After much anticipation and expectation of an iTunes streaming service, especially after Apple purchased and then did away with Lala, Amazon has now beaten them to the punch. The new Amazon Cloud Drive service is an online storage space you can use to store any files you wish, either to use as a backup, or simply for accessing your files on the go. However, it has much added value as your very own Pandora alternative.
You can upload your very own music tracks to your Amazon Cloud Drive storage space, then stream that music to any Internet connected computer you wish using the Amazon Cloud Player. Better yet, purchase MP3 tracks from the Amazon MP3 Store, and you can send them directly to your Amazon Cloud Drive immediately, without it counting toward your storage limit. This gives you even more incentive to purchase all your music from the Amazon MP3 Store rather than iTunes, along with the advantages already available over iTunes. Tracks and entire albums are usually available at a cheaper price from Amazon, and they have always been provided as high quality DRM free MP3 tracks. That enables you to use traditional MP3 tags to organize your tracks, compared to the convaluted tagging system used in iTunes. And those tracks can easily be placed on any devices you wish. None of the hassles commonly experienced with the use of iTunes.
Now with Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player, you get a true music streaming service where you own your own tracks, and access them anywhere. In fact, the Amazon MP3 app for Android has been updated to support these services. So, now you can purchase MP3 tracks or albums, immediately send them to your Amazon Cloud Drive, and stream them to your Android device via Amazon Cloud Player all from within the Android app. Pretty cool stuff. Plus, you can still download your tracks directly to your device if you have room for them on your SD card and don't want to rack up extra charges on a limited data plan. With an unlimited plan though, you can save yourself a lot of storage space by simply streaming your tracks whenever you want to hear them.
Even better still, you get 5GB of storage for free, with higher storage capacities available for a yearly fee. Purchase one entire album though, and you get a free one year trial to their 20GB plan. I did that myself, then immediately began uploading the better part of my current music library. That upload totals over 17GB, and will take a few days to complete; but the tracks that have already completed uploading were made available for streaming immediately. It's nice to know though that all my future Amazon MP3 Store purchases can be added at no additional cost or storage cap.
This is an excellent service that works just as advertised, with an excellent sound quality of the music tracks being streamed. I had already chosen to purchase all my music from their store anyway, due to all the needless headaches iTunes has caused over the years, but now I have even more incentive to do so. And if Apple doesn't get going on their own streaming version of iTunes, they might quickly be left in the dust. I highly recommend this service to all of you, and I guarantee you're going to love it!
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