Google, Apple, and Amazon are pushing more and more of your entertainment, your data -- heck, your life -- into the cloud. But what's it mean for the wireless network operators who are already struggling to keep up with heavy data demand?
Each of these companies recently announced new digital storage services for music. The idea is that people can put their music in the "cloud," which is really a remote data center. The "cloud" becomes the central repository for all of your music, pictures, and other data. And you simply connect to it via any broadband connection available to access it.
There are plenty of benefits to this, of course. For one, it's incredibly convenient, especially when you're connecting wirelessly. As Apple CEO Steve Jobs pointed out during his keynote earlier this week where the iiCloud service was announced, he said that it will eliminate the headache of syncing each device.
But using these services will no doubt eat up a lot more bandwidth than just downloading a song one time to your computer or smartphone. Once music moves to the cloud, you could be downloading that same song every time you sync your device or even every time you listen to it. And once Apple or Google start offering video in the cloud, the problem may get even worse.
Can wireless networks, which are already buckling under the load of simple mobile browsing, handle it?
That's the big question.
"The tonnage of traffic on the network is growing," said Fared Adib, vice president of product development for Sprint Nextel. "That's an issue we [wireless service providers] are dealing with. And I think it's too early to say how the cloud services will affect all of us. As an industry, the ecosystem needs to work together on these issues."
Heavy data loads
Indeed, wireless carriers are already feeling the pain of consumers' increasing appetite for wireless data. AT&T has become the poster-child for carriers struggling to keep up with heavy loads. AT&T, which used to be the exclusive carrier for the iPhone, has said publicly that the company's data traffic on its network has increased 8,000 percent over the past four years.
AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said at the Telecommunications Industry Association 2011 conference last month that by 2015, AT&T will handle as much wireless data in a month and a half as it did in all of 2010.
Stephenson said the only way to accommodate that kind of growth is to add more spectrum to its network. In addition to asking the Federal Communications Commission to open up more spectrum, AT&T also plans to spend $39 billion to buy T-Mobile USA to get access to more spectrum in dense urban areas, like New York City.
Without T-Mobile's spectrum, AT&T has said that consumers will not see improvements in dropped calls, faster speed networks, or improved access to "state-of-the-art mobile broadband Internet service."
While AT&T may be the most vocal right now about its network capacity constraints, there is growing data to suggest that other wireless operators will also be challenged in the future. Network equipment maker Cisco Systems said recently in a report that worldwide data traffic in 2010 just on mobile devices was three times all global Internet traffic in 2000.
Internet traffic in general is expected to quadruple over the next four years. And by 2015, Cisco estimates that the amount of traffic traversing the Internet will reach 966 exabytes per year. Between 2014 and 2015 network traffic is expected to grow by 200 exabytes, more than the total amount of Internet traffic generated worldwide in 2010.
A large contributor to this growth is a surge in network-connected devices. This includes everything from smartphones to notebooks to tablets to home appliances. On average, a U.S. consumer will likely have seven connected devices by 2015.
And if Apple, Google, and Amazon have their way, many of these consumers will be using cloud-based services to share their content among their multiple devices.
Working together
While it appears that Google, Apple, and Amazon may be on a collision course with wireless carriers, it's in everyone's best interest for the two sides to work together. And it seems like they are.
"The sense we've gotten from working with Google is that they get it," said Sprint's Adib. "They know we have to balance the traffic loads with the service they're trying to offer. And the truth is none of us want the consumer to have a bad experience."
Indeed at the e-G8 Forum in Paris last month, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said wireless operators and content companies are "incredibly co-dependent." He added that the two groups can work together to spread out data demand to ensure these networks aren't overloaded.
Using Wi-Fi to offload heavy traffic loads is one solution. The cloud services that have already been introduced rely heavily on Wi-Fi networks to provide the network connection between devices and the "cloud."
"Doing the bulk of uploads via Wi-Fi will help alleviate some of the network issues," said Ross Rubin, an analyst with NPD Group.
Sprint's Adib agreed. He said that nearly 80 percent of mobile data usage on its network is done by subscribers at home or in the office, where Wi-Fi is typically available. He said that the company is working on ways to make discovering and connecting to these networks easier so that devices do it automatically and seamlessly. For now the company doesn't have anything to announce, but it's working with its device partners to come up with better solutions.
