Could Cloud-Based Google Music Service Top Charts?
Google launched its newest service, the Google Music, a cloud based service that enables you to store and stream music.
Google Music was initially released in Beta and was able to distribute more than 100 million free songs to the cloud library. "Today, our music beta becomes a full end-to-end service called Google Music", Jamie Rosenberg, director of digital content for Android, said Wednesday.
This service is currently available for U.S. consumers, and Google has not yet announced as to when it will be available to other parts of the world.
This free service lets you upload up to 20,000 songs to the cloud, share and play. Using your Android device, a PC or even an iOS device with internet connection or Wi-Fi, you can connect to the cloud and stream you music library without the hassle of storing the music files to your device.
Google Music is now available at the Android Marker, and what's more exciting according to Rosenberg is that Google Music is social networking ready, where it will enable users to share music in Google+. Reports say that the free sharing of Google+ and Google music allows users limited free listening to songs posted by friends.
To use this service, make sure you have of course a Google Account and download a Music Manager - an application which enables you to upload songs to your Google Music account. Once Music Manager is installed, you will be prompted to choose which files you want to be uploaded, including those in your iTunes Library.
Music Manager supports AAC, WMA, OGG, Flac, and MP3 files, but reports say that anything encoded higher than 320 kbps will be encoded down. This application may take up a lot of bandwidth so you might want to adjust the upload rate
Following the release of iTunes Match, Google Music's launch is perceived to be a little late, as Apple have made it to the market for almost a decade already. But the 200 million Android users worldwide are looking forward to this service.
This service is compatible with any device Windows XP or higher, Mac OS X 10.5 or higher, Linux, Android 2.2 or higher, iOS 4.0 or higher. Although may also work on RIM and Windows 7 devices, no official support for such has been released.
The cost for new tracks range from $0.99 - $1.29 while album costs $9.99 and under. It gained license deals with Sony, EMI and Universal.