• by John Capone , April 30, 2010

Nothing good ever lasts. It's a long-held truism that, though cliche, continually bears itself out. Then there is that whole free lunch thing. Regardless, when Apple acquired LaLa, a cloud-based music service that allowed users to listen to free music and purchase low-cost web albums, there was rampant speculation that Apple bought the service only because it posed a serious threat to its iTunes system and, well, it could afford to kill LaLa.

The timing of the acquisition was suspect. Music fans with iPods and iPhones could not access the service, either via app or the Safari mobile browser. On October 30, 2009, LaLa announced it was developing an iPhone app. It had already created a function where members could upload their entire music libraries to their cloud-based accounts, thereby obviating the need for an iTune music library.

Then on December 4, 2009 Apple announced its acquisition of LaLa. Speculation as to its motives ran rampant. No iPhone app ever materialized.

Today members were greeted with the shutdown notice. One of LaLa's main numbers (650-330-5022) has been disconnected, and another number (650-330-1820) goes straight into an unidentified voice mail (it rings once, then a recording says only "Please leave a message"). Calls to Apple were not returned.