iphone app?

Yeah, but not a lot of apps are in direct competition with the iTunes Store. ie - You can buy music remotely on Lala (in which case you are not buying it from the iTunes Store).

Is this a concern?

Any update on this? An iPhone app would make Lala 100x more useful.

This must be a dead issue. The only reason I spent 5 days moving my music up to Lala was because of this app. Since then I have given them $5 but have been holding off giving more until I know if there is going to be an iPhone app. My guess is no, there is not going to be an app.

I am completely frustrated by the lack of response on this matter. I am not going to use Lala in the future and I am closing my account. When I am at my computer, I have my music on it already. When I am away from my computer I might as well use something like a Simplify media or just Pandora. This would all be avoidable if someone from Lala would just step up and say, "Apple had denied our app because it is in direct competition with their iTunes store."

Lala, you have to take the good with the bad and at least let your customers know that your press release from 6 months ago is inaccurate.

Haven't given up on Lala, think this is the last piece of the puzzle for it to be an amazing service. Also expect that Apple, and not Lala, is the holdup.

Guys - Any update on timing of the app?

Think about it... is Apple going to approve an app that will literally destroy sales through iTunes, which is developed by the same company? The reason we are seeing delays, undoubtedly, is because Apple wants to buy time to come up with a solution by which it can make for sales potentially lost by the release of a Lala.com app. My understanding is that Lala has already made groundbreaking agreements with record companies to provide both "web" and "download" versions of albums, while iTunes still only provides "download". With a Lala app, would you pay 80 cents for an album that you can listen to from anywhere, or $9.99 for an album that you have to download/synch? Apple got caught with their pants down.

As is the problem that has plagued Apple's history from its beginning, when you do all of your development in-house and don't allow anybody to do so 3rd party (the development of "apps" by 3rd parties is a relatively new concept for Apple), your sales will suffer when somebody comes along with a better idea than you had originally (see: historical PC vs. Apple sales figures). To use the classic example, Microsoft sales were way better than Apple's historically speaking, because they had a better business model. It didn't matter that Apple's products were better... because Apple never allowed anybody else to manufacture their machines, they suffered in the long run because they had (and still have) to charge more for their products than the competitors. That's never a good thing.

I do hope this app goes through though. It would be one of the very rare occasions a company put its customers before its bottom line!

Is LaLa that much different from Last.fm, iMeem, Deezer and other similar apps that are already competing with the app store? I don't think so. And if it is LaLa is barking up the wrong tree by trying too hard. All I want is an app that plays my library and can sync a playlist for offline playing.