Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31

dirk and a large number of other distressed readers let us know that Apple is shuttering Lala, the music service they bought last December, on May 31. "Apple will transfer any remaining money in a user's account to iTunes, and will credit users (via iTunes) for any web songs that were purchased. It's a real shame, as Lala was a much better music service, offering songs in straight MP3 format. Its web service was innovative and ahead of its time. And it was one of the few places that would let you listen to an entire song to sample it (after one complete listen, you then could only hear a 30-second sample)." Reader Dhandforth adds: "10-cent favorites will now cost 9.9x more. What's worse, a community of music fans (followers and followees) will disappear on May 31. Evil. Sigh."

Apple responds to complaints...

[ojintoad]

Steve jobs sticks his fingers in his ears.. "LALALALALALALALALALA"

I Recall That Acquisition Ceremony

[eldavojohn]

There was a bit of a storm forming as it started and the wind picked up when Steve Jobs took the stage. The CEO of Lala looked very nervous. Heat lightning started arcing through the clouds as Steve finished his speech. Then he gestured to the Lala CEO who obediently got down on his knees. Steve drew a giant claymore from behind the podium and said very loudly as the storm climaxed, "There can be only one." And lopped off the head of Lala's CEO. Steve stood there shaking with ferver and excitement as user after user account was transferred to iTunes Music Service, rendering him many millions more in revenue. While particularly gruesome, heartless and violent to the eyes of women and children in the crowd, in the business world it's a perfectly natural cycle.

Re:Oblig. Grammar Nazi

[ojintoad]

Yeah, I was distressd about that.

Re:Oblig. Grammar Nazi

[Stenchwarrior]

Don't worry, someone at /. will go back and change it. Post first, then let the users do the editing....

Re:Oblig. Grammar Nazi

[celibate for life]

Mod parent up.
This is getting out of hand.

Re:3 E's

[commodore64_love]

By gum, you've sold me. (Throws Win7 PC in trash and goes looking for a cheap Mac.) Damn straight Apple is more efficient than Microsoft. Killed off the competition in mere MONTHS rather than years. ;-)

MP3

[Anonymous Coward]

> Lala was a much better music service, offering songs in straight MP3 format

Are you calling AAC homosexual?

Re:Oblig. Grammar Nazi

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I lost my hair too.

Re:While I personally didn't use the service...

[sbeckstead]

Sounds like time to upgrade to me. It's consumers like you that hang on to outdated equipment that frustrate sales people everywhere trying to unload the new products and you keep the dinosaurs alive.

Re:While I personally didn't use the service...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, these old farts are crippling the economy. How dare they not buy the latest thing?

Re:Straight MP3?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Okay, so some commercial players have jumped on the bandwagon (and I doubt mplayer's codecs are technically legal), but MP3 is still more compatible and more common.

And CDDA is more compatible and common yet. What's your point? My car stero plays CDDA exclusively, does that mean companies have a responsibility to sell CDDA forever, or can they drop that line and move to more advanced forms of audio? I have a friend with an 8-track player... you guys should get together and commiserate.