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Google Play Music on the App Store
- joeblau 13y agoFINALLY! Been using this other app which just wrapped the web UI in a view so background playing would be enabled. This thing looks clean.
- VikingCoder 13y agoWhat's shocking is that this is news. Apple sucks.
- nobodyshere 13y agoCare to elaborate on that? All those downvotes aren't coming out of nowhere.
- VikingCoder 13y ago"The company had previously closed the door on iOS users because Flash was needed to enforce DRM restrictions set by music labels. Now, Google appears to have overcome that issue and is nearly ready to launch." http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/03/google-music-ios-app-launching-october/ http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/03/google-music-ios-app-laun... Apple's decision to not support Flash hindered this port.
- cheesylard 13y agoFor the record, the delay has absolutely nothing to do with Apple withholding the Google Music iOS app. Google didn't decide to start developing it until early October [1]. [1] http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/03/google-music-ios-app-launching-october/ http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/03/google-music-ios-app-laun...
- VikingCoder 13y ago"nothing to do with Apple withholding the Google Music iOS app" Correct. It had everything to do with the music labels demanding Flash DRM, and Apple deciding not to support Flash at all. From your article: "The company had previously closed the door on iOS users because Flash was needed to enforce DRM restrictions set by music labels. Now, Google appears to have overcome that issue and is nearly ready to launch."
- cheesylard 13y agoTalk about bad journalism. That is not true. Google's All Access music streaming has _never_ been blocked by flash DRM restrictions. The raw MP3 streams have been available ever since its inception, as it has been included in Simon Weber's python google music API implementation [1] for about 5 months (which is a few weeks after All Access was announced). From that API it has been implemented in those 3rd-party apps like GMusic and Cloud Play. So, the only "bad guy" here is Google for not making an iOS app sooner. [1] https://github.com/simon-weber/Unofficial-Google-Music-API https://github.com/simon-weber/Unofficial-Google-Music-API
- dabernathy89 13y agoNeat, maybe I can convince my wife to use it. I haven't even touched my iPod since I started using Play Music (on Android) - although my biggest beef is that you can't store your offline music on an SD card.
- Kudos 13y agoI really wish the Google Experience devices would start shipping with more storage. I have a 64G iPhone because I don't want to be concerned about how much storage I'm using (right now it's around the 32GB mark). SD cards are a total hack and just complicate the UX.
- dabernathy89 13y agoAgree about the UX. It'd be great if they could allow you to expand storage but also abstract away the separation between SD card / internal storage.
- tvon 13y agoI'm experiencing a horribly broken login process. * Open login screen * Switch to password app, copy password * Switch back to Google Music, login screen loads again * Enter credentials, 2-step verification screen loads * Switch to Google Authenticator, get 2-step number * Switch back to Google Music, user/password login screen loads again. In short, I cannot authenticate using a single device, I'll have to use a second device to pull up the 2-auth number.
- Kudos 13y agoFor me it magically pulled in my account from another installed Google app (Google Drive maybe?).
- tvon 13y agoYup, I authenticated in the Drive app and it picked up that account. Thanks for the tip.
- smackfu 13y agoThe auth code is good for 30 seconds, can't you just time it right by getting the code before opening Google Music?
- craigc 13y agoThis exact same thing happened to me. What I did was went to the authenticator app and memorized the 6 digit number ahead of time. Then I logged in quickly (with my password already copied from 1Password) and put in the number from memory. Worked for me!
- skyjedi 13y agoA good start. No iPad version or landscape. Still infinitely better than the stock music app
- k-mcgrady 13y ago>> "Still infinitely better than the stock music app" I've always found the iOS Music app superior to pretty much everything else (including Play). Obviously it doesn't have streaming but as a player the UI is much better. I find Play quite confusing and it wastes a lot of space (e.g. the artists screen - I don't need to see a photo of the artist with their name, it doesn't add any value).
- alooPotato 13y agoI;ve been using Google Music on my android device and it is by far the best music app I've used (vs. Pandora, spotify, last.fm, etc). The killer feature for me is that it learns what I like and the radio stations it generates are pretty awesome. This may be helped by the fact that I uploaded my entire mp3 library as well.
- jordanthoms 13y agoYeah, Google music's radio stations are superior to those on Spotify etc - it seems to pick better music, and you can reorder/delete the playlist etc.
- viraptor 13y agoI agree it's pretty good, but it's got its own share of bugs too. The most annoying ones are (on android, not sure if iDev versions behave the same): - if you're close to no free storage space (close == ~20MB free), streaming won't work... this is bizarre in many ways, considering the app still has some other tracks cached locally and they're playable but not pinned - it does not work well with other music apps. if you have google music playback stopped and switch to some other app (say, start playing some podcast) google music will force-stop the playback around every 10 seconds - and the issue pretty much every app has... if you're stuck buffering, you cannot pause/stop the playback. the pause button is unresponsive until the streaming starts again :( but otherwise... it's probably better than most other services. The linux version of the uploader could be improved a lot.