But Adib said concerns about "cloud" services may be slightly overblown. While it's true consumers may be downloading or syncing content more frequently from their digital "lockers" in the cloud, he doesn't believe people will stream content constantly.
"These cloud service are about making sure that people get access to their content on multiple devices," he said. "And that's a good thing for carriers. We want people using more than one device."
In the end, carriers benefit from these new services, and companies such as Apple and Google also depend on the increasing capacity and reliability of wireless networks.
"There is no question that Google and Apple would like to treat bandwidth as unlimited," said Charles Golvin an analyst with Forrester Research. "But carriers increasingly aren't able to provide that. But neither one wants to frustrate consumers. So they must figure out a way to work together."
Showing posts with label What is Cloud Computing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label What is Cloud Computing. Show all posts
Friday, June 10, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
WWDC 2011: Apple iCloud will be free, iTunes Match replaces pirated songs
Ever since it was announced last week that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would present iCloud at WWDC 2011, there has been a deluge of rumors and guesses as to what it might be. Now, we have the answers.
Jobs noted at the keynote that the cloud has “demoted” the PC and Mac to just mere devices, and iCloud will step in as the “center of your digital life” and digital hub. Those are some lofty goals, but that is where Apple thinks computing is headed these days.
MobileMe, which Jobs noted was not Apple’s “finest hour” (to say the least), is basically being reworked from the ground up and turned into iCloud. Actually, it doesn’t really even exist anymore (at least in Jobs’ memory).
The idea behind iCloud is simple: iCloud stores content and then pushes it wirelessly to all of a user’s devices. That goes for contacts, calendars, new emails, etc. Basically almost everything you sync in iTunes via USB can be done via the cloud now. Users can only backup data using Wi-Fi connections, which might seem limiting but it should save anyone from outrageous data costs.
The big focus on iCloud centered around music. For days, weeks, whatever - everyone has been wondering what Apple was going to announce regarding a cloud-based music streaming service. However, we didn’t get what most people expected.
The first surprise was that there will be no charge for multiple downloads to multiple devices. The key word is “multiple,” not unlimited. Users can just hit a “Purchased” button in iTunes on their various devices and push what is already purchased and downloaded to nine other iCloud-enabled gadgets.
Secondly, iTunes for iCloud isn’t actually a competitor for Google Music, Amazon’s music service or anything else like that. There isn’t a subscription-based model involved here, but rather the usual purchase model that already exists. The only difference now is that users can just push the songs to multiple devices wirelessly and much easier.
The closest it gets to the streaming service is the new iTunes Match. Users who have pirated MP3s on their computers can try to go back to the honest and good side of things by using this software that scans the hard drive and then matches the titles to 256Kbps AAC, DRM-free tracks. (That must be where Apple’s latest deal with the music industry came in.) Jobs promised this scan would take only “minutes” and that it costs $24.99 per year “regardless” of the amount of songs.
Some of the other tidbits included in iCloud include a @me.com account, a no-ads promise, and a new feature in the App Store that shows the user its previous purchases (i.e. mobile apps, iBookstore items, etc.) that are waiting to be pushed down to other devices.
Apple also appears to be targeting a more business-minded bunch with the new Documents in the Cloud function. This feature incorporates the iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) and follows the idea of the cloud: users can work on projects using one of these apps using an iPad and then pick up where one left off using a PC. iCloud will also sync up the Camera library among multiple devices using Photo Stream, which pushes the last 1,000 photos taken on any of the iCloud-enabled devices to the rest. These images will be stored to their own album, but they’ll only be kept there for 30 days. If a user wants to keep them, then the selected images must be moved to a different, specified album.
Although it was widely rumored that Apple would charge $25 per year for iCloud usage (versus the $99 MobileMe yearly subscription fee), Jobs said that iCloud will be free. Yes, free - except for that whole iTunes Match fee if you opt into it.
Like iOS 5, the developer preview will be available starting today, and the full version will launch this fall. iCloud will offer 5GB of storage space, but purchased music, e-books and photos don’t count towards that total.
Jobs noted at the keynote that the cloud has “demoted” the PC and Mac to just mere devices, and iCloud will step in as the “center of your digital life” and digital hub. Those are some lofty goals, but that is where Apple thinks computing is headed these days.
