Google Music Open For Business

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Anyone tried Google Music out yet? What are your impressions? Do you like it? Hate it?

Google opened an online music store and a free Web storage locker on Wednesday for listening to tracks from computers, tablets and phones, the company announced at a news conference in Los Angeles. The music store sells songs and albums for prices comparable to iTunes and Amazon MP3, but Google's catalog is smaller. The storefront can be found in the Android Market, an application and website where Google smartphone users can download apps.
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They are late to the market again on google music. It's simply a music locker in the cloud with some features borrowed from Zune Pass. There is nothing innovative nor compelling to use this service besides the free price.
 
Google playing catch up to Apple... nothing new.

<FLAME ON>
 
Are you able to download the music or are you only buying a license to listen to it on the cloud? If you can DL is it DRM free and is it in a lossless codec or at least an extremely high mp3 bitrate?
 
i beta google.music for.months i stream my cd mp3 copies to my Android smartphone
its awsome but the app needs work
 
I tried it during beta and tried it again last night. It's kinda nice. But for some reason I'd guess about half my songs show up with incorrect album art. Kinda bothers me. Amazon MP3 seems to work a bit better for me (though I don't like it's UI quite as much).
 
google musoc os also almpst useless thogj since my smartphone has32gb of space and that is more than enough to carry any mp3 files i want.
 
I've been using it since right after it went into Beta. My opinion, if you use an Android device, you should upload music to the service. Even with my phone on 3g service, the streaming is great. It maybe takes my phone 2 seconds to start playing, but after that short wait it never pauses to load. As someone who has been using the music service for a while, I'm glad it is out of beta. And yes, they are competing with iTunes. That's fine, iTunes software sucks.
 
Liking spotify better. since i am so lazy to get songs but better than nothing from google.
 
i find it hilarious people think ots hard to pwn apples crap. (Hint its not)
 
Beats the snot out of Apple's alternative, unless you're only into mainstream stuff.

But it's US only. F dat S.
 
Using sprint, I was able to stream my music library and play it in my car while driving across town and even on the highway during long commutes. It would occasionally pause because of low date rates but that didn't happen enough to be bothersome. I have A LOT of music, didn't even all fit on my old ipod, so this streaming ability is great. Also, when I'm working on someone else's computer, I can pop up the web page and listen to any of my music. I've had a positive experience. The only thing I like better about the crApple alternative is the integration and update of podcasts in the music player.
 
El Barto said:
They are late to the market again on google music. It's simply a music locker in the cloud with some features borrowed from Zune Pass. There is nothing innovative nor compelling to use this service besides the free price.
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Uh, might want to go finish reading what it actually does. It's much, much more than just a music locker, nor does it borrow anything from Zune Pass. They are two totally different things. Google Music is a store (like iTunes or Amazon MP3) whereas Zune Pass is a subscription service.

Having actually used it for a while (I was in the Beta), it is pretty convenient. It works, it's fast, and it's free. If you have an Android device it's especially nice. I typically listen to local music if I'm on my main rig (why waste bandwidth streaming what's already on the disk?), but if I'm on my laptop or at work or on the go, I use Google Music. Easier to stream from the cloud than worry about syncing. I used to use Amazon MP3, but Google's experience is better and simpler.
 
kllrnohj said:
Google Music is a store (like iTunes or Amazon MP3) whereas Zune Pass is a subscription service.
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Zune is a store as well and even has a web font end. A big difference is that you can't upload to Zune which isn't an issue if the content is in Zune Pass and you're a subscriber.
 
makes this a confusing, though compelling service. If you depend on wifi for this (on a smartphone) forget it. I eventually got a 16gig micro sd for my mp3's and use winamp to random play - there's no offline functionality here..
 
If they offer a subscription service comparable to Zune Pass I may stick with the android market in the near future (probably going to get a WP7)
 
spez said:
makes this a confusing, though compelling service. If you depend on wifi for this (on a smartphone) forget it. I eventually got a 16gig micro sd for my mp3's and use winamp to random play - there's no offline functionality here..
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Yes there is: http://www.google.com/support/androidmarket/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1205692&topic=1250225

Basically stuff that automatically cached is made offline, you can explicitly make stuff available offline, and finally you can always just download the stuff you've bought and listen to it offline.
 
I am not a fan of it so far. I found that you cannot download the music that you have purchased from Google music more than two times, at least through the web store.

I will stick with Amazon MP3. Has nearly every artist that I want, flawless fast downloads, and even threw in unlimited cloud storage.

Maybe when Google Music evolves I will give it another shot.
 
klank said:
I am not a fan of it so far. I found that you cannot download the music that you have purchased from Google music more than two times, at least through the web store.
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I think if you download through the desktop app you can download as much as you want.