- ByronT 13y agoI recently bought a Nexus 7, and I had signed up for Google Play Music "All Access" immediately after it came out. The most useful feature, I think, is being able to store music from All Access on the tablet (for completely offline use, nonetheless!). To me, this is a fantastic deal. Does the iPhone version allow for storage of All Access music offline?
- sahaskatta 13y agoI've been trying out a different music service every few months, here's something interesting I found. Number of songs: - Xbox Music 30 million. - Apple iTunes 26 million. - Amazon MP3 25 million. - Spotify 20 million. - Rdio 20 million. - Google Music 18 million. I've most recently been using Google Music since I can upload songs albums which aren't available in their library (e.g. Beatles). However, Xbox Music is pretty neat too. It's actually pre-installed on every Windows 8 computer and you can listen to just about any songs without ads in high quality for free. (Not sure why Microsoft doesn't advertise this more.) Other thoughts: Apple is the only one without a cross platform mobile offering. For I instance, I'd like iTunes radio on Android or Windows Phone. Spotify has by far the best social experience and Rdio has the best designed web/mobile interface.
- smackfu 13y agoThose are large enough differences that it is probably entire labels that don't have a contract with certain services.
- ntnj 13y agoFree music on Xbox Music on Windows 8 only lasts 6 months, and has ads.
- manojlds 13y agoThere is Nokia Music too - 20 million songs http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/11/17/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-nokia-music/ http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/11/17/10-things-you-didn... Free streaming on Nokia Lumia devices and free 1 year subscription. 3 hours of offline mixes ( at a time ) for download.
- bentcorner 13y agoRegarding Xbox Music, I thought it was too good to be true. Fine print: Free streaming limited to 10 hours/month after 6 months Understandable, TANSTAAFL. 6 months is still great value, MS should definitely market this more.
- sahaskatta 13y ago
- ins429 13y agobeen waiting for this!
- jamesaguilar 13y agoI won't be switching from Rdio until the web app has a way to pin music to devices. I think Google Music is definitely a more featureful product and would use its ability to upload my own music in some cases. But I can't be bothered to go through all my favorite albums on a little mobile screen and pin them.
- thrownaway2424 13y agoIsn't "pin music to device" what the little orange down-pointing arrow does in the Play Music app?
- jamesaguilar 13y agoIt is. But, I need to be able to do it from the web app, I don't want to have to go through hundreds of albums on my device and do it. I want to do put $(".pin_button").click() in my Chrome console and be done with it.
- thrownaway2424 13y agoAh I see. Hey that's a pretty good feature request.
- bookwormAT 13y agomaybe you could just make one playlist, put all music you have in there, and pin that list on the device? Then you should have all your music and playlists available locally.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoGood idea. This might meet my JQuery-able requirement.
- heydanreeves 13y agoOkay. Now give me a proper app instead of this stupid downloader in the system preferences...
- Yhippa 13y agoIf Apple ever rolls out a subscription music service this will be removed from the App Store, right? Or is it that you just can't sign up for Google Play Music through the iOS app?
- alexeisadeski3 13y agoNope, it'll probably stay then.
- ben1040 13y ago>Or is it that you just can't sign up for Google Play Music through the iOS app? This. This isn't allowed, unless Google opted to use in-app purchase to set up the subscription and give Apple a 30% cut.
- duskwuff 13y agoApple already has such a service - iTunes Radio.
- subb 13y agoStill not available in Canada.
- caiob 13y agoStill not available in Canada.
- swasheck 13y ago... and only 24 weeks after it was promised "within weeks."
- endemic 13y agoAnnoying thing is that searching for "Google Play Music" (the name of the app) brings up a bunch of other junk apps first.
- bookwormAT 13y agoThe killer feature of Google Music is that uploaded music integrates well with subscribed music. If you have an album that is not on Google's "all access" catalog, you can buy it from somewhere, upload to Google, and then this music is accessible from everywhere. Just like the music from the subscription catalog. I believe (not sure) that Google even integrates your uploaded music in generated radio playlists. For someone who buys albums on local concerts, this is a killer feature. Many albums do not appear on any subscription catalogues, or they are not available in [YOUR REGION], or the labels wait months before they release a new album in the catalogues. When I was using Spotify, I had a playlist of my favorite jazz songs minus the songs not on Spotify, minus the songs not available in Austria. And after two months, 1/4 of the songs were greyed out and did not play anymore because the label had decided to remove these songs from my region. Now I just have a playlist with my favorite songs.
- fumar 13y agoMusic services I have tried: Google Music, Xbox Music, Spotify, and iTunes. After using each for over three months. I have stuck with Google Music. Why I did go with the big G? It was the ability to upload all my music (up to 20,000) songs to the cloud. This plus Google All Music, covers my music need well! The ability to upload my own music to the cloud strikes a good balance for me. I hated having Spotify and not finding what I was looking for. Then I was stuck transferring MP3s to my phone. Now, my library syncs from my iMac to Google.
- sprokolopolis 13y agoFor those who would like to port their Spotify playlists to Google Music, check out Portify: https://github.com/mauimauer/portify https://github.com/mauimauer/portify It isn't perfect, but it has been very helpful to me.
- filipmares 13y agoYou sir are a gangster. Thank you.
