“After a year of (failed) discussions with the labels, Google [has finally launched] a music service at Google I/O — and it’s very similar to Amazon’s, which also doesn’t have approval from the labels,” Jason Kincaid reports for TechCrunch. “I spoke with Google’s Jamie Rosenberg, head of digital content and strategy for Android, who confirmed the news. And while he says that Google will improve on Amazon’s offering in many ways, one month from now I’m guessing it will look significantly less impressive.”
“After signing up and installing the native app, you’ll be prompted to start uploading your music library. Nobody likes having to upload gigabytes of content. It may not be difficult — Google’s client will actually upload the songs you’re most likely to listen to first to minimize the pain — but there’s still the mental hurdle of letting the upload run for a full day or two,” Kincaid reports. “You won’t actually be able to purchase any music through Google’s service. This will not be a huge deal (if you leave Google’s desktop client running in the background it will automatically upload any new songs to the cloud) but it’s still frustrating.”
MacDailyNews Take: Frustrating hurdles. Fragmandroid settlers will love it – until Apple’s unveils their far more elegant, far more comprehensive solution and the settlers see what else they’re missing, of course.
Kincaid reports, “Apple is rumored to be announcing its competing cloud service at WWDC in June, likely with full cooperation from the labels — which could make all the difference. Instead of having to upload your thousands of MP3s, iTunes may be able to simply check your (much smaller) database file and recreate it online using a central repository of music (in other words, no huge uploads)… I can’t imagine Apple launching a service that tells its users to sit back and wait a couple of days. Instead, you’ll fire up the new version of iTunes, check a box saying you want your iPhone and iPad to have access to all of your content, and bam — users won’t have to learn what an online locker is, their stuff will just be where they want it.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related article:
Google to launch ‘Music Beta by Google’ without licensing from music labels – May 10, 2011
