One of the key things Apple announced at WWDC on Monday was iTunes in the Cloud and Music Match, so you can store your music collection in iCloud and you can view your music purchases in iTunes. US users can try the feature in the latest version of iTunes but for UK and Irish users the feature is missing and it looks like we could be waiting a while. According to the UK Telegraph Apple have only just started negotiating with the Performing Rights Society:
The licensing team at the PRS have started talks with Apple, but are a long way off from any deals being signed…It is very much the early stages of the negotiations and is similar to the launch of iTunes – which began in the US and took a while to roll out to other countries
Tentative talks have begun between the major labels and Apple in the UK. However, all talks are at the really early stages and no one expects to see the cloud music service live on this side of the pond until 2012.
Mark Mulligan, vice president and research director at Forrester Research, said: “Apple’s cloud music service will not launch in the UK until at least quarter one of 2012. These types of negotiations take a long time… For one thing the UK arms of all the major record labels are biding their time and waiting to see how the service affects download sales in the US before they sign up to anything.
Once again, we are left waiting for the full set of functionality that is enjoyed in the US. Google Music, full MicrosoftZune Service amongst many other services.