- sprokolopolis 13y agoLet me be clear, that I didn't create Portify. I am just a user. Also, the last time I checked it wouldn't build with certain versions of node.js. I got it working with node-v0.8.1.
- ultimoo 13y agoI find it amusing that since Google already had an established ad-based 'services' market before foraying into the mobile space with Android, they invest significant effort into making apps for iOS. Whereas, since Apple has always been in the 'products' market, they don't (have to) invest any effort into the Android ecosystem. I think the first time I was ever exposed to adverts was with iTunes Radio.
- publicfig 13y agoI can't really see this replacing Spotify for my streaming music services. If anything is going to do that, it's going to be Rdio. But I really can see this filling the hole in my phone that is streaming purchased content that isn't available through the streaming service. The fact that iTunes (or Spotify, or Rdio) doesn't have this is pretty disappointing. When I download an album off of Bandcamp, I have to download it to every computer I have iTunes on, and then sync my phone to listen to it. That's difficult, and it means I have slightly different libraries on every device I own. This is a decent enough stopgap until hopefully a better app implements it (preferably Rdio, because I'd love to move to them if it wasn't for their less than stellar music selection in comparison to Spotify).
- moskie 13y agoOddly enough, the thing that prevents me from fully adopting Google Play Music as my one and only music source is its performance on the desktop. Perhaps something's wrong with my computer(s), but playing Google Music from a browser window regularly skips when my browser has to do something intensive in another tab. It's also easy for me to accidentally close the tab. And it doesn't interface with my keyboard's media buttons. Using Google Music via my phone (a Galaxy Nexus) is great, and Play's featureset (purchasing of music, local storage, radio, uploading, etc.) is the best of all the options. But the desktop performance of Spotify (along with a decent featureset and a good mobile app) is what keeps me a paying customer. If Google Play Music can solve that problem (or if there's already a way to address it of which that I'm not aware), then I would switch.
- zhengyi13 13y agoMy desktop performance on both my 32GB Linux desktop at work, and my 8GB Windows desktop at home is generally flawless, and I rarely have fewer than 10 tabs open in either place. I do use Chrome exclusively; maybe the performance in another browser is a different story? I assume Chrome's process-per-tab design would make this experience a little more robust. Secondly, did you try w/ both Flash (the default) and the HTML5 player? You can enable the HTML5 player in the Labs section of Music; that might significantly alter your web experience.
- moskie 13y agoYea, I've tried both the Flash and HTML5 player, and I don't think I noticed much difference. And this is all using Chrome as well. Also, I notice the skipping not just when something intensive is happening in another tab, but also when another application is doing something heavy. Perhaps it's something on my machines... but whatever it is, it doesn't happen with Spotify's desktop app.
- disposition2 13y agoI subscribed Google Play Music when they first offered the service and enjoyed it but I feel Spotify is much more conducive to 3rd party add-ons, I couldn't find many differences with the subscription based libraries (the ability to upload to google play is nice...but also free) and Spotify actually has an API, Desktop Application, actual 3rd party support. In my experience any 3rd party support (last.fm, etc) in Google Music breaks every release, which was the main reason why I switched back to Spotify. It may be a little more $ each month but I found the advantages Spotify has over GPM were worth the cost.
- craigc 13y agoI can figure out how to download stuff so it is available for offline playing, but I can't figure out how to filter out only content that is available offline. This is a feature available in the Android app as an "On Device" filter. Has anyone figured this out?
- ddedden 13y agoYou have to hit the "pin" icon on the playlist, I believe.
- craigc 13y agoI'm not wondering how to download songs for offline playing. I'm wondering how to toggle/filter so I can only see the offline content. After reading through https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1250232?hl=en-GB https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1250232?hl=en-G... I do not think the iOS version has this functionality right now.
- aaronmoodie 13y agoReally great to see this finally available, not only for the streaming service, but because at this point Google seems to be the only one dealing with music lockers the right way. I've been using Google Music as a backup of my library for quite some time, but recently have found using it as my primary player much more convenient that loading iTunes and dealing with iTunes Match, which IMO, is broken. (there is a side story her about moving countries, but that's for another time). Would love to see a Rdio/Spotify-esque native application as well, but that might be asking a little too much. EDIT: The lack of a online/offline music toggle is really disappointing.
- apendleton 13y agoWhile it's not explicitly mentioned on the page, the Chromecast icon is visible in the screenshot, so apparently there's parity there with the Android app, which is nice. Google Music's web version strangely doesn't support Chromecast, leaving iOS people with no way of using Chromecast at all.
- Larrikin 13y agoMy biggest problem with Google Play Music was always the size of my library. I have almost 180 gigs of music. I think I used GPM the first week it was out and obviously my whole library didn't get uploaded. I wouldn't mind so much if it simply kept track of what my newest music was and deleted unlistened to music. If I have to manually manage playlist of what can go on the service then I might as well just put the music directly on my phone or iPad.
- president 13y agoThe icon needs some work
- BrianCoop 13y agoI tried it out when it first came out...just to see. But I wasn't nearly as happy with it as I am with Pandora. Maybe when the youtube service comes out it'll be worth paying if it comes with both, but otherwise I'll stick with pandora and torch music.