Gee's Blog World: iTunes Streaming starts to emerge on iOS devices with latest iDisk update

Sunday, August 8, 2010

iTunes Streaming starts to emerge on iOS devices with latest iDisk update

Filed under: Audio, Utilities, Web services, Apple, iPhone

iTunes Streaming isn't here yet, despite the rumors, but Apple just took the first steps with the latest update to iDisk for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. In case you're not familiar with iDisk, it's the app that manages storage on your MobileMe account, and it just got the ability to play audio in the background. That means exactly what you think it means: if you store music on your iDisk, you can now play it on any iOS device.

It's not elegant, and it's certainly not the final form iTunes in the cloud will take -- there will undoubtedly be an elegant app for that, and Apple's purchase of Lala will probably come into play -- but it's the beginning of something awesome. If the iTunes streaming service ends up being run through MobileMe, you can bet a lot more people will be signing up for it. Right now, MobileMe is worth it if you desperately need to sync contacts or want to be able to track your phone when it's lost or stolen, but it sounds like every music fan with an iOS device will be signing up soon.