exploremusic

Nerds are still trying to figure what WASN’T said at Apple’s WWDC on Monday when Stevie J trotted out the new iPhone OS.  No new Apple TV (bummer, because they need to do something about it); no free Mobile Me (there’s no way I’m paying for this) and, most oddly, no mention of offering iTunes music streaming through the cloud (especially strange, since they bought and then shut down LaLa, a company that did just that).

Here’s a comment from Fast Company magazine:

“Not a peep about iTunes during Steve’s speech, which may be a surprise to some who were expecting news about a move to cloud-based storage and content streaming (possibly using tech from Lala, the streaming music platform that Apple recently acquired). The only mention of iTunes is in the new iPhone’s specs page on Apple.com, where it’s noted the device needs ‘iTunes 9.2’ whereas the current version is 9.1.1. Will iTunes 9.2 have cloud elements? We don’t know. It’ll have to ship before the new iPhone 4 goes on sale on June 24th, so it has to happen soon. We suspect a cloud-based iTunes would be a big enough revelation that Jobs would mention it in a big event so it won’t appear in June. But it may merit a special ‘Come Feel Music’s Future in the Air’ Apple-style special event later this year.”  (More here.)

The Hear2 blog asks an interesting question:  “[W]hen it does come it will not only be easier to access this content, but it will be easier and cheaper to ‘rent’ music (rather than ‘buy’ it?)  (More here.) 

Like I’ve been saying for years, we’re moving to a time when ACCESS to music will trump POSSESSION of music.  It’s only a matter of time.