http://techmaderelevant.blogspot.com/2011/05/htc-evo-3d-and-view-4g-preorders-are-go.html
Still uploading all my songs lol, but so far I'm loving it! Who got their invite?
Can you just post your review here instead of linking to your blog for hits?
Here ya go:
Google's cloud-based music service was announced at this year's I/O conference to much fanfare and no surprise. While rumors of a music store had been rampant for quite some time, that wasn't quite what we got. Yet. But enough talk about what is not present, here's a quick sneak peak into Google Music Beta!
Before I get into this review, I'd like to make 2 disclaimers. The first and most important is that this entire service is Beta. There are imperfections that will no doubt be addressed. The second is that this is really 2 sneak peaks: One for the webapp and uploader, one for the Android app. Now, the good stuff.
First up is the meat and potatoes: The web interface and uploader. The uploading is incredibly easy. After a quick download and install, the Music Manager will scan your computer for the music. To avoid getting the random sound effects on your computer, you can have it scan through iTunes, Windows Media Player, or specific folders. Everything is done in the background, so you don't need to pay attention to it at all. You can also have it automatically run upon start up, keeping this truly out of sight and out of mind. The average library has a lot of music, mine being about 19.5Gb of tunes. At the time of this writing, I'm at 387 track uploaded after a few hours in, so completing this task will take a long time. The good news is Google promises each user 20,000 songs. My 19.5Gb accounts for roughly 4,000 tracks. The one issue I have is that I use iTunes, which means I don't really keep track of what the files are actually named. Since many tracks have numbers in front, and as far as I can tell the Music Manager uploads in alphabetical order, some albums can't be listened to in full.
The web app will look very familiar if you've used the web version of the Android Market. Everything is very tab-centric, making it incredibly easy to use. On the left side, you have the traditional ways of sorting through your library (Songs, Artists, Albums, Genres). Under that you get to the mixes and playlists. The auto-playlists sort out the songs you've Thumbs Up'd, your recently added stuff, and the free music Google is giving out. There's not a lot of it, and it's mostly a song or two per artist, but it's nice to get free stuff.
There are two kinds of playlists. You have your traditional playlists that you custom make by drag-and-dropping songs. The Music Manager also pulls your playlists from iTunes, which is very cool. You can also create Instant Mixes (a la Genius Mixes from iTunes) from individual songs or albums, adding in similar jams. Along the bottom is the Now Playing bar with the familiar Play/Pause, track navigation, Shuffle, Repeat, and Volume controls. I think the Now Playing bar could be a bit thinner. The width of it and the banners at the top make the song and album lists seem a little cramped. While the overall look isn't as visually impressive as the Zune player, it looks a lot better than iTunes but still has the information that iTunes has. Overall it's a very easy to use service while still looking very nice.
Now the dessert. The Android app is very basic, almost to a fault. First thing's first, it works pretty well. It decided to scare me by force closing the first time I tried to play a song, but every time after it worked well. Songs take very little time to load up on WiFi, though it does take a little bit longer on 3G. Swiping left and right switches through album, artist, etc. views. When on the now playing screen, you see the album cover, Play/Pause, song and artist name. One cool thing is being able to make custom playlists in the Now Playing screen, though it would make more sense to be able to make Instant Mixes from this screen. Maybe we'll get that later. You can also download songs or albums from the Library view and Now Playing screen.
The main problem with the app is a visual one. It's just boring. Like really boring. You're given a blurry, boring background picture. There's no animation between screens, nothing. It's just blah. It would have made a lot more sense to keep the color scheme and overall feel of the web app, while tweaking it a bit for smaller screens. The other small problem is that the name of the app is Music. So is the stock music app for Android. While the icons are different, this can be a bit confusing. They should made it Google Music for differentiation.
The biggest problem facing Google Music is the complete lack of a store. Google Music, as it is now, is just cloud storage and streaming. What's weird is that in both the web and Android app, you can "shop for artist", but it just does a Google Shopping search for that artist where you can buy the songs from somewhere else. This may work for now, but it isn't a longterm solution when Amazon is offering very similar services. Google is trying to get the labels to get on board in some fashion, but how long it will take and in what form we'll get the music remains to be seen. I'm hoping for a subscription service, and knowing how Google does things (and a fair amount of rumors supporting this theory), it's very likely that that is what we'll get.
Overall, Google Music is the best solution to having too much music to fit on your phone. While I'm also a big fan of subscription services like Rdio, they just don't have everything I listen to. Amazon's cloud storage is good, but it lacks a well done web player and uploading your stuff is obnoxious. Google nailed the upload and web version for sure. Once they lock in the record deals and make the Android app visually appealing, Google Music may just be the best music solution yet.
Everybody outside of the USA should have a look at 4shared music in the android market.
The most underrated and probably best international cloud service around
Has anyone tried to play it through a different player like PowerAmp. I don't want to listen to music on a lesser player, not since I've heard the difference. Also, are the playlists recognized by other players like PowerAmp?
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got my beta invite today...yippe
got my invite but didnt see a download for the android app????
vampir4997 said:
got my invite but didnt see a download for the android app????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have to set up the app on your PC. There is a link from the music.google.com page near the top right for the android app.
