Apple icloud vs Amazon Cloud Drive vs Google Music
Apple described and semi-launched its newest service, iCloud, an online storage locker that will automatically sync all of you Apple devices together with music, apps and books purchased through the iTunes store. What does that mean exactly? Well, we break it down and compare its features and pricing to Amazon's Cloud Drive and Google's Google Music.
First up, the straight facts: iCloud is free for all iTunes, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users and will sync all of your data from Apple programs across all of you Apple devices. If you'd like to use it for music, it's still free, provided you purchased all of your music from the iTunes store -- for everyone else, there's an annual $25 fee to get your music library onto Apple's servers so you can access it in the cloud. Apple has neither confirmed or denied if this is a one-time fee of $25 for each block of songs, or if you have to pay that fee annually regardless of whether you add new music to the mix.
So then, how does it all work?
Unlike Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive, you don't have to upload your entire music library to Apple's servers; instead iCloud will scan your hard drive and match your library against theirs. Provided you pay the $25 fee, you'll be able to access your iTunes library anytime, from any Apple device. By access, we mean you'll be able to download the music -- yes, before your brain starts to hurt a little -- it does indeed mean you'll be able to download songs you already own onto different devices, but little else. As anyone who has ever had a hard drive crash knows, Apple hasn't previously allowed you to re-download songs -- now it finally does.
So there are two different services at work here, iCloud, which is free and syncs data across platforms, and iTunes Match, which is $25 a year and lets you match your iTunes library on Apple's servers. Neither is revolutionary and both are something Apple should have offered long ago. Notice anything missing there?
Yep: streaming.
A few places yesterday were reporting that iCloud will enable streaming to multiple devices. That's not the case. Once your songs are in the cloud, you can download them to any device, but not stream them. Streaming your tracks would mean you wouldn't have to download them at any point. It's likely this is the first step toward the infrastructure required for a streaming service, but it's not there yet.
If you're a little confused, don't worry. Here's a quick breakdown of the essential services from each of the big three:
| Amazon Cloud Player | Apple iCloud | Google Music Beta | |
| Price/Availability | Free. Public. | Available fall. Free for iTunes purchases. | Free. Private beta. |
| Free storage allotment | 5GB, plus free for songs purchased on Amazon | 5GB | 20,000 songs |
| Price for extra storage | $20/year for 20 GB | Unlimited iTunes storage for $24.95/year | unknown |
| Purchase Music Online | Y | Y | N |
| Stream music in Web browser | Y | N | Y |
| Upload music not purchased in the service | Y | $25/year | Y |
| Sync music to iOS app/Android app | N/Y | Y/N | N/Y |
| Store data other than music | Y | Y | N |
| Download/upload Music via Web browser | Y | N | Y |
| Require desktop app for music uploads | N | Y | Y |
| Number of devices you can download a song to | 8 | 10 | 8 |
| Web-based equalizer | Y | N/A | N |
| Create playlists/auto playlists | Y/N | USing iTunes | Y/Y |
| File types supported | MP3, AAC | MP3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4, AAC | MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC |
Each of the services kind of does their own thing and each are going to appeal to different people for different reasons. For instance, if you just want to have access to all you music while you're at work, you'll be best off using Google or Amazon's services, since the Apple method requires you to download both iTunes and the tracks. However, if you're an Apple fanatic with an iPhone, iPad, another iPhone, an iMac and a MacBook, you'll probably be happy to download and sync all of your music across your different products.
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