Apple patent adds clues to streaming music service
A patent application released this morning has provided clues to features Apple might add to iTunes and iOS to make entire music libraries take up less space on mobile devices with limited storage. U.S. patent application No. 20110118858, which was unearthed by Apple Insider earlier today, details a system where segments of music clips from a user's library are stored locally on a device. When combined with an infrastructure that can fetch the rest of a song once it starts being played, this could provide users with a seamless music listening experience of their entire library, even without having it on the device. That is, if Apple provides a way to stream the tracks to the users through the cloud, either from its own storage or a network-attached computer. "This invention is directed to playing back streamed media items using an electronic device. In particular, this is directed to locally storing one or more clips corresponding to a media item such that the clips can be immediately played back in response to a user request to play back the media item," the patent's summary describes. "While the clips are played back, the electronic device can retrieve the remaining segments of the media item from the user's media library as a media stream over a communications network."The patent's unearthing comes just a day after Apple signed a cloud-music licensing agreement with EMI Music, as CNET reported exclusively last night. Apple is close to reaching agreements with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, which would enable Apple to offer a streaming music service with content from those labels.While the licensing factor is one side of the equation, the other revolves around what kind of mechanisms need to be in place for users to access a cloud library, and what kind of resources that will require on Apple's end. The company has invested heavily in its own data centers, and is reported to have taken on a seven-year lease of additional data center space in a third-party facility in Santa Clara, Calif. Such efforts could be a pivotal part of delivering streamed content to high volumes of users.Apple already offers music and video streaming to iOS devices through its MobileMe iDisk application, though it's lacking any sort of integration with a user's iTunes library. That system also does not take advantage of local storage to let users cache recently viewed songs or videos for instant and offline playback.The system described in the patent could also be especially useful if Apple ever ends up rolling out a super low storage, or storage-free version of the iPhone aimed at budget-conscious consumers. Several outlets, including Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and TechCrunch posted stories back in February that Apple was hard at work on a smaller version of the iPhone, with just those features. That device, it was said, was being designed to come in at a much lower price tag than previous versions of the device. Following those reports, The New York Times specifically came out saying that Apple was not considering shrinking the size, though it said built-in flash storage could very well be on the cutting block.As a reminder, this is a patent application and not a patent that's been granted to the company.
Share content between iPods with miShare
Share content between iPods with miShare
I've seen previews of the upcoming miShare inEngadget and Gizmodo, but the device got some major publicity today in the form of a quick New York Times review.(The company is based in Brooklyn.)The concept's simple: connect miShare to two iPods (it doesn't work with first- or second-generation iPods, nor with the Shuffle or Touch). Then set the switch to music, video, or photo, press the miShare's button, and it'll transfer the last-played audio or video file, or all the photos in a folder you pre-define, from the home iPod to the receiving one. You can also transfer entire On-The-Go playlists between the devices by holding the transfer button down for three seconds. Minor drawbacks: getting the songs from the iPod back to your computer will be difficult unless you use a third-party add-on like MusicRescue. The transfer rate's about 500 KB per second, which means an album will take a couple minutes, and the device doesn't offer any trickery to get around Apple's FairPlay DRM scheme, meaning that most files bought from iTunes won't be playable after transfer.Like Pacemaker,the folks at miShare are taking pre-orders for $99.95 now, and won't charge your credit card until they ship you a device. They're due to begin shipping Jan. 22. Will you get busted for using miShare? It doesn't have any provisions to get around DRM, so it wouldn't seem to violate the DMCA. And it's certainly legal to transfer files of songs you own the copyright to. (One of my big complaints about the Zune wireless sharing feature is that even if I transfer music from my own bands to you, it still expires after three plays.) But using miShare to transfer large quantities of music seems to exist in that same grey area as copying songs to a flash drive to give to a friend. Probably not strictly legal, but almost impossible to enforce, and probably not worth copyright owners' time--if they're going to sue customers, they're going to try for the ones who are making thousands of files available to thousands of users simultaneously through file-trading networks.
I've seen previews of the upcoming miShare inEngadget and Gizmodo, but the device got some major publicity today in the form of a quick New York Times review.(The company is based in Brooklyn.)The concept's simple: connect miShare to two iPods (it doesn't work with first- or second-generation iPods, nor with the Shuffle or Touch). Then set the switch to music, video, or photo, press the miShare's button, and it'll transfer the last-played audio or video file, or all the photos in a folder you pre-define, from the home iPod to the receiving one. You can also transfer entire On-The-Go playlists between the devices by holding the transfer button down for three seconds. Minor drawbacks: getting the songs from the iPod back to your computer will be difficult unless you use a third-party add-on like MusicRescue. The transfer rate's about 500 KB per second, which means an album will take a couple minutes, and the device doesn't offer any trickery to get around Apple's FairPlay DRM scheme, meaning that most files bought from iTunes won't be playable after transfer.Like Pacemaker,the folks at miShare are taking pre-orders for $99.95 now, and won't charge your credit card until they ship you a device. They're due to begin shipping Jan. 22. Will you get busted for using miShare? It doesn't have any provisions to get around DRM, so it wouldn't seem to violate the DMCA. And it's certainly legal to transfer files of songs you own the copyright to. (One of my big complaints about the Zune wireless sharing feature is that even if I transfer music from my own bands to you, it still expires after three plays.) But using miShare to transfer large quantities of music seems to exist in that same grey area as copying songs to a flash drive to give to a friend. Probably not strictly legal, but almost impossible to enforce, and probably not worth copyright owners' time--if they're going to sue customers, they're going to try for the ones who are making thousands of files available to thousands of users simultaneously through file-trading networks.
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