Stream music to iOS devices with Amazon’s Cloud Player

There has been several reports recently about Apple purchasing the iCloud.com domain and launching the new service in the coming months but if you are wanting to try a cloud service now, Amazon’s Cloud Player will stream music to your iOS device.

Amazon’s cloud service launched only with Android compatibility, but an update rolled out this weekend quietly introduced basic support for Apple’s iOS. If you have an Amazon Cloud Drive account (5GB free, plus a free 20GB upgrade if you purchase an album via Amazon MP3), you can now stream music on iOS devices too.

There’s no native iOS app for Amazon’s Cloud Player, such as the one for Android smartphone owners, but instead, you can listen to your songs stored online via Safari, the built-in browser on iOS.

You will need to upload your files from your desktop because uploading requires flash. Once your files are uploaded, you just have to point Safari on an iPhone or iPad to the Amazon Cloud Player site. A warning page will tell you that your browser is not supported, but you’ll just have to ignore that.

You then just have to select the song or playlist you want to play, and music will start streaming to your iOS device. It even works with the iOS multitasking and volume controls (play/pause/skip songs), so you can listen in the background while playing your favorite game.

You can also view documents and videos that have been uploaded to your Amazon Cloud account. This basic iOS compatibility should be enough for iPhone and iPad owners until Apple unveils its own cloud music service.