A skeptical perspective, apparently from someone who has never used iTunes on a PC (and thus evidently doesn’t realize that loading previously-purchased music into iTunes isn’t exactly fun, and that the iTunes app can overheat even high-end PCs, etc.)
Welcome to the awkward stage of the digital music revolution. Online song sales have stagnated, depriving the endangered music industry of one of its last remaining lifelines. Yet digital music continues to be a vital battleground for Google (GOOG), Apple, and Amazon to try to lure users to their other devices and online offerings. Now, Jeff Bezos & Co. have boldly tried to leapfrog Google and Apple in the quest to liberate consumers from the decade-old practice of buying and downloading digital songs to a computer and then manually transferring them between devices.
The idea behind "cloud music" is to let people stream their music collections from the Web to any computer or device. Analysts believe such services are inevitable—even if Amazon stumbles. "Having access to your music on all your devices has to be the starting point of any next-generation music service and product," says Mark Mulligan, an analyst at Forrester Research.
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