For me, I think the biggest opportunity for the android app will be mire management features. Currently you cannot thumbs up it down a track from mobile, and you cannot delete one either. Also it does not appear to be updating the play count when tracks are played via the mobile app. Overall , the app feels more alpha tech demo than it does an actual beta.
Sent from my Samsung Vibrant using Tapatalk.
I would love to try this out but unfortunately my library is larger than 20,000 songs :/
i'm trying to figure out the best balance of bitrate and battery. my V0 mp3s eat battery. i think pandora streams at q.2 48kbps AAC. i'm trying out flac-->q.25 63kbps AAC right now.
i think slacker, pandora, and lastfm are all around 48kbps. this might be an agreement with mobile providers--they all stream higher bitrate to the desktop than mobile.
or maybe i should just use it as a locker, and download from it? can't imagine when i would need that. don't really see a good use for this yet. the only reason i would stream is for discovery or lazy mix, and those services don't sound great. if they were higher bitrate, they would eat battery.
All my music is either uploaded to amazon mp3 or on amazon's cloudshare storage. I wish there was a way to get the music over to google without downloading and then re-uploading.
q.25 aac (63kbps) sounds like doodoo. i guess i would only use google music when on a ac or car charger, so that i can afford to play higher bitrates
i don't know, maybe it's my phone's audio chip. the m4a files sound better on my pc than my phone. htc thunderbolt
Not to promote piracy, of course... HOWEVER, for those people who may not have purchased all of their MP3's, am I right in assuming it could turn into a legal issue if Google is asked by the RIAA or a law enforcement agency to turn over records?
sfreemanoh said:
Not to promote piracy, of course... HOWEVER, for those people who may not have purchased all of their MP3's, am I right in assuming it could turn into a legal issue if Google is asked by the RIAA or a law enforcement agency to turn over records?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no - uploading your files to the cloud and streaming to your device is not "sharing" copyrighted material. no matter how dubious your music sources may or may not be, there is nothing inherently illegal about accessing through the cloud. in fact, it is only the act of sharing/uploading/seeding copyrighted material that is illegal.
i think its prety sweet so far. abiltly to deleted tracks from phone and some better 3g speeds would make it that much better. Anyone have this on multiple phones?? downloaded the player from the market to put it on my wifes phone but it is not in the settings to add an account. downloaded mine from the market and it has a different options menu.
I'm enjoying it so far. I was previously using AudioGalaxy to stream my collection from my home pc to other devices, but I definitely prefer the cloud storage method.
Took roughly 40 hours to upload 5k songs, not too bad. Had to convert some files to aac, but not many. Ran into 1 glitch where the uploader claims that a few song files don't contain anything, which they clearly do.. still not quite sure how to fix that problem, but it's only on 4 songs that I never listen to, so not that big of a deal.
At the end of the day, big thumbs up from me.
Im in beta but no streaming
I'm in the beta, installed android app via beta invite link, uploaded music. but can not find a way to stream from the cloud to my android phone. HELP!
c_urbanek said:
I'm in the beta, installed android app via beta invite link, uploaded music. but can not find a way to stream from the cloud to my android phone. HELP!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check out "Settings" and there should be an option to link it to your Google Account. I linked it and it still wasn't streaming though. I rebooted my phone, but that didn't seem to work either. Then randomly, a day or two later, it spontaneously started showing my music to stream. YMMV...
Offline music question ...
Here is a question for the Google Music Beta experts ...
One thing I love about Google Music on my phone is the ability to pin music. This allows us to play the 'pinned' music even when there is no 3G or WIFI service. The way I manage my offline music is through a playlist I made called "My Favorites". I have this playlist pinned, so anytime I add new music to it, it will automatically download when I am connected to WIFI. The question I have is ... what happens if I removed songs from the pinned playlist? Will they be removed from my phone? Or do they stay on my phone? I am hoping they are removed. I would hate for my SD card to get filled up with songs that I don't care to be available when I am offline.
Thanks
I have 30k+ songs in my itunes library, how do I pick and choose which songs to add/delete?
i've had my Thrill for 3wks now, and I'm going nuts now trying to transfer my music to the phone and keep the iTunes playlists and songs I HAD CHECKED TO SYNC but not the songs UNCHECKED i didn't want on my iphone...
Doubletwist doesn't sync the to sd micro card, only built-in memory, itunes agent was unsuccessful... what do you guys use, if not iTunes, to sync your music w/tags and album art and all? i don't put every single mp3 i own on my phone, so i don't want to hand pick individual mp3s out of my over 3000 songs to redo the album art and sync them one by one.
i love the 3D of the Thrill, can't get enough - but android and no useful way to transition music, photos, and videos is making me think about switching back... PLEASE HELP.
Try winamp it can import from itunes and will keep playlists, and sync to sd card.
Sent from my LG-P925 using xda premium
garrettmarvel said:
i've had my Thrill for 3wks now, and I'm going nuts now trying to transfer my music to the phone and keep the iTunes playlists and songs I HAD CHECKED TO SYNC but not the songs UNCHECKED i didn't want on my iphone...
