Apple bought Lala
Music service Lala was bought by Apple recently. There are a number of possibilities here:
The good:
- An owner with cash could keep the service running indefinitely
- Maybe Apple understands that the iTunes store isn’t enough anymore
- That iPhone app shouldn’t have trouble making it through certification now
The bad:
- Active development will almost certainly slow to a crawl until the business end of the deal is worked out
- Might mean that Apple sees the threat, and is only trying to snuff this out
- Apple has a less-than-golden record with web services
The reasons I love Lala are exactly all the reasons I can’t stand iTunes. I’m sick of having to sync my phone for 20-30 minutes every time I want to change one thing. I’ll plug it in with the intention of grabbing the latest few podcast episodes or to add/remove one album, but it can’t just do one thing. First it prompts me to update my phone software, then has to transfer all the app updates and photos, and back up the phone. 30 minutes later I have my two new podcasts I wanted for the commute. What should be a simple process gets complicated to the point of obnoxiousness by a bloated desktop app (don’t even get me started on how poor iTunes’ performance is with large libraries).
I think the major point is: why would I want to manage a bunch of local MP3 files myself? Most legit MP3 stores only let you download the tracks once, then backup becomes your responsibility. Lala’s “web albums” are just what I need. I don’t care about owning the tracks, I just want to hear them when I want to hear them.
Rant over.
A Lala app could negate the need to sync music anymore, but with the acquisition by Apple, my confidence is shaken that it’ll ever become a full streamable version of my music library.
