On June 12, I wrote about the Amazon Cloud Player app for iPhone and iPod Touch and that the Amazon Appstore was likely to hit Europe this summer.
Both are obvious signs of Amazon's plans to expand access to its digital media wherever it can, although the Kindle Fire hasn't been sold internationally yet, due to time-intense negotiations for "fresh agreements for books, music, and movies in every market they launch," per 3G.co.uk's Simon D. Thomas.
And they're strongly rumored to be adding another Kindle Fire with more hardware power to their line (with a good push by the Google Nexus 7" tablet).
On July 31, Amazon announced in a press release their music licensing agreements with Sony, EMI, Universal, Warner, and over 150 independent distributors, aggregators and music publishers.
They say that their "scan and match technology" gives customers a faster, easier way to "get all of their music from their computers to the cloud," from which they can then play their music on their favorite devices -- Kindle Fire, iPhone iPod Touch, Android devices and any web browser -- and soon, Roku streaming players and Sonos home entertainment systems.
New features:
- Any Amazon mp3 purchases, including mp3's bought from Amazon in the past, are automatically saved to Cloud Player, serving as a secure backup of the music bought from Amazon, free of charge.
- Amazon scans customers' iTunes and Windows Media Player libraries (I don't put mine in either of these libraries), matching the music on the computers to Amazon's 20 million song catalog.
Any matches, even if purchased from iTunes or ripped from CDs "are instantly made available in Cloud Player and are upgraded for free to high-quality 256 Kbps audio.
Music that customers have already uploaded to Cloud Players also will be upgraded."
MY question: can you just store music files in the free 5-gig general storage with no intention of playback? The Cloud Player is for music that you want to store AND play back.
Other new aspects of Cloud Player, which is now available in two tiers: "Free" and "Premium."
- Cloud Player Free customers
. can store all mp3's purchased from Amazon at no cost and also
. import, store, and play back up to 250 songs from PC or Mac to Cloud Player, at no charge. - Cloud Player Premium customers ($25/year)
. can store all mp3's purchased from Amazon at no cost and also
. import, store, and play back up to 250,000 songs in Cloud Player, atno further charge.
HOWEVER, though their press release doesn't mention it, their Manage your Cloud page also shows (at least for me) a NON-Free and NON-Premium category:
20 GB of file storage space + Cloud Player w/ up to 250 imported songs, at $10.00/year
That provides an additional 15 GB of file storage space over the Free plan.
That's confusing. The $10/yr plan should have a label between Free and Premium, as it costs less than the premium $25/yr+ plans because it provides 20 Gigs of storage space but allows only 250 non-Amazon-purchased mp3s ("imported") rather than 250,000.
The new Cloud Player features were to be automatically delivered to Kindle Fire users during the week following the July 31 announcement.
Customers can also visit the Amazon Cloud Player page on the web or download the app on iOS or Android.
UPDATE 8/6, evening
I neglected to mention the "Importer File Formats"
Amazon's "Importing Music into Cloud Player" page has a section on these.
Supported File Types: (See asterisk explanation below.)
. .mp3 -- Standard non-DRM file format
. .m4a -- AAC files (Windows and Mack, including iTunes store purchased files)
and Apple lossless files* (Mac OS only)
. .wma* -- Windows Media Audio files (Windows only)
. .wav* -- Uncompressed music files
. .ogg* -- Ogg Vorbis audio files
. .flac* -- Free Lossless Audio Codec files
. .aiff* -- Audio Interchange Audio Format
* For starred items: Only eligible files that match Amazon's catalog can be imported.
You can see more on this at the Music Import page
Starting July 31, 2012:
Cloud Drive is being used for general file storage and
Cloud Player will be used for music storage and playback.
Amazon recommends the Cloud Drive "learnmore" page to learn how to get started on Cloud drive.
About Amazon MP3
Per the same press release, Amazon's MP3 Store has over 20 million songs with everyday low prices on best-selling albums.
"All Amazon MP3s are DRM-free, work on just about any mp3-playing device and can be played from Cloud Player on Kindle Fire, Android phones and tablets, iPhones, iPads, iPods, Macs and Pcs.
Customers can also access the MP3 store via the iHeartRadio, Shazam, TuneIn Radio and SoundHound Android apps."
The 3 types of *Free* Amazon server storage
. Amazon's 5 free gigs of Cloud Drive space for Amazon customers, globally,
for ANY data files, plus
. Another 5 free gigs for Kindle owners' personal documents, plus
. Free Cloud Player space for 250 imported music files that can be played back.
I find that most Kindle owners I talk to don't know that Amazon gives all customers, globally, 5 free gigs of Cloud Drive space for data files of any kind. That includes videos, photos, documents, and backup of books you didn't buy from Amazon (as long as they're not digital-rights-protected by the publisher/vendor) and any of your personal documents that you'd liked backed up externally.
It also can include music but this won't be for playback or streaming, as playback is done via Cloud Player, which has separate storage space for music files, which you intend for playback or streaming.
Amazon also sets aside, for Kindle owners, 5 additional gigs for personal docs -- and this also includes non-Amazon books that are not rights-protected. This also applies to documents like Word Docs, or web pages sent to the Kindle via various Send-to utilities including Amazon's own. And recently, Amazon added SYNC'g of the Kindle area personal docs in the way that Kindle books are sync'd between devices.
Both the general free storage globally and the free personal docs storage and sync'g of them (if you send the latter to Amazon for the Kindle-owner's document storage area) are unique features not found with other e-readers.
I THINK that covers the basics and the changes. If not, please do add to the Comments area. Thanks!
Current Kindle Models for reference, plus free-ebook search links.
NOTES on newer Kindles.
| US: Updated Kindle Fire Basic 7" tablet - $159 Kindle Fire HD 7" 16/32GB - $199/$249 Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 16/32GB - $299/$369 Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G 32/64GB - $499/$599 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $69/$89 Kindle Paperwhite, WiFi - $99/$139 Kindle Paperwhite, 3G/WiFi - $179/$199 Kindle Keybd 3G - $139/$159, Free but slow web Kindle DX - $379, Free, slow web | UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £69 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £109 Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149 Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB | OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $89 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189 Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB |
For daily free ebooks, check the following links:
| Temporarily-free books - Non-classics USA: by: Publication Date Bestselling High-ratings UK: PubDate Popular The Kindle Daily Deal What is 3G? and "WiFi"? Battery Care Highly-rated under $1, | Most Popular Free K-Books U.S. & Int'l (NOT UK): Top 100 free UK-Only: Top 100 free USEFUL for your Kindle Keyboard(U.S. only, currently): 99c Notepad 1.1, 99c Calculator, 99c Calendar, |
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