MobileMe, which Jobs noted was not Apple’s “finest hour” (to say the least), is basically being reworked from the ground up and turned into iCloud. Actually, it doesn’t really even exist anymore (at least in Jobs’ memory).
The idea behind iCloud is simple: iCloud stores content and then pushes it wirelessly to all of a user’s devices. That goes for contacts, calendars, new emails, etc. Basically almost everything you sync in iTunes via USB can be done via the cloud now. Users can only backup data using Wi-Fi connections, which might seem limiting but it should save anyone from outrageous data costs.
The big focus on iCloud centered around music. For days, weeks, whatever - everyone has been wondering what Apple was going to announce regarding a cloud-based music streaming service. However, we didn’t get what most people expected.
The first surprise was that there will be no charge for multiple downloads to multiple devices. The key word is “multiple,” not unlimited. Users can just hit a “Purchased” button in iTunes on their various devices and push what is already purchased and downloaded to nine other iCloud-enabled gadgets.
Secondly, iTunes for iCloud isn’t actually a competitor for Google Music, Amazon’s music service or anything else like that. There isn’t a subscription-based model involved here, but rather the usual purchase model that already exists. The only difference now is that users can just push the songs to multiple devices wirelessly and much easier.
The closest it gets to the streaming service is the new iTunes Match. Users who have pirated MP3s on their computers can try to go back to the honest and good side of things by using this software that scans the hard drive and then matches the titles to 256Kbps AAC, DRM-free tracks. (That must be where Apple’s latest deal with the music industry came in.) Jobs promised this scan would take only “minutes” and that it costs $24.99 per year “regardless” of the amount of songs.
Some of the other tidbits included in iCloud include a @me.com account, a no-ads promise, and a new feature in the App Store that shows the user its previous purchases (i.e. mobile apps, iBookstore items, etc.) that are waiting to be pushed down to other devices.
Apple also appears to be targeting a more business-minded bunch with the new Documents in the Cloud function. This feature incorporates the iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) and follows the idea of the cloud: users can work on projects using one of these apps using an iPad and then pick up where one left off using a PC. iCloud will also sync up the Camera library among multiple devices using Photo Stream, which pushes the last 1,000 photos taken on any of the iCloud-enabled devices to the rest. These images will be stored to their own album, but they’ll only be kept there for 30 days. If a user wants to keep them, then the selected images must be moved to a different, specified album.
Although it was widely rumored that Apple would charge $25 per year for iCloud usage (versus the $99 MobileMe yearly subscription fee), Jobs said that iCloud will be free. Yes, free - except for that whole iTunes Match fee if you opt into it.
Like iOS 5, the developer preview will be available starting today, and the full version will launch this fall. iCloud will offer 5GB of storage space, but purchased music, e-books and photos don’t count towards that total.
5 practical steps to keep your data secure in the cloud
Apple’s announcement of iCloud today is yet more evidence of the unstoppable migration of data and assets to the cloud. Despite the shocking recent breaches of security at a variety of organizations, including the multiple breaches that have afflicted millions of Sony customers, more and more of us are entrusting personal or business assets to the cloud. This is an irreversible trend. It’s not going to stop.
Yet many of us remain naive about the necessary steps we should take to keep our online assets secure. I’m not talking about excessively geeky ways to preserve your online safety. Just following these five simple guidelines will go a long way towards helping the average man or woman at work and play to keep online threats at bay.
1. Don’t take security for granted
There are two routes to your online assets. One is through the cloud provider’s infrastructure, and as the headlines constantly remind us, even household names don’t always do everything they should to keep your secrets safe. But the second route is even more potent, and it’s much closer to home. The easiest and most prevalent route for an intruder to access your online records is through your login details. Of course you need your provider to be secure, but don’t let that make you careless about your own login details.
2. Use strong, memorable passwords
The trouble with making up strong passwords is that they’re not memorable. The trick is to start with something memorable and then turn it into a strong password — which means mixing numbers, letters, lower and upper case, maybe a few symbols as well. What do you already know from memory that jumbles up all these different types of characters? Start with addresses, car license numbers, telephone numbers, dates of birth. But don’t use your own — use people you know; friends, employers, parents, partners, previous addresses; or old addresses of your own and cars you sold a decade ago. Anything that can’t be linked to your online persona but always jumble it up — half a zipcode, a name with part of a birthdate, segments of an address. Then add in a dash, an exclamation mark or an @ sign to spice it up some more.
