A Quick Review of the Clouds: A Quick Way to Keep Your Music Library With You

Well hello again...glad to see ya...

 Now this post may be a little different from the norm but bear with me. It should be very insightful for you well at least I’m hoping.  If not…don’t judge me Mr/Ms. Know it all! HA HA HA!

Ok let’s hop to it. 

I often make mention of my cloud…and usually I am greeted with a look of confusion so…let’s start there.

What is a cloud?

Well according to the infamous Wikipedia it’s… “a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water and/or various chemicals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body.”

Ok now that is the text book term for those fluffy white poofs in the sky (yeah I said poofs…whatever!) at any rate that’s all great, however, that is not the type of cloud to which I am referring. 

Clouds are a new way technology is allowing us to store and retrieve information without using up space on our devices (i.e. computers, smart phones, tablets etc).  It’s also referred to as Cloud Computing. According to InfoWorld… “Cloud computing providers deliver applications via the internet, which are accessed from and desktop and mobile apps, while the business software and data are stored on servers at a remote location.”

Now these clouds are used by all and for personal as well as business use.  This post will be basically regarding the personal use and music. 

Now I mainly use my clouds to store music some use it for videos and pictures as well.  I have around 5,000-6,000 songs in my cloud and growing.  Of course if I stored that on my Smartphone, iPod, tablet etc depending on size I would be out of space and in some cases unable to store it all.

I don’t know about you but I don’t want that hogging up all my device space.  Well that’s where the awesomeness of the cloud comes in.  You simply find a cloud service you like…(I’ll go over those in a second).  You then simply upload the music library from your computer into the cloud.  Most of the cloud services have an app for your Smartphone you download the corresponding app for your cloud sign in and BAM where ever you are you have access to stream you own music where ever without taking up phone on your respective device.

The companies that are providing cloud services are growing by the day…but I’ll go over some of the more popular ones to give you a sense of how they operate.

First up is Amazon Cloud Service:

Now with Amazon you get 5gb of storage for free.  This will allow you to store about 1,000 songs.  There is a mobile app for this if you have an Android or Blackberry. Unfortunately Apple doesn’t have an application for this any longer it was yanked from the Apple Store since of course Apple kills anything that tried to compete with it.  So if you want to use this service on your iPhone you will have to go through your safari web browser.

Pros: Easy to use, if you buy a CD from Amazon they will update your cloud to unlimited to storage for a year.  You can share what your listening to with your social network site.

Cons: Once you put music into it you cannot alter your music tracks.  i.e. you have songs listed as Track 1 and you want to give them the correct name you’ll have to delete it from your cloud.  Fix it on your computer then upload again.

If you are interested in this cloud service you can get more info or set it up here:

https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/learnmore

Amazon pricing set up:

I recommend this Cloud.  I actually have one… this is my Amazon cloud:

Mobile App view:

 

 Next up is the Apple iCloud:

I personally haven’t used this one because I don’t have an apple device. Well my Ipod touch but daughter mainly uses that. Any who here are some of the basics with the iCloud if you don’t have an iPhone you can move to the next cloud.  The iCloud is only compatible with Apple products. To be even more specific iPhones running at least iOS5, have iTunes 10.5 and your iPhone must be 3Gs or newer.  So if you actually meet all those criteria then here we go. Works the same pretty much across the board once you set the cloud up you can update your setting that whenever you upload music to iTunes then it will sync with your cloud.

Here is the blurb from the Apple site:

"iCloud is so much more than a hard drive in the sky. It makes it quick and effortless to access just about everything on the devices you use every day. iCloud automatically and securely stores your content so it's always available to your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC. It gives you access to your music, apps, latest photos, and more from whichever device you happen to be using. And it keeps your email, contacts, and calendars up to date across all your devices. No syncing required. No management required. In fact, no anything required. iCloud does it all for you."

Now what you do you get with this service:

5gb free with the iCloud.

Extra storage cost:

BUT AHA!! Good ol Apple the Kings of nickel and diming its’ loyal followers to death…this is only compatible with music you bought from iTunes…if you want to add music that you didn’t purchase from iTunes then you have to get another service compatible to the iCloud called iTunes match which cost an additional 24.99/year. 

Pros: Neat, clean interface, auto syncing, you can also put photos, videos and documents in the icloud

Cons: Expensive, have to buy iTunes match to sync my other music I may have on my computer from CD’s etc, only compatible with Apple products, oh yeah EXPENSIVE compared to competitor.

*side note* now do you see why they yanked the competitors apps from the itunes store.  They are cheaper and you get more space for less.

More info can be found here: http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/

I recommend if you have an apple product and plan on using everything its capable of besides music.

Next is Google Music Cloud:

This one by far is my favorite it’s a Google product and I love Google.  However,  let me give you the skinny on Google Music.  Here is the a synopsis of the Google Cloud from their site…

“Google Music stores all of your music online so that you can save space on your computers and mobile devices and easily access your collection from anywhere you want to listen.”

What you get with Google Music Cloud:

You can add up to 20,000 songs that’s roughly I think about 80GB’s for…wait for it….. FREE!!! (whoo hoooo)

Also with the Google Music cloud you get free music if you are Android from the Android Market.  There are hundreds of free songs.

There is an app for it on Android.  Although Apple has restricted a Google app put out by Google there are several 3 party Google Music apps for iPhone.  I think what I have heard most people like is the iPhone app gMusic. Blackberry users access google.com/music from their browser.

Pros: Ease of use, seems to be most compatible, free music, most storage for free, if you are on Google + you can share songs with friends, auto syncs with whatever program you want including iTunes, editable song information.

Cons:  If you have a large music library to upload all at once be prepared to start the upload in the morning and go about your day and hope it’s done by the time you get home but once its uploaded your good.  This is Music only cloud so if you have pictures or videos you want to upload this Cloud system doesn’t have that capability.

More info here: http://music.google.com/about/

If you’re looking for music only….I HIGHLY recommend this one.

Here is a screen shot of my Google Music Cloud:

Mobile App view:

Lastly is..

Have your own Cloud at home.  You can purchase a home media cloud device for your home which you upload your information to it and you stream from it where ever you are.  Some of them I’ve heard of or seen are the PogoPlug, Iomega and you can Google others. 

These devices start with 5gb of space and the lowest price I have seen is 37.99 ranging up into the hundreds.  Also the streaming quality and speed depends on your internet connection at home.

Pros: Everything is in house, if the services ever decide to go up on fees on begin charging fee’s you have no worries.  If you pirate music or movies this is a safe way to put your info in storage and have no fears of being caught. You can share files with friends with no restrictions.

Cons: Streaming is spotty unless your internet connection is rock solid and fast, if you have a blackberry or something other than an iPhone or Android most likely it may not be compatible.  If you need more space you have to get another device or start deleting stuff to make room.  In a lot of the cases after looking at these online is you have to also buy a mobile device to actually be able to stream to your device. 

All in all, I guess I’m impartial to this one…I have no interest in it but if you want everything to remain in house and are very concerned about ultimate privacy then this might be the route for you.

If you want more info on having your own in house cloud here is the link to PogoPlug: 

https://my.pogoplug.com/features

Well this has just been my brief review, opinion and break down of some of the major music cloud services out there.Hope this has been helpful for you.  If you have any questions feel free to ask. I'm off to enjoy my plethora of music. Blog ya later!