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Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player

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Re: Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player

#71

Post by dotBen »

jmatt wrote: post #56
jkincaid wrote: post #12

I think Amazon is trying to become the backbone for the 'alternative' set of Android core apps that will inevitably be developed. These apps will appeal to any carrier/OEM that wants to stop licensing from Google, or from companies like Amazon and Facebook who may launch their own devices with splintered versions of Android. My guess is that Amazon will own content delivery for these devices (books, movies, TV, music…

I think it's bold of Amazon to launch essentially a minimum viable product and beat Apple to the punch. Now they have customers and are getting meaningful feedback to make future improvements. You rarely see this outside of Apple and startups. I'm glad to see Apple running into some real competition.

You can hardly say that Amazon has 'beaten Apple to the punch".

Amazon's cloud product is aimed at Android

Apple's cloud product will almost certainly ignore Android users because they'll use it to bolster the iPhone/iOS stack (+ enticement to switch to).

They're aimed at two different markets.

Re: Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player

#72

Post by wiredfool »

ajg1977 wrote: post #46

I wonder if they're doing anything clever to reduce storage size. For example - an MP3/AAC song purchased from the same service has a small unique header (e.g. where your iTunes account name is stored) and then identical music data. I imagine the music companies would have a hissy fit and demand streaming payments if that was the case though.

Their prices are pretty close to the base level s3 prices, except for transfer.

Re: Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player

#73

Post by unfletch »

ffumarola wrote: post #9

The 20gb free for purchasing an album makes this a pretty clutch deal. They don't compete with dropbox's sync functionality, but they sure do on price and the mp3 cloud player!

In case you missed it in Amazon's terms, the free upgrade is temporary. It expires in a year, at which point you can start paying or be bumped back down to the free level.

    ...you will be automatically eligible for the 20 GB plan for one year from
    the date of your MP3 album purchase. Unless you set your account to auto-renew
    to a paid plan, the 20 GB plan will revert to a free plan one year from the
    date of your MP3 album purchase.
From http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?ie=UTF8&docId=100...

Re: Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player

#74

Post by itsnotvalid »

Locke1689 wrote: post #68
itsnotvalid wrote: post #10

As a non-US there is no way for me to use this. Just put aside that, is it actually any legal reason for using things like dropbox to upload music purchased and streamed for private uses? BTW that one album/20GB offers only last until the end of the year, and it only last for a year. After that, you would have the habit of using the service but be reverted to the free plan. However since all the new purchases on amaz…

As a non-US there is no way for me to use this. I don't understand these types of comments. I have the same problem with Spotify in the US, but I don't feel the need to share that I can't use Spotify whenever a Spotify discussion comes up -- everyone is well aware of country restrictions already.

The difference is that this is a new product. You are comparing one that came out long before. This could lead to people verifying this claim and hey, people have tried to make it work out of US.

Besides that, I also try to attract people with the backgrounds of the legal side in US, to explain the ground for making this service legal and the issues on fair-use particularly in US.

Re: Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player

#75

Post by dotBen »

The music aspect of this makes a great headline - and also great case for why the avg joe consumer should want all this cloud storage.

But for me the real story here is the ability to store any file or document, and aggressive prices of bigger storage tiers.

Dropbox's prices have always seemed unreasonably high to me - and I'm tempted to move all my personal docs over to Amazon and use DropBox just for social sharing.

Re: Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player

#76

Post by itsnotvalid »

jmatt wrote: post #35
itsnotvalid wrote: post #10

As a non-US there is no way for me to use this. Just put aside that, is it actually any legal reason for using things like dropbox to upload music purchased and streamed for private uses? BTW that one album/20GB offers only last until the end of the year, and it only last for a year. After that, you would have the habit of using the service but be reverted to the free plan. However since all the new purchases on amaz…

Just that I don't listen to many of bands/artists that put their songs on Amazon MP3 may make this offer less appealing. I don't know much about this but cdbaby[1] will do that for what seems like an affordable price. It just takes a bit of effort and sacrificing some profits in lieu of better distribution. I'm not saying it's right for everyone, but it's possible to get music out there if you are an artist. And cdba…

The thing is, those are not really independent artists and only sell CDs on their domestic regions, or only on their local iTunes store.

Re: Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player

#77

Post by [deleted] »

matthewslotkin wrote: post #64
jmatt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's bold of Amazon to launch essentially a minimum viable product and beat Apple to the punch. Now they have customers and are getting meaningful feedback to make future improvements. You rarely see this outside of Apple and startups. I'm glad to see Apple running into some real competition.

since when does Apple launch minimum viable products? that is the opposite of what Apple does.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player

#78

Post by jmatt »

matthewslotkin wrote: post #64
jmatt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's bold of Amazon to launch essentially a minimum viable product and beat Apple to the punch. Now they have customers and are getting meaningful feedback to make future improvements. You rarely see this outside of Apple and startups. I'm glad to see Apple running into some real competition.

since when does Apple launch minimum viable products? that is the opposite of what Apple does.

Go look at all the complaining from when the iPhone original was announced and came out. It didn't have a number of features that were considered at the time required:

The original release of the operating system included Visual Voicemail, multi-touch gestures, HTML email, Safari web browser, threaded text messaging, and YouTube. However, many features like MMS, third-party apps, and copy and paste were not supported at release. These missing features led to hackers "jailbreaking" their phones which added these missing features. Official software updates slowly added these features.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(original)#Software_Hist...

Looking back now they clearly did the right thing. In articles at the time when journalists did a feature comparisons it lost. But when people and journalists actually used it - it was awesome. I argue a product can be both a MVC and have simple, powerful, useful, polished features. Just look at the ipod and iphone (yeah similar reviews happened for ipod. See the infamous Slashdot quote).

Re: Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player

#79

Post by yesbabyyes »

matthewslotkin wrote: post #64
jmatt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's bold of Amazon to launch essentially a minimum viable product and beat Apple to the punch. Now they have customers and are getting meaningful feedback to make future improvements. You rarely see this outside of Apple and startups. I'm glad to see Apple running into some real competition.

since when does Apple launch minimum viable products? that is the opposite of what Apple does.

Not really, they just have a higher bar for their minimal viability.
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