3. Guard the crown jewels of your inbox
Of course you’re going to reuse passwords, especially for sites where you’re not storing crucial data like your credit card numbers, date and place of birth, address or social security number. But there’s one site where you should always use a unique and strongest possible password — your email inbox. Because this is the one place where all your other logins redirect to when you reset a password. This one location is the passport to all your other online assets.
Although it’s a hassle to do so, you should consider double-protecting your inbox with two-factor authentication, which means you have to enter a secondary code (for example a code sent by SMS to your mobile phone) to get access. This is especially important if you have a habit of visiting malicious websites, you never remember to keep your anti-malware software up to date, or you have a track record of failing to recognize phishing emails.
4. Don’t leave the password recovery back door ajar
Very often, people take all kinds of precautions to protect their login information but make it really easy to reset their password through the password recovery mechanism. If your user ID is totally easy to guess (it’s often your email) then don’t use something obvious or easy to discover for your password reset, such as your date or place of birth, mother or wife’s maiden name or some other readily sourced personal information. That’s as lame as leaving your doorkey under the front doormat.
5. Have an alternate to fall back on
Security is all about risk mitigation, and however careful your planning, you can’t eliminate all risk. So give yourself a fallback. Don’t put all your cash in one online account, have a separate emergency email address, make sure you’ve got a 3G card or local Starbucks you can resort to if your main Internet connection goes down. Knowing that you’ve got a second option if the worst happens helps you keep a cool head in an emergency, which gives you a better chance of surviving a crisis.
Yet many of us remain naive about the necessary steps we should take to keep our online assets secure. I’m not talking about excessively geeky ways to preserve your online safety. Just following these five simple guidelines will go a long way towards helping the average man or woman at work and play to keep online threats at bay.
1. Don’t take security for granted
There are two routes to your online assets. One is through the cloud provider’s infrastructure, and as the headlines constantly remind us, even household names don’t always do everything they should to keep your secrets safe. But the second route is even more potent, and it’s much closer to home. The easiest and most prevalent route for an intruder to access your online records is through your login details. Of course you need your provider to be secure, but don’t let that make you careless about your own login details.
2. Use strong, memorable passwords
The trouble with making up strong passwords is that they’re not memorable. The trick is to start with something memorable and then turn it into a strong password — which means mixing numbers, letters, lower and upper case, maybe a few symbols as well. What do you already know from memory that jumbles up all these different types of characters? Start with addresses, car license numbers, telephone numbers, dates of birth. But don’t use your own — use people you know; friends, employers, parents, partners, previous addresses; or old addresses of your own and cars you sold a decade ago. Anything that can’t be linked to your online persona but always jumble it up — half a zipcode, a name with part of a birthdate, segments of an address. Then add in a dash, an exclamation mark or an @ sign to spice it up some more.
3. Guard the crown jewels of your inbox
Of course you’re going to reuse passwords, especially for sites where you’re not storing crucial data like your credit card numbers, date and place of birth, address or social security number. But there’s one site where you should always use a unique and strongest possible password — your email inbox. Because this is the one place where all your other logins redirect to when you reset a password. This one location is the passport to all your other online assets.
Although it’s a hassle to do so, you should consider double-protecting your inbox with two-factor authentication, which means you have to enter a secondary code (for example a code sent by SMS to your mobile phone) to get access. This is especially important if you have a habit of visiting malicious websites, you never remember to keep your anti-malware software up to date, or you have a track record of failing to recognize phishing emails.
4. Don’t leave the password recovery back door ajar
Very often, people take all kinds of precautions to protect their login information but make it really easy to reset their password through the password recovery mechanism. If your user ID is totally easy to guess (it’s often your email) then don’t use something obvious or easy to discover for your password reset, such as your date or place of birth, mother or wife’s maiden name or some other readily sourced personal information. That’s as lame as leaving your doorkey under the front doormat.
5. Have an alternate to fall back on
Security is all about risk mitigation, and however careful your planning, you can’t eliminate all risk. So give yourself a fallback. Don’t put all your cash in one online account, have a separate emergency email address, make sure you’ve got a 3G card or local Starbucks you can resort to if your main Internet connection goes down. Knowing that you’ve got a second option if the worst happens helps you keep a cool head in an emergency, which gives you a better chance of surviving a crisis.
