Apple ’s December 2009 attainment of Lala , a music - teem avail , has fueled quite a muckle of speculation over how the fellowship be after to compete in the speedily rising mass medium - streaming space . On Wednesday , some users eager to begin swarm their iTunes music notice an overlooked ability of Apple ’s iDisk app for iPhone , but it is n’t quite Apple ’s maraud into “ iTunes in the cloud . ”
Michael Robertson ( yes , the beginner ofMP3.com)mentioned on his blogthat Apple had recently enable its MobileMe iDisk app to play audio in the background knowledge , over both Wi - Fi and 3 gm connections . If you have a iPhone - compatible music single file like an MP3 or an M4A ( without DRM , naturally ) stack away on your iDisk , tapping it in the iPhone app will begin playing it back . you’re able to even bring and pause it with the controls in iOS 4 ’s multitasking shelf .
These feature are n’t all that new — they actually arrived with the last MobileMe iDisk app update on July 6 , and Apple plainly listed “ dally audio from your iDisk while using another app ” as a new lineament . It is also worth noting that other file - management apps can play medicine in the ground , admit Dropbox .
Some website , such asReadWriteWebandGizmodo , are reporting iDisk ’s media - pour abilities as Apple flipping the switch on new “ iTunes streaming ” feature ( even though Robertson himself clearly said in his post that “ this is not ‘ iTunes in the swarm ' ” ) .
But “ iTunes in the cloud ” ? Hardly . For one thing , you have to manually move or re-create music files into your iDisk ( inMacworld ’s brief examination , it does n’t count where you store the files in your iDisk ) . When a song finishes , you have to manually start the app and pick out another Sung dynasty to play , as there is no playlist support or even continuous play functionality for multiple track in a single leaflet . The previous and next runway buttons in the scope playback control condition do n’t work either ; they plainly end the presently play song .
Apple also warns that papers larger than 20 megabyte may not be viewable in the MobileMe iDisk app , which presumptively includes euphony file and podcasts . Streaming certainly works over 3 G , though quality is n’t quite as effective as stream over Wi - Fi or playing topically with the iPod app .
In a nutshell , streaming media in the background with its MobileMe iDisk app is a marginally utile feature film that Apple added ( and mentioned ) in July . But it is n’t quite time to break out the credit cards and champagne in celebration of “ iTunes in the cloud ” yet .
