Now onto my initial thoughts on Google Music Beta: Ok, I really like it, and that already is saying a lot because when Amazon Cloud Player first came out I jumped on it and said that I would never turn back. Well... my opinion may have changed and that is really only for one reason, but Ill go into that in my "what I like" section.
What I Dislike:
First I want to talk about what I hate about it, or well dislike because hate is a bit of a strong word especially since I am just talking about a cloud service that two years ago I didn't even think would be something I "needed". The thing I dislike the most is that I can't download any tracks I upload like I am able to with Amazon Cloud Player. For example, Say I get a new computer because this one craps out. Well my MacBook has all my music (I actually have most of it backed up to an external HD that sits on my network) so then I lose everything I own, yes it is in the Google Cloud, but I can't just download all 2000 songs onto my new computer they are stuck in the cloud. With Amazon Cloud Player, I can do that, which also leads to the fact that I could login on my friends computer and download that new track that one of my musically talented friends just produced and sent me. My other gripe is it doesn't work on my Archos 70 tablet; the app installed and I can see all my music, but once I hit play it crashes the whole tablet. Granted my tablet has a hacked version of the Android Market on it and sometimes things are a bit buggy and I guess that is what I get for not buying a pricier tablet. It is a "Beta" so I am sure there will be bug fixes with that since I saw a lot of comments on the reviews for the app in the market getting similar crashes, but its still annoying to a user and first impressions are everything. If this wasn't Google then I probably would of ditched it right then and there.
Another problem I have had is that the app has definitely been taking a toll on my phones battery life, but I realized that I can just go into my phones settings and uncheck auto sync Music like I did for Reader, Picasa, Docs, and Books.
What I Like:
Now for the more positive part of my review, what I love about Google Music Beta. I love that it automatically monitors my music collection, whereas Amazon Cloud Player only uploaded new tracks when I hit "upload music". I picked the folder where I put all my music and bam its uploading and I really never have to think about it again. That truly is a great feature that is why I am thinking of moving off of Amazon Cloud Player. I have yet to run this on my HP Mini Netbook which has some tunes that I dont have here on my Mac, so I guess I need to check that out and make sure both computers play nicely with each other.
Overall:
Overall it is only missing a few features that I want to see.
- I want to be able to download my music at a later time.
- I want to have it ignore Podcasts that are downloaded onto my phone.
If I can later download all my music, then I will be perfectly happy and get off Amazon Cloud Player. At the same time I only bring up this subject because I have that feature on Amazon Cloud Player and I have always backed up my music myself, but isn't that why there is competition in the Market, to have the best possible service. Ultimately, I can always just back up my music myself anyways.
The final question I must ask myself is by picking Google Music Beta am I further giving my soul over to Google?
PS. If you own an Android Phone, then you need to go sign up. This is a feature that seems nerdy at first, but I know all my non-nerd friends will get plenty of use out of it.
To Be Continued...
Update: Wow, I gotta say the "Make Instant Mix" feature when you click on the drop down menu on any song is really great. I tend to think that I listen to music that isn't super common (Veil of Maya was the first artist I tried this one) and it did a great job of picking similar artists that I have in my library. I really am starting to like this more and more.
-Grant
Like your thoughts on this. I hope that Google will workout something with the recording labels so that you can use this as a true cloud service. Also the battery life on my phone with this does take a big hit but that something you have to deal with. I also play this in my car as well and it works very well and the sound quality is very good. And I also like the the instant mix as well but only thing i dont like is that when you do the same song they dont mix different songs and also i like to see maybe a mix album mix!!!
ReplyDelete-Frank
Battery has been fine now, I already was streaming music daily with my phone, and now that everything seems to be synced up its back to normal.
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