Amazon sucker punches Apple with 'free' Cloud Drive online storage

by Steven Mostyn - Mar 29 2011, 11:48

Yesterday we reported that Apple’s upcoming Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) is likely to focus on a mystery cloud-based music service—probably linked directly to iTunes.

That said, and despite any excitement such a service may provoke in Apple fans, we’re here today to tell you that Amazon has beaten Jobs & Co. to the punch.

Reaching beyond mere teasing, online retail behemoth Amazon has formally announced the arrival of Cloud Drive, an online storage platform accessed via a user's Web browser that allows Amazon customers to upload their entire music collection and then listen to it from almost anywhere.

“Our customers have told us they don’t want to download music to their work computers or phones because they find it hard to move music around to different devices,” explained Bill Carr, vice president of Movies and Music at Amazon.

“Now, whether at work, home, or on the go, customers can buy music from Amazon MP3, store it in the cloud and play it anywhere,” he added.

And that would certainly appear to be the case, at least insofar as Cloud Drive negates the need for constant software updates, the use of annoying (easy to misplace) thumb drives, and the juggling of fiddly cables whenever people are looking to either move or manage their music.

Compatible with PC systems, Mac computers, Android phones and Android tablets—and supporting both MP3 and AAC—the Cloud Drive service is free to use and comes with an initial digital storage allocation of 5GBs, which will likely cover most people’s music collections.

However, those users that require more space can get one year’s free access to 20GBs by simply purchasing an MP3 album directly from the Amazon store.

Although Amazon has not yet specified how much those 20GBs will cost after the first year, it has indicated that additional storage plans start at $20 USD per year.

“Customers never need worry about losing their music collection to a hard drive crash again,” continued Amazon in its official release. “ Files are securely stored on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and each file is uploaded to Cloud Drive in its original bit rate. Customers can buy music anywhere and know that their MP3s are safely stored in Cloud Drive and accessible from any device.”

Adding to the appeal of Amazon’s service, Cloud Drive is also described as a safe haven for other personal media such as video recordings, photographic imagery, and documents.

Interested in Cloud Drive for your home computer, try Cloud Drive for Web. Interested in bringing Cloud Drive to your Android device, try the appropriately named Cloud Drive for Android.

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