Is the iCloud the end of the Linux & Windows desktop?
I think a cloud-based operating system, like Google’ Chrome OS, has a bright future. But, when I look at Apple’s Lion, which will only be available as an upgrade by a 4GB download, and iCloud plans I begin to wonder just how much any fat-client operating system-Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows-have if Apple and Google have their way.
As Jobs put it, the PC centric data model is broken. And, so the digital hub will move from being the PC to the iCloud and the Mac will be “demoted.”
What did he mean by that? My fellow ZDNet writer, Andrew Nusca, put it well, “Mac vs. PC vs. Linux argument from the early days of consumer computing has lost a great deal of its luster in recent years with the development of cloud computing on the open web.” The operating system wars are far from over though. Nusca continued, “Concept of platform wars is quickly making up for lost ground with the development of cloud computing in the closed mobile space.”
I’ve always thought that thin-client computing has its place in technology. That’s one reason why I think Google’s Chrome OS has a real shot in dethroning the Window desktop in the office. By making the iCloud the center of everything, instead of the Mac, Apple is trying to wean consumers away from the fat-client PC model that’s served us so well since the day the first IBM PC rolled off the assembly line.
This worries me. If you had fast bandwidth and enough room on your data cap, cloud-based computing is fine. Many of us are already using every day. Oh, you may not think of using Gmail or Google Docs as being on the cloud, but it is and you are.
It’s so darn easy when all you really need to get work done from anywhere is an Internet connection and a Web browser. Forget your file at the office? Just grab your copy from Dropbox, and you’re good to go. But, Jobs takes it even farther. All your data will be on the iCloud and it’s automatically pushed to any of your devices.
It sounds great doesn’t it? I think it sound great too, but, and this is a big one, do you really want to trust Apple or Google with all your data? What happens if you don’t pay your fee to Apple? What happens if the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) demands a copyright audit of all my music on iTunes Match?
You see, I rather like the idea of owning all my media and having it on my servers and PC. This leads me to my other point: I like owning my operating system and applications.
Microsoft will sell me a system, with caveats, but at the end of the day I own it. I have a friend who’s still running Windows XP Media Center 2002. It still works for her and she’s happy with it. That’s great. I’m a big believer in the idea that if something works for you, you should keep using it.
But, as I sit here my with my first generation iPod Touch and Apple TV, neither of them work well with the latest Apple software offerings. Do I want to be forever having to upgrade my Apple hardware to get the most from Apple’ newest features?
At least with Google, the plan is to support the lowest common denominator. If you can use the Chrome Web browser or afford an inexpensive Chromebook, you can use the full-range of Google’s cloud-based services. My friend, for example, uses Chrome 11 on her almost ten-year old PC without a problem.
The problem extends beyond just “owning” an operating system, your application and your data. With Linux, it’s about having control of your operating system.
Richard M. Stallman, creator of the GNU Public License (GPL), developer, and leader of the Free Software Foundation and I disagree on many points. But, when he recently disparaged cloud computing. I had to agree.
Stallman said that in cloud-computing you’re letting “any Tom, Dick and Harry hold your data, let any Tom, Dick and Harry do your computing for you (and control it). Perhaps the term ‘careless computing’ would suit it better.” Stallman fears, “many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there’s a sucker born every minute. The US government may try to encourage people to place their data where the US government can seize it without showing them a search warrant, rather than in their own property. However, as long as enough of us continue keeping our data under our own control, we can still do so. And we had better do so, or the option may disappear.”
He’s right. With a Linux desktop computer, I own my data, I control my processes. While I can see the cloud having its place for some people and in some situations, I hate this trend we’re seeing of putting everything into someone else’s hands outside of our sight, and all too soon out of mind.
Thin-clients and cloud-computing do have their place, but it’s not a place where I want my data, my work, to live under the control of corporate strangers. For all the ease of use of these methods, I’d prefer to see fat-client desktops like Mint 11 Linux, and, yes, even Windows 7, to continue on for so long as we continue to use computers.
As Jobs put it, the PC centric data model is broken. And, so the digital hub will move from being the PC to the iCloud and the Mac will be “demoted.”
What did he mean by that? My fellow ZDNet writer, Andrew Nusca, put it well, “Mac vs. PC vs. Linux argument from the early days of consumer computing has lost a great deal of its luster in recent years with the development of cloud computing on the open web.” The operating system wars are far from over though. Nusca continued, “Concept of platform wars is quickly making up for lost ground with the development of cloud computing in the closed mobile space.”
