After months of speculation and having been beaten to the punch by both Amazon and Google, Apple has finally announced iCloud, their cloud music streaming platform. Unsurprisingly given both Apple’s leverage with the iTunes music store and their penchant for excellent technology, Apple’s cloud service promises to be better than the aforementioned two pretty much from the start.

Here’s what you need to know about iCloud:

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From both talking to people in person and reading MS comments any time I tackle the issue, I’m hearing more and more folks claiming that as they gradually switch from CDs to digital downloads as their preferred music delivery method they slowly come to realize, “You know what? I guess I don’t need all my new music on CDs after all. I rarely touch the ones I have.” I’ve noticed this happen to even the staunchest of CD/physical medium supporters… including myself. Once you see the incredible time, money and space-saving qualities that digital file ownership has to offer you slowly start to get over your attachment to physical music products (also: don’t be a ninny, and make sure you back-up frequently). You need to experience the difference in order to really know.

Mark my words: the same thing is going to happen with the transition from digital file ownership to “the cloud,” which will offer on-demand music streaming at any time without any files stored on a hard drive, phone or other device. Today marks a big step in that direction, as Amazon has beaten Apple and Google to the punch by launching their digital Cloud Player for music.

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The always-brilliant Rob Pasbani of Metal Injection was going through his usual daily routine – wake up late, wander over to computer, get high, play on computer, remain in boxers, fail to bathe… y’know, the life of your average blogger – when he made an amazing discovery: Google’s suggestions for popular searches related to metal are actually pretty dead-on. To wit, this non-altered, completely, 100% real screenshot:

AMAZING, right? Now if only iTunes and Netflix could actually make some decent recommendations based on my previous purchases and rentals.

Head over to Metal Injection for more incredible screenshots of metal-related Google search suggestions.

-AR