should be able to access their items across all Apple devices, as well as PC and Mac computers. The service will also scan a user's hard drive for music and let them access digital copies in the cloud without having to upload files.

ITunes also has an advantage over Amazon and other similar services in that it already owns licensing rights to music from three of the four major music labels. While Amazon's number of choices is impressive, iCloud is set to grab songs from the much bigger iTunes music library.

Both players -- and their corresponding clouds -- have the advantage of being tied in with online stores, which should make it easier for customers to make and save their purchases. Google's own streaming service may not have that advantage, but the company's long-time experience with cloud integration may give it an edge.

For now, Amazon users will likely enjoy the Cloud Drive's storage capabilities, but there's a shadow on Amazon's horizon with Apple iCloud looming not far away and Google bringing up the rear.

Amazon Offers Unlimited Cloud Storage originally appeared at Mobiledia on Thu Jul 07, 2011 4:41 pm.

Source: http://www.mobiledia.com/news/97224.html

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