Apple iCloud to be unveiled next Monday

The Apple corporation has reached a deal with major record labels that will allow people to stream music from a cloud of data onto their portable devices. The iCloud is expected to be officially introduced next Monday.

It’s fair to say that iTunes has gone some way to making massive physical music collections consisting of CDs and vinyl records obsolete. These days, people tend to store music on big hard drives rather than in a cupboard. With their next move, Apple might take a step towards doing away with even these music collections.

The iCloud, which will be unveiled by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in California on Monday, makes use of Apple’s position as the world’s biggest online music retailer. Deals struck with the three big record companies – Warner Music Group, Sony Music and EMI – ensure that the iCloud will entail back catalogues from a wide range of popular artists.

Users won’t have to upload or transfer their music from one device to the other to be able to listen to it – the iCloud scans the library stored on the user’s computer and then lets the other devices access the songs it recognises. So if a user wants to use his smartphone to listen to a track he bought on iTunes with his laptop, they don’t have to transfer and/or convert that song – they can stream it from the cloud.

It is not yet clear whether the iCloud will be based on subscription or whether it will be a free service.

There are also still ongoing negotiations with music publishers, who hold the rights to the words and melodies of particular songs (as opposed to the recordings, which are owned by the record labels).