I will stick with Amazon MP3. Has nearly every artist that I want, flawless fast downloads, and even threw in unlimited cloud storage.
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Huh? Amazon's storage is limited. Isn't it still 5GB free, and then you have to pay if you want more?

Btw, regardless of if you have any interest or not in Google Music, you guys should absolutely check out the tour site. It's insanely well done and fun (make sure you've got sound on and click each of the 5 tab thingies) http://music.googlevendorcontent.com/about/tour/
 
Cube said:
google musoc os also almpst useless thogj since my smartphone has32gb of space and that is more than enough to carry any mp3 files i want.
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Wow, did you hit your head on your way downstairs this morning? :confused:
 
kllrnohj said:
Yes there is: http://www.google.com/support/androidmarket/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1205692&topic=1250225

Basically stuff that automatically cached is made offline, you can explicitly make stuff available offline, and finally you can always just download the stuff you've bought and listen to it offline.
Click to expand...

why do all that work if you can just have the entire collection available all the time? hat if, like me, you want to random play the entire collection? I have about 6,000 songs that I'm crazy about. I would be hard pressed to choose a few here and there to cache - I want to be suprised.
 
What if you have more than 6,000 songs? The cloud will currently support up to 20,000 uploaded songs. It is fast to download. You can cache your favorites if you wish, not really an issue for me as I rarely go out of wifi/3g range.

I like the fact that independent artists now have a way to easily setup, sell & distribute their works for a flat fee. (30% fee - typical for mobile downloads). Being able to share purchased songs via Google plus that allows a full single play is pretty cool too.

Other than the upload tool, I appreciate the fact that I don't need some bloated piece of crap software running on my computer to manage all my music. (done via website).

I also have Amazon MP3 + Cloud, but it does not seem like I get the suggestions, ability to share songs etc via the MP3 cloud. I purchased about 5 songs from the Amazon cloud, and while useful. It does not seem to have all the features. The 320kbps downloads of mp3s are nice too. But best of all... Is sharing my music instantly across all my devices..
 
I'm a carpenter - with no data plan - wifi cuts out too much to be tolerated. At a desk, you would probably never notice. Also, I have a Nexus One, which has a very memory.. it's just not possible in my environment. I love it, I want a module that functions like winamp, I want direct contact with the indies, I'm crazy about this, just not willing to pay $100 for a data plan to use it.
 
spez said:
why do all that work if you can just have the entire collection available all the time? hat if, like me, you want to random play the entire collection? I have about 6,000 songs that I'm crazy about. I would be hard pressed to choose a few here and there to cache - I want to be suprised.
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You can download as many as fits on your device. You are only limited by the storage space of your phone. Of course, just because you have your collection in the cloud doesn't mean you can't have it locally as well. It's not an either-or proposition, you can absolutely do both. The music app on Android shows local and cloud music in one list, you don't need to know or care where the music is located.
 
I've tried having Google Music "match" some of my current music and I don't think that feature is functioning as advertised. Everything so far has just uploaded to the cloud the oldschool way (uploading the actual copy to their servers instead of using the Google Music master file).

Also the options to "manage" the music manager application leave a LOT to be desired. You can't clear out old settings if you wish to clean out your entire online storage locker, leaving songs that won't be uploaded twice. In addition to that, I can't seem to figure out how to download my files from the cloud back to my PC.

Everything just works 100x's better with iTunes Match, and that's disappointing, because I am the furthest thing from a apple/mac supporter. I really dislike iTunes as a piece of software, but they got the whole matching instead of uploading correct, right out of the gate.

I guess you get what you pay for with iTM vs. free GoogMusic.
 
I used Google Music Beta for a while, and still occasionally do, but since I installed Subsonic on my WHS I've been using that. The 20,000 song storage locker is awesome and really generous of Google Music, and more than ample for most probably, but my collection is actually like 65,000 songs so Subsonic is a better alternative for me (if only because I don't know which 20,000 songs I'd actually want on Google Music, nor do I want to spend the time filtering).
 
DigitalEmperor said:
In addition to that, I can't seem to figure out how to download my files from the cloud back to my PC.
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I *think* you can only download songs you've bought, not ones you've uploaded. I don't know why it's different, but whatever. I guess they assume you just uploaded it, so you already have a local copy already? *shrug*

Everything just works 100x's better with iTunes Match, and that's disappointing, because I am the furthest thing from a apple/mac supporter. I really dislike iTunes as a piece of software, but they got the whole matching instead of uploading correct, right out of the gate.

I guess you get what you pay for with iTM vs. free GoogMusic.
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Eh, once it's uploaded that's a moot point. The Google Music uploader does kind of suck, but it gets the job done and ideally you only need to use it once.
 
chrispix said:
What if you have more than 6,000 songs? The cloud will currently support up to 20,000 uploaded songs. It is fast to download. You can cache your favorites if you wish, not really an issue for me as I rarely go out of wifi/3g range.

