Apple buys LaLA, is a cloud-based version of iTunes on the way?

Rumors of Apple buying cloud-based music service LaLa have circulated for some time. Tonight, news that the deal is all but done. NYT, Bloomberg. Make way for a downloadless iTunes?

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Sean Eric FAgan

And now everyone is saying it is confirmed, so i take back my question and congratulate you on having a good sense of timing with your information. Brava! (No sarcasm intended.)
Sean Eric FAgan

“Apple buys LaLA” but “the deal is all but done”?
djkatdakid

oh crap. if apple buys lala.com, there goes getting things at a decent price. sighs… so much for 7.49 or less for an album instead of $10. Lala is so much better than itunes. i never have to go there again. I KNOW apple will ruin it.
Anonymous

I think this story is way off the mark. I read elsewhere that Apple is interested in LaLa for its transaction processing technology, not because it is served from the insanely over-hyped and pundit-beloved cloud. With such a huge transaction stream, a company like Apple would benefit by reducing their internal costs. So, there might be a lot less to this story than meets the eye.
inkadinka12

I wonder what this will mean to those of use who have used lala for CD trading (one of their earlier business models), and are still owed some CDs? Lala basically screwed the CD traders over in order to focus on music streamining. I would expect Apple to either keep the CD trading going, or pay me what they owe me for CDs I sent but never received in trade.
Anonymous

As a user of Lala, I’m concerned what will happen to those of us who have spent money on the “Websongs”. I’ll say this, if Apple screws me and the rest of lala’s customer base, I at least will never touch an Apple product again as long as I live.
Anonymous

Cloud-based?

Are you cirrus?

They store the songs on a network-connected server? OMG!! What a revolutionary new idea this cloud-based computing is!
pupdog

“There’s a legitimate question here: Why should people have to download music?”

a) They’re still downloading it, the question is whether they get to keep it.

b) I like to listen to my music places where I don’t necessarily have data service. Sure, wifi/3g and the like are becoming more common but are they seriously ready to cut off every subway commuter?