We're on your tail, Apple

At the beginning of the year, I briefly mentioned the coming of cloud computing and as the year progresses we been seeing more of it come out from Google Apps, Apple TV2, Apples massive redesign of ITunes and the App Store to the launch of Sony's Qriocity. If you ask me they all have greatness in them but perhaps for me, its Apple. As biased as I am, just take a demo walk through the Apple TV2 or its App store alone and you'll agree with me and the fact that Apple's iOS App Store is growing 11 times faster than Android's for 2010

But perhaps what amazon did today made the competition even more exciting as they just became Apples tail in the front line ahead of Google. Amazon became the first major internet company to unveil a music-streaming service that is kept entirely online with the ability to listen to the tracks on any computer or Android.  The Cloud Player allows for downloading music without the restrictions of iTunes, offering users a convenience over Apple. Hold on though -   69 percent of the digital download market is already controlled by Apple! Yes, thats right so nothing is stopping Apple from releasing its own web product while Amazon starts to play hard ball with the possibility of piracy issues creeping into their game... Oh, this game is so ON!

Video 1: What is Amazon Cloud player

It's important to note that the only difference between Apple and Amazon is that Apple has localized the cloud to the source ITunes library which is available over home sharing and obviously your IPhone will have its library loaded but for streaming it needs its ITunes library which can only sit in one place whereas Amazon is allowing you to access your music over the web which makes it available at anytime on your devices.  On Apple devices, the Amazon cloud has to be accessed via safari with some drawbacks (see the video below) but I believe that on other smartphones there will be a downloadable app. 

Video 2: How to use the Amazon Cloud player on the Iphone