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Amazon Cloud Player now streams music on the iPhone and iPad

by Samuel Gibbs May 9th 2011 at 9:00AM

Amazon Cloud Player

We're not sure how long this has been possible, but at launch, Amazon's Cloud Player refused to stream songs from your Cloud Drive in Mobile Safari, with the only alternative being selecting 'Download' instead of play. Now Amazon has quietly flicked the switch that allows Cloud Player to work properly in Mobile Safari, once you get past the "Your browser isn't supported screen," complete with background playback and control, meaning that you can pause the music and skip tracks right from the multitasking bar.

If you haven't tried Amazon's Cloud Player, and you've got an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, perhaps now's the time to give it a test drive. You get 5 GB of free storage up front, and you can upload and stream any tracks you already have with it. Anything purchased from the Amazon MP3 store can be automatically added to your Cloud Drive without counting against your storage quota. What's more, Amazon will give you an extra 15 GB of free storage when you purchase at least one MP3 album, bringing your storage limit up to 20 GB.

While any web app implementation isn't going to be as good as a really great native app, using the Cloud Player in Mobile Safari with background playback and control isn't a bad option at all -- plus it works outside the US, too.

[via TechCrunch]



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We're not sure how long this has been possible, but at launch, Amazon's Cloud Player refused to stream songs from your Cloud Drive in...
 

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21 Comments

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Alex Mills

While the Cloud Drive works in most countries, the Cloud Player does not work outside of the US.

May 10 2011 at 12:29 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
hola

Nice features!
But I'm trying to access from Spain and I'm not allowed...
US only at the moment!

20Gb of cloud storage for the price of an album? Oh yes! I hope Apple will introduce something like this (or better) anytime soon!

May 09 2011 at 1:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mbabco

"What's more, Amazon will give you an extra 15 GB of free storage when you purchase at least one MP3 album, bringing your storage limit up to 20 GB." -- That extra 15 GB is free for one year only; then you have to pay for it.

May 09 2011 at 11:38 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to mbabco's comment
Samuel Gibbs

Or buy another album.

May 09 2011 at 11:41 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Danny

Why can't they just go ahead and either make an iPhone app or at least make a html5 mobile friendly site!

May 09 2011 at 11:20 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Danny's comment
Samuel Gibbs

I doubt Apple would let an Amazon Cloud Player app through the App Store. Why they haven't made a mobile friendly site, that I can't answer. Maybe they're waiting to see what happens with the licences first before committing more money to the project.

May 09 2011 at 11:29 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
William

Just tried it out on my iPhone 3GS and found that the music controls (double click the home button and scroll left) work to play and pause the music just like for the iPod controls. Very cool addition. And the icon is even the Safari icon.

May 09 2011 at 11:05 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Brent

I'm glad it's working better, but it still feels clunky. When I tried it on my iPad, I couldn't scroll through all of my music that wouldn't fit on the page so in order to use it, I basically have to rely on the search feature. I don't know if it's Apple refusing the app or Amazon treating Android more favorably, but a dedicated app would definitely be better than using the browser.

May 09 2011 at 10:48 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Brent's comment
imTrev

Use two fingers to scroll on pages like that.

May 09 2011 at 11:00 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
imTrev

I'm in the UK and it looks like it don't work.

iPad screenshot: http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/2519/img01711.jpg

May 09 2011 at 10:14 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
5 replies to imTrev's comment
joeybeast

I'd love to use this to save space on my iphone. The only problem is I take the subway. So my music stays on the phone. Also Planetary means my music stay on the ipad as well.

May 09 2011 at 10:04 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
NetMage

When you have more music than iPhone capacity, streaming makes sense. When you have multiple devices, streaming makes even more sense.

May 09 2011 at 9:46 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sean M Hollingsworth

I still don't understand the fascination with streaming my own music. Why would I want to put my music on a server that's far away, rather than my iPhone (which, amazingly, was designed to store and play music), where I'm not subject to the whims of my network connection or the availability of someone else's servers? Maybe I'm not visionary enough to see how making listening to music more difficult is at all beneficial to me.

May 09 2011 at 9:14 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to Sean M Hollingsworth's comment
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