Access Music and More in the Cloud with Amazon.com [ARTICLE]
If you have an Amazon account, you can now access music, videos and more using the Amazon Cloud Player. “The Cloud” is a new buzz word for the Internet or the virtual world we create through the Internet. If something is stored in the Cloud or is accessible in the Cloud, it simply means you can access it using an Internet connection.
Amazon has offered its Cloud Drive for awhile, giving users a piece of the big open Internet sky to call their own. Amazon also has been selling music and other digital media through its MP3 Store. Now, the Amazon Cloud Player links the two together by helping you store, organize, access and play music and other digital media, including MP3 Store purchases and your own digital albums, songs and other files.
Is Amazon Cloud Player the same as iTunes?
If you are an iTunes user, this concept may sound somewhat familiar: you buy MP3s or digital music files, your purchase is stored virtually, and you can easily organize and download your music to a variety of mobile devices or computers. So, how is Amazon Cloud Player different? It has one big downside: it doesn’t have an iPhone app. Because the Web interface relies on Flash, you can’t work around this downside by using Safari on your iPhone.
Android phone owners will welcome this new player into the world of digital music storage. Amazon Cloud Player also works with Blackberry and Palm platforms, and by virtue of its presence in the Cloud, you can access your Cloud Player music as well as any of your Cloud Drive files from any Web-connected computer.
Do I have to buy music from Amazon?
Every Amazon customer who has a U.S. billing address can access 5 GB of free Cloud storage, which is about enough for storing 1,000 songs that you already own or that you buy elsewhere. To get your free 5 GB of storage, simply login to your Amazon account and accept the terms of service. From then on, songs or albums you purchase from the Amazon MP3 Store can be saved to you Amazon Cloud Drive for free, and they won’t count against your 5 GB of free storage.
At last check, Amazon was offering 20 GB of free storage for a year to customers who purchase a single MP3 album from the Amazon MP3 Store. After the one year, if you choose to keep your additional space, it will cost $1.75 a month. If you don’t want to keep it you don’t have to worry about automatically getting charged when you meant to opt out. Instead, Amazon will automatically take you back to the free 5 GB storage plan until you approve a paid upgrade.
How is the Amazon Cloud Player different from the Amazon Cloud Drive?
You’re not limited to storing music on the Amazon Cloud Drive. You can use it to save any or all of your documents, videos, pictures and more. When using a Web browser on your computer, you can think of the Amazon Cloud Player as a special view of MP3 files saved on your Amazon Cloud Drive. This view lets you sort and filter by albums, artists, genres and more.
The Amazon Cloud Player also lets you easily set up playlists. For example, pick one for your morning run, another for your kid’s birthday party and another with relaxing bedtime music. If you already have a mix of music you like on a CD, you can upload your custom album to Amazon Cloud Player, too.
What about MP3s I already have? What about my CDs?
Using a Web browser on your computer, download the Amazon MP3 Uploader to add two types of files to the Amazon Cloud Player:
- Files that end in .mp3, as long as they are not digital rights managed or DRM
- Files that end in .m4a, including iTunes purchases
If you need to convert a file to one of these formats, there are tools you can use in iTunes and Windows Media Player.
How does Amazon Cloud Player work on my Droid?
From the Amazon Cloud Player page, you can use your Android phone to scan a QR code that will give you access to the Cloud Player in the Android Marketplace. Or, simply go to the Android Marketplace from your phone and download the Amazon.com MP3 Store with Cloud Player.
Once your app is in place, you can access some free music and news on the go or you can access any music you have previously saved to your Amazon Cloud Player. You can only add new items from the MP3 Store to your Cloud Player if you are connected to the Internet via a WiFi connection. It does not support downloads from roaming connections.
Who should use Amazon Cloud Player?
If you are looking for one convenient, safe and affordable place to store multiple types of media, using the Amazon Cloud Drive is a great option. The addition of Cloud Player means that you can easily store and access music files right alongside last year’s tax documents.
If you’re looking for mobile access to your music and you have an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, the Amazon Cloud Player isn’t going to provide much on-the-go value to you, but it is an alternative way to access and listen to music from Internet-connected computers or back up iTunes purchases.
