Apples in the clouds

TechCrunch was writing back in 2009 about the main concerns of Apple moving iTunes to the cloud:

1. Security
“Now, this idea is so obvious that it has to be coming, right? Well, there are obviously some concerns as well. First, security. The music labels and television and movie studios would want assurances from Apple that no one could “game the system” and get access to content for free. With iTunes in the cloud, Apple would likely have to partially rework the 5 computers-at-a-time system for iTunes that it uses right now (for DRM content), but something similar would probably be intact.”

This is solved by hardware encryption patent – see particle gun story.

2. Cost:
“The second concern would be cost. Apple undoutbedly spends a lot of money now serving music and movies over iTunes, but it’s for the most part a one-time deal, where a user pays and then downloads the content. If you introduce streaming into the mix, costs will go up. But perhaps that is part of the reason behind Apple’s new massive 500,000 sqaure foot datacenter in North Carolina — which will be one of the largest in the world.”

This is solved by the new farm Jobs is deploying, the one of which we already know.

So, the cloud is no more a secret to Apple. The only secret is if this cloud will only be a content iTunes cloud storage a just a bit more…?

TechCrunch’s article here: http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/08/the-inevitable-move-of-itunes-to-the-cloud/