I like the fact that independent artists now have a way to easily setup, sell & distribute their works for a flat fee. (30% fee - typical for mobile downloads). Being able to share purchased songs via Google plus that allows a full single play is pretty cool too.

Other than the upload tool, I appreciate the fact that I don't need some bloated piece of crap software running on my computer to manage all my music. (done via website).

I also have Amazon MP3 + Cloud, but it does not seem like I get the suggestions, ability to share songs etc via the MP3 cloud. I purchased about 5 songs from the Amazon cloud, and while useful. It does not seem to have all the features. The 320kbps downloads of mp3s are nice too. But best of all... Is sharing my music instantly across all my devices..
Click to expand...

Amazon gives you 5GB for free, $20/year gives you unlimited storage for music (and a set amount for other file types IIRC). Originally they had different tiers of storage but after the iCloud they went with the flat $20/unlimited and credited anyone who had bought extra space. Also, most people got unlimited storage for a year for free thru various different promotions, just buying an album was one such promo. Songs bought from them don't count towards the 5GB just like on Google Music they don't count towards the 200,000.

The one thing I liked better about Amazon was that whether you had it download new content automatically or manually to your mobile, it'd store the files in a simple directory and they were available to any other app in your phone/tablet (other music players, ringtone makers, available for sending thru email, etc). Originally it seemed like Google Music encrypted offline content but in reality it just hides it from the standard file system, but it can be unhidden with a few tweaks.

The suggestions and sharing tools in Google Music are ok, but if Amazon's catalog is better I'll probably just keep using that, seems like they handle tags and album art a bit better too. Anyone else that has used both have any preference one way or the other? Any reason for it beyond app UI and the features mentioned?
 
tvdang7 said:
Liking spotify better. since i am so lazy to get songs but better than nothing from google.
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I was about to ask this... thanks for mentioning the 2, but does anyone have more info?

How does this google music compare to spotify?

I really want to get my music mp3s (2000+) onto a PC/Android cloud service like dropbox, but with a player added in.... so I can play my songs locally (no dl required) and then stream when I don't have one of the new songs on my mobile.....
 
Nevermind, this thread helps.. thanks to the people above. I hate fucking bogus data caps and having to work around them!
 
Spotify and Google Music are two completely different services... Google Musicis analogous to Amazon's Cloud Player / Store. Spotify is more analogous to Rhapsody or something like that.

Google Music is free to start, you can upload up to 200,000 tracks of your own or buy new songs at their store (which won't count towards the 200,000 limit). Everything bought or uploaded can be streamed from any phone or PC or even pinned for offline use. Amazon's service is pretty much identical in practice, just some of the details vary.

Spotify is free for use on the PC but they may limit you to X amount of hours per month, not sure on that, I think they were doing that in Europe but I'm not sure if they have started doing it in the US... To use it on any mobile device you have to move up to a premium account tho which is like $10 a month. With Spotify you never buy any songs, their entire catalog is available at any given time (for free on the PC, $10/month on mobile). You have to create playlists or pick some songs out in order to listen to anything. You never outright own any songs or files, stop paying the monthly fee and you're back to streaming on a PC only.

I use Pandora on my phone when I wanna listen to something new or find some stuff similar to what I like, since it's free to stream to mobile devices and I find their recommendation engine to be the best out there (it involves actual human input in linking similar style songs, etc.). Rest of the time I play stuff from my SD card or Amazon's Cloud Player where I have anything that isn't on my 32GB microSD card, I'll probably give Google Music another shot soon but I really wanna stick to one or the other.
 
Greene420 said:
Nevermind, this thread helps.. thanks to the people above. I hate fucking bogus data caps and having to work around them!
Click to expand...

Heh, are you w/AT&T? They really need to do something soon, even Verizon doubled their caps (tho they're pitching it as a temp promo)... Clearly the 2GB data caps were driving some customers away or they wouldn't have bothered.

I gave you a brief synopsis on the previous post but Spotify is pretty much a streaming service only (albeit with an unlimited library), whereas Amazon/Google Music actually let you purchase stuff (which you can obviously listen to w/o streaming if you choose to, or rip 'em into ringtones, or do whatever the heck you want with your files).

Pandora, Slacker, etc are more like radio streaming services; you "tune into" a certain station or a certain type of songs (w/Pandora you just tell it what you like and it chooses similar stuff). Whereas w/Spotify you actually have to pick something in order to start listening even tho it's also a streaming service, but you can pick and listen to anything anytime.

Music streaming really doesn't take up much bandwith, I've been streaming from Amazon a lot the last month or two and I didn't see any huge spikes in my data use... Then again I was only streaming like every other day while in the car, probably no more than 10 hours a week. If you streamed stuff all day long it'd make a dent in your data cap for sure.
 
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