How to: Listen to your Amazon Cloud Player music on your iOS device
[H/t to Mashable's Christina Warren, who wrote this up yesterday. We independently arrived at the same place and had not seen Christina's writeup. - Ed.]
Have you signed up for Amazon Cloud? It's a newly launched service that offers 5 GB of free online cloud storage and affordable paid plans up to 1 TB. Competing with Dropbox, Amazon Cloud takes measures one step further -- integrating with its online store to provide over-the-air media access, like SugarSync, Mougg and AudioBox.
Unlike those latter services, however, Amazon Cloud provides media storage for free -- so long as you purchase that media from the Amazon store. Your Amazon music will not eat away at the free 5 GB that come with the basic plan.
If you're hoping to play your Cloud music on your iPhone or iPad, you might be put off by the user interface, which offers an MP3 icon but no play/pause button -- the way that it does on your Flash-enabled home computer. Fear not. There is a workaround.
Start by navigating using the Folders presentation on the bottom left of the Cloud Drive screen. It's the most effective way to move through your drive on your iPad or other iOS device without running into snags from Flash-based elements.
Instead of using play/pause, once you've navigated to your music, tap the check box next to the item name, and then tap Download. Mobile Safari connects to the resource and then starts playing the MP3 file back natively using an embedded player.
It may not be as lovely to look at as the unified music list GUI, but in our tests, we were able to play back a variety of music formats, not just MP3.
I went ahead and purchased a copy of Natalie Maines' new "God Only Knows" track from iTunes, which downloaded as an m4a MPEG-4 Audio Layer file. When tapped, it completely downloaded, and then presented the following "Open in" options. I went ahead and opened it in VLC, where it immediately started playback.
Unfortunately, the complete download/transfer-to-app process sort of kills the whole "Streaming from the Cloud" paradigm. It can occupy a lot of space on your device, and you cannot add the music to your iTunes library. (Well, to be honest, yes, you can, but not through any Apple approved methods at this time.) You may want to delete the downloaded files after playback. Be aware that some apps handle "Open in" functionality and the system Inbox better than others.
If you stick to MP3 files, however, you don't have to worry about "Open in." The files play back in Safari and you can tap the "Back" button to return to your Cloud Drive homepage. You still have to wait for them to download to play back, but at least your music will be available for you to listen to wherever you are.
Pro tip: When purchasing music, add it to your Cloud Drive first and only then download it from your Cloud Drive to your computer. When you download immediately, you lose the "add to your Cloud Drive for free" option.
Share
Categories
[H/t to Mashable's Christina Warren, who wrote this up yesterday. We independently arrived at the same place and had not seen...
Add a Comment
I've been using the Mercury Browser on my iPad 2 and switched it over to emulate IE and it worked fine.
March 31 2011 at 11:21 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply
Another option: Rhapsody. They are running a 2 month free trial, millions of streaming songs and the app runs on iPhone (also works on iPad) as well as the web browser. On the iPhone you can also download and play offline as many songs as you want, much quicker than streaming. Chances are Rhapsody has all the songs you have in your collection anyway, and the $10 a month price is great for 11 millions songs to stream/download. I have been using the service for years and highly recommend it if you are a music lover.
I wouldn't get too attached to this service unless Amazon gets licensing in place fairly quickly: http://www.applepatent.com/2011/03/amazon-cloud-player-what-has-changed.html
http://tech.resuck.com/2011/03/how-to-use-amazon-cloud-player-on-iphone-ipod-touch-and-ipad/
"Here’s what you need to do to use Amazon Cloud Player on your iDevice. Download iCab Mobile [iTunes link] on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. Using the browser, change the Browser ID to Safari 5 (Mac). Doing this will convince the Amazon Cloud Player that you aren’t using Mobile Safari and will let you download and listen to your favorite tracks."
Skyfire and iSwifter can stream the music straight from Amazon's Cloud Player.
March 31 2011 at 1:47 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThanks for sharing this!
The only thing I don't quite understand is - Why would anyone go this far just to listen to a few purchased songs? There are so many free music streaming service out there where music is always "fresh". Even if you really want to listen to those you own over and over again, it probably takes less time transferring directly from iTunes...
Funny. I stream iTunes-purchased, non-protected AAC files (.m4a) from my own web server to my iPhone and at first, I got the "download-and-open-in-VLC" runaround you show here. Knowing that AAC is a supported format on the iPhone, I dug a bit and quickly realized that my server was not configured to serve .m4a's with the correct MIME type. I changed it according to this guide
http://pixelcity.com/iphone-streaming-music/
and now when I click on an m4a, it opens--instantly--with the mobile Safari's built-in QuickTime-ish player. I uploaded an MP3 to Amazon today and it streams properly and plays fine. I'd be surprised to hear that Amazon's servers are misconfigured. If I remember, and care, I'll check tomorrow when I'm at work.
Though it hasn't been open for setting up new accounts, while the service undergoes a revamp, I have been using https://www.zumocast.com/
For my own Cloud Service.
It works exceptionally well over Wifi or 3G, to any of my iOS devices, anywhere.
It streams my 16,000+ songs from my iMac/iTunes. Plus any of the couple-of-hundred video/movies/files I add to the Zumocast "Cloud Service", all living on my 6TB of storage hanging of my iMac.
100% FREE.
I love zumocloud but apparently its been bought by Motorola, and is impossible to get running on iOS now!
Which means that when I reinstalled windows and lost my windows server app, I couldn't find a replacement online. Seriously, its IMPOSSIBLE to find on the web.
So... Any chance you have a copy of the installer?! I'll like heart you forever.
Wish I could help. I am all Mac OSX, no Windows here.
Sorry.
Iswifter app for iPad was able to use the flash interface for full experience. I only tried it with mp3 bought off amazon.
March 30 2011 at 8:00 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI use Audiogalaxy to stream from my "cloud". Works great even over 3G. I also have a Pogoplug that does the same. They will sell the software to do this on your computer without the box soon at BestBuy. Also Dropbox streams fine and is free. Many options, make your own "weather" and "clouds".
March 30 2011 at 7:17 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyDeals of the Day
more deals- Apple Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard for $40 + $8 s&h
- Refurb Mac Pro Xeon Quad-Core 2.8GHz Workstation for $1,150 + $38 s&h, more
- Used Apple iPad 32GB Wi-Fi Tablet for $200 + free shipping
- Apple iPod nano Multi-Touch 8GB MP3 Player for $100 + $8 s&h
- Cases for New iPad at HandHeldItems: Extra 20% off, $2 credit, from $3 + $3 s&h
- $15 Apple iTunes Gift Card for $8 for new Saveology customers
Software Updates
more updatesFeatured Stories
more stories
Popular Stories
TUAW (or The Unofficial Apple Weblog) is a website devoted to tips, reviews, news, analysis and opinion on everything Apple.
25 Comments