The much anticipated iTunes in the cloud service from Apple that is due anytime now will cost you, eventually.
Greg Sandoval from CNET:
Music industry insiders told me that Apple has indicated it could offer the service free of charge initially but that company will eventually require a fee. Google is also expected to charge for a similar service.
I expect that they will either have some kind of trial offer to store music in an online locker and then charge a fee afterwards. Or, they could do what Amazon has done with Cloud Drive and give you a lifetime, free parking pass for music and movies purchased in iTunes, while charging a per gigabyte annual fee for anything else. I’d definitely pay for the latter service.
It is also speculated that rather than having to upload your music collection, Apple will analyze your iTunes library and authorize your account for playback of any files you own. This would make the service infinitely easier than Amazon’s offering. This is allegedly the reason Apple has been ironing out licensing deals lately with the big four record labels in order to be able to just keep one master copy of a file.
What would you pay per year for access to your media from anywhere?
[via CNET News]
