Apple iCloud to be launched at WWCD
As expected, Apple said today it will unveil a service called iCloud on June 6 at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Granted, Apple itself didn't say anything specifically about music, but we do know that Apple managers have sought to create a music feature for the service. And we'll learn a lot more soon enough.
By the way, none other than Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, who is currently on an indefinite medical leave, will be on hand to unwrap iCloud at the WWDC. (Read the story on Apple's complete announcement here).
Apple has wrapped up licensing agreements with three of the four top record companies, including EMI Music, Warner Music, and Sony Music. CNET reported that Apple and Universal Music, the largest of the major record companies, could ink a deal possibly soon. This would give Apple recorded-music rights to most of the popular music out there. To offer a fully functional cloud music service though, Apple still needs publishing rights.
Sources with knowledge of the talks said that the publishers and Apple are close to an agreement and nobody involved in the talks anticipates anything will prevent iCloud from offering songs from at least the four major record companies and their publishing units.
The big thing in digital music these days is the cloud--your songs hosted on someone else's servers, accessible to you from a variety of devices rather than locked into a specific gadget.