iCloud Free Trial, $25 Per Year, and Ads?

Thursday June 2, 2011 1:20 pm PDT by Arnold Kim

Rumors are flowing fast in the days before WWDC. LATimes reveals some additional details about Apple's iCloud service.

The iCloud service will function as many have expected. Offering iTunes users the ability to save their purchases to iCloud and then being able to listen to it from any web browser or Apple device. Apple will be offering a free trial for those who buy music from iTunes and later expects to charge "about" $25/year for the service.

The LATimes also adds without detail that "Apple would also sell advertising around its iCloud service." It's not clear in what form this advertising would be, and whether it would be present for only free or also paid customers.

Finally, Apple expects to extend the iCloud concept to movies, TV shows and other digital content. Apple will be announcing iCloud at next week's WWDC.

Top Rated Comments

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Sky Blue

26 months ago

I'd rather store things locally, not have to worry about buffering and save $25 a year.

Rating: 33 Positives

ugahairydawgs

26 months ago

So this is basically just an online locker for iTunes store purchases?

If true that is pretty disappointing.

Rating: 26 Positives

bushido

26 months ago

lol 25$ and u can only use music u already paid for LAME .... and useless to me as i have like 20 songs purchased from the store

Rating: 13 Positives

neiltc13

26 months ago

So not really a good competitor to Spotify then.

Rating: 12 Positives

Warbrain

26 months ago

There's no way that the labels would agree to let Apple host all of the music files that you have because there's no guarantee that you actually purchased those files or legitimately ripped them from a CD. This isn't surprising at all.

Everyone should be taking all of this with a grain of salt and waiting for Monday.

Rating: 12 Positives