While many of us Google I/O attendees were unsurprised by yesterday’s announcement that Google was launching its own cloud-based music service, we were excited to learn that every one of us would be getting a priority invite to the service. As a big music nerd, I was excited to give it a test spin. Can Google do music? Read on to find out.
What It’s All About
Music Beta lets you upload your personal music collection to the cloud for streaming to your computer and other Android devices. Sound kind of familiar? You might recall that Amazon also rolled out a music player this year, Cloud Player. But unlike Amazon’s service, Google’s Music Beta does not sell music. So what’s the appeal? It’s simple and if you do everything through your Google account anyway, you might as well add music management to the mix. Furthermore, Android has always had a miserable music organization system so Music Beta is definitely a welcome addition to the platform.
Google unveiled a new version of Android (deliciously nicknamed “Ice Cream Sandwich”) at this morning’s keynote at Google I/O in San Francisco. Ice Cream Sandwich brings the best features of Honeycomb to mobile phones. Still, other than a few intriguing demos, Google did not disclose many details about the update such as when it will be available to consumers.