Music.google.com
Just got my Beta invite, and installed the software. Stores up to 20,000 songs in the cloud, and streams them to wherever, including your phone.
Totally psyched. I spent the past few weeks getting my iTunes library in better shape so I could synch with DoubleTwist, then this popped up.
So far, installation is nice and easy. Just used my Google account, and it's automatically picking up all the stuff from my iTunes account to send to the cloud.
With the new 5mbps Internet, hopefully it will go pretty fast, and I can start listening tomorrow.
Google Music (Beta)
First impressions: Google Music has auto-playlists based on songs (like iTunes Genius), except that they don't suck like Genius playlists do. Whatever algorithm they use is just >>>> iTunes Genius.
You can rate songs, but only thumbs up/down. I prefer a more nuanced scale (like a 5 pt scale), but we'll see how it works out over the long term. Thumbs does 80% of what I want.
The web GUI is a little unresponsive. I tried to click on one song to play it, and the UI showed me that that song was playing, but another one was instead.
1500 of 3000 songs uploaded.
Have yet to try it on my Android phone.
You can rate songs, but only thumbs up/down. I prefer a more nuanced scale (like a 5 pt scale), but we'll see how it works out over the long term. Thumbs does 80% of what I want.
The web GUI is a little unresponsive. I tried to click on one song to play it, and the UI showed me that that song was playing, but another one was instead.
1500 of 3000 songs uploaded.
Have yet to try it on my Android phone.
It's not me, it's someone else.
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thibodeaux
- Posts: 8121
- Joined: Thu May 20, 2004 7:32 pm
Invites have been going out to lots of people lately.
I've been using it for a week now. I really like it.
A while back, I organized my music into iTunes thinking I'd use doubletwist or another product to sync my music to the phone. Well, this came out just before I did that. And, it automatically syncs with your iTunes, monitoring any changes to your library in the background (It also does the same with Windows Media Player, iirc), so if you're using one of those on your desktop, you don't have to redo anything for Google Music.
The app itself is nice, good scrolling, etc. Nice options for genius-style (except much better and much more available than my iTunes experience) instant playlists.. Nothing fabulous here. Rating songs is thumbs up / thumbs down. Nothing earth-shattering.
The big thing is keep the space on my phone free, and storing everything in the cloud. With an unlimited data plan, this has worked fine. The only problem so far is a 10 minute stretch of a backroad between Cary and Chapel Hill where my data signal was weak, and about half that time I heard nothing but silence. Also, a couple of times, when switching songs, it's had a noticeable gap between them. Normally, not an issue, but was listening to Girl Talk's All Day this weekend (which is basically one continuous song, no gaps) so it was more noticeable.
I've tweaked the caching settings since then, so hopefully it will do a better job of storing songs when it has better signal.
4/5
I've been using it for a week now. I really like it.
A while back, I organized my music into iTunes thinking I'd use doubletwist or another product to sync my music to the phone. Well, this came out just before I did that. And, it automatically syncs with your iTunes, monitoring any changes to your library in the background (It also does the same with Windows Media Player, iirc), so if you're using one of those on your desktop, you don't have to redo anything for Google Music.
The app itself is nice, good scrolling, etc. Nice options for genius-style (except much better and much more available than my iTunes experience) instant playlists.. Nothing fabulous here. Rating songs is thumbs up / thumbs down. Nothing earth-shattering.
The big thing is keep the space on my phone free, and storing everything in the cloud. With an unlimited data plan, this has worked fine. The only problem so far is a 10 minute stretch of a backroad between Cary and Chapel Hill where my data signal was weak, and about half that time I heard nothing but silence. Also, a couple of times, when switching songs, it's had a noticeable gap between them. Normally, not an issue, but was listening to Girl Talk's All Day this weekend (which is basically one continuous song, no gaps) so it was more noticeable.
I've tweaked the caching settings since then, so hopefully it will do a better job of storing songs when it has better signal.
4/5
It's not me, it's someone else.
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thibodeaux
- Posts: 8121
- Joined: Thu May 20, 2004 7:32 pm