Apple set to change contours of cloud-based music service

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to launch the iCloud in San Francisco which could fundamentally change the way Apple fans listen to music, watch TV shows and download movies, a report said

The upcoming cloud services offering, which Apple referred to in a press release last week, will enable users to park their iTunes library and will allow them to stream music and possibly movies and TV shows instantly to any Apple device.

As of now, speculations are high about the cost and service. But the debut of iCloud is generating immense buzz because of the fact that there is a slim chance of Steve Jobs returning to the same active role he had in the company earlier due to his illness.

But iCloud takes it to the next level. To be able to access your content on the go from the cloud to any devices like nirvana. That's what everybody wants, Analyst Sterne Agee Shaw Wu told Mercury News.

It will be much easier and faster to download music from the cloud to the iPod.

When the iCloud is launched, it will certainly have serious implications for its competitors like Google and Amazon. Especially so, if Apple secures any deal with the big record labels, as it can affect companies like Google in turn.

Even Amazon and its variants have had secured deals with not so big labels in the first place, but users were going through an agonizingly slow process for uploading songs to the companies' servers.

But, according to Apple, users will have instant access to all of Apple's music servers in the cloud and this can actually put Apple way ahead in the race of cloud computing.

Moreover, when a customer is able to link his iPad or iPhone to their content in the cloud, it will only benefit Apple’s consumer base.

Currently, the issue of pricing is one major concern with every player in the market. It is not sure whether the service is actually going to be free.

One analyst Charles Golvin believes that if the users are made to rent music instead of buying it, Apple may risk the bond it has with their iTunes customers.

Another analyst Michael McGuire was confident that this cloud service might produce multiple streams of revenue for Apple in the future.