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Well, here’s a turn up for the books. Finally, something useful for the UK out of Google Music. Starting November 13th, Google Music will officially launch in the UK, complete with a ‘Scan and Match’ feature that matches tracks in your library with Google’s database letting you stream them to your Android phone or tablet, just like Apple’s iTunes Match.
In fact, this is a direct competitor to Apple’s service, setting up a new front in the Google-Apple war. The beauty of Google Music is that it’s free for up to 20,000 tracks, where as Apple charges you £22 a year for the privilege.
You’ll also be able to buy MP3s from Google Play for an undisclosed sum, probably 99p, and share music with your friends through Google+. Song ‘recommendations’ allow people to listen to the complete track once on Google+ before being forced to buy it to continue listening.
Having used a US Google Music account to stream tracks to various Android devices over the last year, I can say it works great. The scan and match feature will be a massive boon too, as before you had to upload every track to the service, which took forever for big music libraries. Not a bad service considering it’s free. [TechRadar]
Britain Gets Stiffed Over iTunes Match
iTunes Match Is Now Live (In the US, Anyway)
Everything You Need to Know About Using iTunes Match
How quickly can it play a song on 3G? I love iTunes Match but think it may be time to make a change from the iPhone and this could be the deciding factor.
from personal experience it catches a lot of the song so you would have to be in a shitty reception area to have problems. If you know you are going to be in a crap area for a long time you can download music to the device to use offline.
But surely that comes out of your data allowance?
Yes, and this is why I have unlimited data, not that I’ve used more than about 2GB on average.
data allowance?
I’ve got unlimited data on Three and get 3G everywhere I use my phone, so not a problem for me. With iTunes Match it takes no longer than 5 seconds to play a song, so if it can get close to that I’d be happy.
well Amazon’s cloud player manages to play back a song in your collection within a few seconds, so I don’t see why google music would be any different
Schweet!
Looking forward to giving this a try. Never bothered setting up a US account
I know nothing about Apple’s iTunes Match, and therefore Googles version.
Can someone please fill me in on what is does, and why I would want it?
simply put, it scans your music collection. Assuming your music has it’s tags in order and the service has a copy of that track in it’s directory it recognises the music you have and therefore it doesn’t have to upload a version of it to the cloud. This means you can upload your music collection a lot faster.
What Darrell said, I don’t see why Apple charged for this, they might as well of done a proper Spotity esc service for £10 a month. that would of really cleaned the dishes.
“I don’t see why Apple charged for this” – because they’re Apple. How else to you expect them to build their Scrooge McDuck style gold coin swimming pool?
http://blog.twowholecakes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/scrooge-mcduck.jpg
Suppose so. Diddent think that far ahead.
Always think of the Big Picture or you’ll end up selling the Big Issue.
Thanks, I just wasted another 10 minutes on Wikipedia looking at the Scrooge McDuck article.
I was wondering if either this (Google Music) or X-box music will be competitively cheaper than iTunes 3 tier price arrangement of 0.59p, 0.79p and 0.99p.
Amazon Music is most of the time equivalent or sometimes cheaper with selective songs than iTunes. I’ll most likely use G-Music if it’s cheaper and just add it all to my iTunes.
You’ve go to figure they’ll be competitive on pricing otherwise what’s the point.
Xbox music is better for me as i get all i want for 7.99 a month. Can download them and get 2 free songs if i wanna buy them permenantly.
That is better if you listen to a lot of new music I guess, along with other music subscription services which do much the same. But as an old git I already own a shittonne of music and think most modern music is pants. for me Google Music is the better service.
With you on this Darrel been using Google music for about 3 months, and recently used it loads and its just better I carry my Ipod and phone and have every song in my collection, music biss.
Will this work the same way as iTunes match when a song is not matched up with the database? i.e. will it still upload the songs that are not matched?
Yep, so long as that song is in a compatible format (drm free).
Fantastic. I loved iTunes match, but now being on Android its the one thing I miss. Roll on next month. Doesn’t say what the price will be on collections over 20,000 tracks though.
Is it only .MP3 format and what is the bitrate of the .MP3s you purchase from google?
Hopefully Apple will respond with a free iTunes Match up to 20000 tracks as well.