Amazon Can Finally Respond to Apple iCloud’s Popularity: Here are Reasons

By Prarthito Maity | July 07 2011 5:17 AM

Apple announced the release of iCloud last month at the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) in California. The service allows users to store data such as music files for download to multiple devices such as iPhones, iPods, iPads, and personal computers running Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows on computer servers owned by Apple. The new iCloud also replaced Apple’s MobileMe program.

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Amazon's October release of its new tablet device will compete with Apple's iPad.

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Amazon had already launched its Cloud Drive and Cloud player services earlier this year which had the ability to store music and digital content on Amazon's servers, and could be accessed from different devices that were connected to Internet.

Amazon, however, was updated about iCloud’s popularity and has now announced that the Seattle-based company will expand the music storage capabilities of its Cloud services and will launch an enhanced Cloud Player. The changes made are as follows:

Amazon.com has introduced free storage option for every Amazon MP3 store purchase made. The feature was previously restricted to purchases made, for users going for the 5GB plan, since the introduction of Cloud Drive and Cloud Player. Now the users will be able to store their Amazon MP3 purchases for free.

Users will be also entitled to receive free unlimited storage space for any music that is in MP3 and AAC format. This offer will also be valid for customers who have opted for the lowest storage plan which is at $20 per year for 20GB. This offer, however, in only for a limited span of time.

An enhanced Cloud Player service that will be backed by optimization from Apple’s iPad has also been announced. The Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player service expect to gain momentum through such changes and hopes to give Apple’s iCloud a fair competition.