I’ve always thought that thin-client computing has its place in technology. That’s one reason why I think Google’s Chrome OS has a real shot in dethroning the Window desktop in the office. By making the iCloud the center of everything, instead of the Mac, Apple is trying to wean consumers away from the fat-client PC model that’s served us so well since the day the first IBM PC rolled off the assembly line.
This worries me. If you had fast bandwidth and enough room on your data cap, cloud-based computing is fine. Many of us are already using every day. Oh, you may not think of using Gmail or Google Docs as being on the cloud, but it is and you are.
It’s so darn easy when all you really need to get work done from anywhere is an Internet connection and a Web browser. Forget your file at the office? Just grab your copy from Dropbox, and you’re good to go. But, Jobs takes it even farther. All your data will be on the iCloud and it’s automatically pushed to any of your devices.
It sounds great doesn’t it? I think it sound great too, but, and this is a big one, do you really want to trust Apple or Google with all your data? What happens if you don’t pay your fee to Apple? What happens if the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) demands a copyright audit of all my music on iTunes Match?
You see, I rather like the idea of owning all my media and having it on my servers and PC. This leads me to my other point: I like owning my operating system and applications.
Microsoft will sell me a system, with caveats, but at the end of the day I own it. I have a friend who’s still running Windows XP Media Center 2002. It still works for her and she’s happy with it. That’s great. I’m a big believer in the idea that if something works for you, you should keep using it.
But, as I sit here my with my first generation iPod Touch and Apple TV, neither of them work well with the latest Apple software offerings. Do I want to be forever having to upgrade my Apple hardware to get the most from Apple’ newest features?
At least with Google, the plan is to support the lowest common denominator. If you can use the Chrome Web browser or afford an inexpensive Chromebook, you can use the full-range of Google’s cloud-based services. My friend, for example, uses Chrome 11 on her almost ten-year old PC without a problem.
The problem extends beyond just “owning” an operating system, your application and your data. With Linux, it’s about having control of your operating system.
Richard M. Stallman, creator of the GNU Public License (GPL), developer, and leader of the Free Software Foundation and I disagree on many points. But, when he recently disparaged cloud computing. I had to agree.
Stallman said that in cloud-computing you’re letting “any Tom, Dick and Harry hold your data, let any Tom, Dick and Harry do your computing for you (and control it). Perhaps the term ‘careless computing’ would suit it better.” Stallman fears, “many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there’s a sucker born every minute. The US government may try to encourage people to place their data where the US government can seize it without showing them a search warrant, rather than in their own property. However, as long as enough of us continue keeping our data under our own control, we can still do so. And we had better do so, or the option may disappear.”
He’s right. With a Linux desktop computer, I own my data, I control my processes. While I can see the cloud having its place for some people and in some situations, I hate this trend we’re seeing of putting everything into someone else’s hands outside of our sight, and all too soon out of mind.
Thin-clients and cloud-computing do have their place, but it’s not a place where I want my data, my work, to live under the control of corporate strangers. For all the ease of use of these methods, I’d prefer to see fat-client desktops like Mint 11 Linux, and, yes, even Windows 7, to continue on for so long as we continue to use computers.
Apple announces iTunes Match, no-upload cloud-based music locker (updated 3x)
Apple used today’s WWDC keynote address to announce a brand new service called iTunes Match - which was also referred to as “iTunes on the cloud.”
iTunes Match will scan your iTunes Library and match songs to an upgraded, 256kbps AAC DRM-free file on Apple’s iCloud server. The service will cost $24.99 per year but it remains to be seen what will happen if you stop paying the annual subscription fee.
Apple touted ‘Match as a huge advantage over competing services from Google and Amazon, because while they can take “weeks” to upload your library, iTunes Match takes “just minutes.”
Apple also touted the service as having the “same benefits as music purchased from iTunes.” Presumably this means that you’ll be able to re-download tracks and see your music history on all of your devices.
Update: Apple has updated its iTunes Terms and Conditions — presumably to address all the new cloud features.
Update2: Apple has posted it’s iCloud features page.
Update3: Sadly, iTunes in the Cloud doesn’t allow streaming of music to your devices, like Google and Amazon do. Deal breaker?
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