iCloud freeing your iDevices - but no streaming.

Apple announced iCloud today. Finally! Free the masses from that bloody iTunes tethering. That's great for those iProduct users that can't master syncing everything via other services such as Google. All of your documents, calendars, contacts, mail, and media, will be synced immediately over the cloud. Fantastic! You can even "match" your music library into iCloud and get everything synced across your devices from iTunes. No need to upload your entire library like Google Music. A clever way to legalize all of your music you gathered up from various sources both legal and questionable. Another great innovation by Apple - sort of. 

Here's the breakdown. Omnifone did the library matching 4 years ago for various mobile service providers and OEMs. This was done in partnership with Gracenote and their services included this type of playlist matching (PlayNow Plus for Sony Ericsson among them). One could also synchronization between PC and Handset. Anything done on one side mirrored directly on the other. You could also select which tracks, playlists, etc. to sync to your handheld in order to manage memory. The thing with these earlier services was that they pushed eAAC+ files to the handsets. Significantly smaller file sizes and very good audio quality for handheld listening. An entire album would download in about 1 minute over a normal 3G network.  Today that time would be closer to 30 seconds.

Now that I have ranted on Apple not being original let me raise a couple of points from their presentation. Some things just don't add up.

1) Steve said that, for $25 annually they will match your library and provide you 256kbps mp3 files without DRM. He also said that this service may be deployed across up to 10 devices. Now… how can a file be DRM free and be limited to 10 devices? If they are DRM free and I don't renew for next year, how will they block or delete them? You get my point.

2) Why no streaming? I chalk this up to the publishers more than the labels. The labels are more than happy to get their cut of $25/user you for music that they have likely already purchased. Basically doubling up on the rights. So I'm certain that the labels will allow Apple to turn on the streaming once they get to a certain number of subs. The publishers and collecting societies, on the other hand, have yet to find a good solution for how they choose to understand these business models. Basically there is no margin in track sales. Kids aren't interested in ownership. Subscription services will be the future. It is a complex matrix of service definitions that determine the license type. Apple is surely paying publishing for a new digital copy of every track they "match". What they will argue in the future is that you can stream to yourself, everything that you have matched and/or purchased via Apple, and thus avoid performance or web radio rights. If Apple were to make available the entire catalogue to you for streaming (like Spotify or Rdio, etc) then they would be paying yet another license. That's how it works.

iCloud launches sometime in the autumn. So for now, we will just have to wait for Apple's next big thing, without streaming.