Doubletwist doesn't sync the to sd micro card, only built-in memory, itunes agent was unsuccessful... what do you guys use, if not iTunes, to sync your music w/tags and album art and all? i don't put every single mp3 i own on my phone, so i don't want to hand pick individual mp3s out of my over 3000 songs to redo the album art and sync them one by one.
i love the 3D of the Thrill, can't get enough - but android and no useful way to transition music, photos, and videos is making me think about switching back... PLEASE HELP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you used iSyncr?
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CXENTE said:
Have you used iSyncr?
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Click to collapse
no to isyncr, no to $2.99
will try winamp. itunes is free, so should a solution here IMO...
Winamps should be a good app to download... lol
This is me deleting a post.
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Google Music
Download Google Music to the same machine that has iTunes on it. Upload the playlists that you want to have on your phone into Google Music. Install google music on your thrill. Select the playlist you want to keep available on your phone (rather than streaming from the cloud) and check the box that says "available offline" while you're connected to wifi and let it do its thing.
It works great for me, and also makes it so that I have 20000 of my songs available on every android device (or other computer) I use.
-q
I feel bad that you've had to get used to iTunes. I've done it in the past and absolutely refuse to do it again. Such a pain the ass that program...
Google Music is very nice as it does most of the hard work for you as far as albums and renaming itself. It's also a lot easier to transfer what you want to a droid device. It's also very easy to dump off the device when compared to an iPod or iPhone.
I have an 80 iPod classic. I've never used a phone as a music player besides the occasional Pandora.
i use spotify on pc
As a noob to Android as well as the Atrix HD, I'm wondering if anyone can tell me whether I have to convert the mp4 music file format iTunes uses to mp3 before I use Welcome Home to transfer the music. I'd like to do this in one swell foop if you know what I mean. I also have no idea if I can transfer the ring tones I made in iTunes to this phone and if so, how do I do it? My phone will arrive today and I'm so excited to finally leave Apple and the closed OS ecosystem.
Also if anyone has any tips early on, I'd love to hear them. ATT has some good tutorials and the Atrix manual seems good too.
Thanks.
Have you looked into doubletwist?
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Download Google music on your computer and sync with iTunes and boom music.. I have 30gb of music without having one song on my phone
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My laptop runs WinXP and I installed Music Manager and it seemed very buggy so I couldn't upload my iTunes. I also installed Double Twist and it easily imported my iTunes music but all the files show the lock (DRM). Are you saying that once Double Twist is installed on my phone that the Atrix running 4.0.4 will play the music without any problems? I was looking at the online manual for the phone and I see that Moto/ATT offer the Welcome Home apps for both PC and phone so that also may be the solution. I'm just trying to figure out if I need to convert the music files in iTunes from mp4 to mp3 so that they will play on the phone.. Any ideas?
Thanks folks.. much appreciated.
tacotino said:
Download Google music on your computer and sync with iTunes and boom music.. I have 30gb of music without having one song on my phone
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi
i search for a music player where i can choose witch directories the player scans.
I need this due to a large amount of audio books, and I like to keep musik and reading in different apps.
Thanks for help
torsoen said:
Hi
i search for a music player where i can choose witch directories the player scans.
I need this due to a large amount of audio books, and I like to keep musik and reading in different apps.
Thanks for help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I search a bit and I found 'Folder Player' on the store
Haven't tried it but good reviews and seems to do what you need
Hope I helped you.
I also need folders (I hate ID3 libraries) and I'm using Poweramp Music Player. It's overall a very good music player!
"Folder Player" downloaded and works nice. I need to fiddle arount a bit to see if i like it as my default
Thanks
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Hey guys,
I am having some issues with getting my music on to my watch. I uploaded my private music to Google play music on my computer and then I installed Google play music on my phone. There I can listen to my private music without a hitch, so it all basically works.
Now when I tick the option to store it on my watch for offline playback, nothing happens... It won't start syncing, no matter what I do =/
Will it only sync music that I actually bought through the play store?
Or has anyone else gotten it to work so far?
Thanks in advance!
Cheers
Michael
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I'm not sure if it is relevant but are you a play music subscriber, i.e paying the £7 or whatever the price is?
I got my watch today and had no problem getting the music to download.
With the option selected, go back to your library and click on the download button again, that might work?
Best of luck and merry Christmas
Yeah I am a subscriber.
I downloaded a playlist from google play music and it synchronized with my watch right away. Just the Musik I uploaded from my pc won't sync.
Could it be because it's missing IDE3 Tags? Or because the names are wrong or so?
Edit:
OK, problem solved! Probably a rather stupid mistake I made, but I bet there are others out there as clueless as me... So here's the solution: The music from the Google play music app is ONLY synced to the Android wear watch, once it is downloaded onto the phone as an offline playlist. It makes perfect sense, of course, but I didn't quite get it in the beginning... So what I did, was create a playlist with my private music and checked the "download to device" button. Once the download was done, it automatically sent it to my LG watch.
Thanks for the reply anyway and a merry Christmas to you too!
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