Google Music Users Can Now Download All Songs

One of the issues that many users who tried Google Music experienced was the inability to download music officially to a connected device. And while the service’s app saved some of the songs locally while listing, it did not really provide a comfortable user experience.

Third party programs like Google Music Downloader filled the gap, but many users hoped for a integrated solution as those programs were usually only compatible with a specific browser or device.

Google yesterday made an announcement on Google Plus where they stated that US Android users can now download all songs, including self-uploaded songs and purchased songs, from Google Music to their devices. This improves the service significantly as users can now download music whenever they want. Music can now be downloaded so that you can listen to it on all of your devices, and without the need for an Internet connection. This may be useful if you are on a low-bandwidth plan or want to listen to your music on devices that are not compatible with Google Music.

Google Music web users can simply click on the small menu icon that appears when hovering over a song name or album. A left-click on the icon displays the new download option

Multiple songs can be selected by holding down the Shift key while left-clicking on songs in the listing.

Google’s Music Manager now displays a download tab that leads to two options to download music to the local computer system. Download purchased music downloads only the albums and songs that you have purchased on Google Music, while Export your library exports all songs to the system. Google notes that only users who have uploaded music using the Music Manager will see the download tab in the program.

Songs can only be downloaded two times from the Google Music website. The Music Manager does not have that restriction though.

The addition of a download option makes Google Music more accessible from a user perspective. Still, Google has a long way to go, especially in the supported countries department (via Caschy)

Google Music In A Nutshell

Music in the cloud, that’s where the journey goes. At least if you trust Apple, Amazon and Google in this regard. All three companies have introduced a cloud hosting and streaming service for music in past months. You can get an overview of the core services here. Apple recently has added iTunes Match to iCloud which gives users 25,000 songs storage space for $25 per year. The service tries to match the user’s music with music available in the iTunes store to reduce the upload time.

And now Google Music with its big announcement on November 16. Google Music gets rid of the beta status and remains a free service for all users (from the United States, and those who know how to use a proxy). Users can store up to 20,000 songs on Google servers.

The Google Music store offers a library of 13 million songs which can be purchased on the Android Market. Songs cost 99 cent and are provided in 320 Kbit quality. Users can download songs or stream them to other devices. Google Music users who make purchases can share their purchases on Google+. This allows others to listen to the song once on Google’s social networking platform.

Payments are currently limited to T-Mobile US customers which benefit from carrier billing support. This basically means that Google Music purchases will appear on the monthly cellphone bill which improves the buying experience significantly. T-Mobile customers will get exclusive contents for free until the end of the year as part of the promotion to establish the service in the United States.

Artists can create their own space on Google Music where they can sell their music directly. The initial fee to setup an artist page is $25 US Dollars. It is likely – but not confirmed – that artists will have to share their earnings with Google.

When you look at both Google Music and iTunes Match, you will notice that they are both US-only at this point in time. Google Music is even more limited as the store is currently only available to T-Mobile USA customers.

What’s your take on the recent development? If you are living in the US, will you be using one of the services?

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: android, google music, itunes, itunes match, music

iTunes Match, US Only Cloud Synchronization Service

ITunes Match, Apples cloud based synchronization service has just launched. Before you read on, here are the facts. The iTunes Match service is only available in the United States, requires iTunes 10.5.1 or newer and costs $24.95 per year. What do you get for that?

The service has been designed to match a user’s music library with the cloud. You basically point iTunes Match to your local music collection to start the process. Unlike other music synchronization services, iTunes Match tries to identify songs in Apple’s vast library of songs. Songs that match are added from the store which reduces the number of songs that need to be transferred. Any song in the store becomes available automatically, only unknown songs, e.g. free music, mixes or indie artists are uploaded from the user’s computer to make them available on iCloud as well.

Music in the cloud can then be streamed to compatible devices and stored on devices as well in 256 Kbps quality (free of digital rights management drm).

There service offers two interesting features. First the ability to match music to reduce the upload bandwidth and second the ability to download and stream 256 Kbps songs even if the original song was of lower quality. The latter is only true if iTunes was able to match the song.

About the matching feature. Apple does not check if a song of a music collection has been bought, ripped from CD or Internet radio or acquired from P2P networks. That’s great but it does not mean that you can legalize your music collection with an iTunes Match account.

The iTunes Match service has a 25,000 song limitation currently. It is not clear if Apple will raise the limit in the future or offer upgrades to the service to increase the amount of songs that can be hosted in the cloud.

In comparison, Google Music offers space for 20,000 songs (but without payment currently).

Will you be using iTunes Match? Users from outside the US, are you interested in a guide on how to get the service without being in the US?

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Add Free Music To Google Music With Magnifier

Google in an effort to make their online music service Google Music more popular has created a website called Magnifier (more precisely a blog) which promotes the service by giving away music for free. Visitors need to have a Google Music account to benefit from Magnifier, and since it is currently limited to select countries and invite only, it could mean that some won’t be able to listen to the free music Magnifier offers just yet.

Users with a Google Music account find at least one free song per day over at the Magnifier website. Each new song is introduced with a short review on the site and a “add free music” link to add the song free of charge to the user’s Google Music collection.

The songs are added online on the Google Music Beta website where they can be listened to. Google Music offers no options to download songs to a computer. The program Google Music Downloader adds that functionality so that it is possible to download the free songs to the PC.

The Magnifier website has a free song archive where all past songs of the day are grouped into genres. One nice feature here is the ability to add all songs of a selected genre at once to Google Music.

One song per day may not seem much but it is a free service nevertheless. You find songs from various music genres, e.g. Metal, Alternative and Hip-Hop or Rap there.

Another interesting thing on the Magnifier website is the artist of the week feature which offers a short biography of the selected artist or band plus links to free songs.

The last option is located under the Scanner link on the Magnifier website. Here you find multiple themed tracks, from classic over hip-hop to electronic and jazz.

I have to admit that I’m personally not using any online music storage services which can be attributed to the fact that I have no requirements to access my music collection on other devices. What about you? Are you using music services like Google Music or Amazon Music?

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: amazon music, free-music, Google, google music