My Review of Google Music

Dear Steve Jobs,

You are dead and there is a greater chance of your haunting my house now than there was of you dialing my number to ask for my opinion about iTunes while you were alive.

If you would had the resolve and temerity to have done so I might have hung up on you because I wouldn’t have believed that it was actually you calling. However if you had called back I would have told you that I like iTunes and use it daily. And then I would have told you why I don’t like the iPhone and how Apple products are overpriced.

We would have gotten along splendidly.

My current phone of choice is the Motorola DroidX. It is not a perfect phone but it does many things well and I have it equipped with an 8GB memory card that has thousands of songs on it. But I love music and I want more so I signed up for Google Music today. I listen to music all day long virtually every where I go so it seemed silly to me  not to try and take advantage of their services.

Here, take a look at this excerpt:

Listen anywhere, even offline

You can get to your personal music collection at home or on the go. Listen from the web or your Android 2.2+ phone or tablet with the Music app available from Android Market. Not online? No problem. You can select the specific albums, artists and playlists you want to have available when you’re not connected. And the songs you’ve recently played will automatically be available offline.

You can also access the Google Music player from your mobile browser if your device is iOS 4.0 or above. Just like you would on a computer, simply visit music.google.com from your device’s web browser to access the Google Music player.

Stay in sync, without the hassle

Spend more time listening to your music and less time managing it. Once your music is online, it’s always available. Playlists are automatically kept in sync, and you don’t have to worry about cables, file transfers, or running out of storage space.

Your collection, now in one place

Upload up to 20,000 songs from your personal music collection, even if they’re scattered across multiple computers. You can upload music files from any folder or add your iTunes® library and all of your playlists. And when you add new music to your computer, you can automatically add it to your music collection online.

That is 20,000 songs hosted for free. I couldn’t pass that up but I have to admit that the music store is thinner than I would like it to be. But if I can use it in conjunction with iTunes well that makes a significant difference now doesn’t it.

And those tunes are important to me. I am busting my ass to try and write a book. That link is to one rendering of it, about 14,000 words or so. But that blog has far more in it as do some of the other blogs I run.

Uploading songs to Google Music is slower than I would like it to be. It feels a bit like 14.4 Baud but since it is not 1998 that is probably not accurate.

I am excited about this. I see real potential. I use a ton of Google products, Gmail, Calendar, G+, Maps and more. Brin and Page should call me and say thank you because I help to keep them outfitted in their mansions. Me, I am just a simple man of the people who likes tech and gadgets.

Well, the good news to you Ghost of Steve Jobs is that I am not completely sold on this. But I wouldn’t say that I don’t like it either. What I know is that it has a good feel to it and it appears to provide a useful solution to some of my challenges and that makes for a happy customer.

Stay tuned and I’ll keep you posted about this.

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17 Comments

  1. Jay Steven Levin November 18, 2011 at 8:18 am

    I watched from late start to finish Google’s Music launch live on YouTube. And I have to say very little of what you’re saying here makes any sense starting with your riff on ghosts (unless your drawing a connection to apple music being a zombie next to G’s new launch, which your not) or your random insert plug for your book (still don’s see the connection there) or to your claim that your use of G’s products help keep Brin and Page “outfitted in their mansions” (I thought you were blogging and selling your book, now you’re ad advertiser contributing revenue?)
    Here’s what relevant that wasn’t covered. First, the platform is robust stable and scalable. Second, it’s easy to access, use and share. Third, its storage capacity is significant. Forth, it’s seems seemlessly easy to integrate within a G environment. Fifth, it gives new artists a needed and welcome platform to promote. And sixth the platform as a whole seems extremely well thought out.
    I don’t have a ghost of an idea why none of these values were mentioned.

    • Jack November 18, 2011 at 8:44 am

      Dear Jay Steven Levin,

      The current role of curmudgeon is filled by myself and my friend Leon but you are always welcome to show up out of the blue and leave nonsensical remarks.

      You see, if you were a regular reader here things would make far more sense to you than they do now.

      Your complaint isn’t any different from the guy who walks into a theater halfway through the movie and then is angry because he doesn’t know what is going on.

      But I do appreciate your critique and agree that items one through six are interesting.

      The Ghost of Steve Jobs and I agree that although the storage capacity is significant the upload speed is relatively slow. They should work on that.

      The catalog of artists isn’t as broad as it could be but there is time to fix that too.

      We are curious to see how they fix some of those things and what sort of push they make to support the platform in general.

      P.S. Jobs says to tell you that you should come here every day and read what I have to say because I don’t take myself too seriously. 😉

  2. Barbara November 18, 2011 at 7:10 am

    This is great, I’m lucky I’ve stumble upon your post. Thanks for sharing about google music.

  3. Diana Stroe November 18, 2011 at 4:40 am

    I really love listening to music so this would be very ideal for me. Especially now that I’m almost using all Google services, it’s just a one stop shop for me. I will definitely try this one and see how it goes for me.

  4. Kris November 17, 2011 at 10:41 pm

    I got excited about Google Music after I read this post, Jack! I thought I’m gonna log on and boogie!

    But, as soon as I punched in the URL I got this message: “We’re sorry. Google Music is currently only available in the United States”. Well, I guess I have to wait for Google to catch up with Australia. (or is it the other way around…)

    Back to Grooveshark!

    • Jack November 18, 2011 at 12:40 am

      Hi Kris,

      My apologies I should have checked that out and included it.

      Well, it is Google so I suspect it won’t be all that long before they unveil it down under.

  5. Carolyn November 17, 2011 at 7:20 pm

    I don’t know if I would be more excited or freaked out if the ghost of Steve Jobs visited me. Probably a little of both.

    I’m not a big iTunes fan, but it’s where my music ended up since I’ve been using it from almost when it came out. In the early days, you could buy an iTunes gift card on eBay at a significant discount because no one knew about iTunes, so I loaded up iTunes with music on the cheap.

    I signed up for Google Music when it first came out, but much of my music is DRM protected (see above) so it didn’t upload a lot of my music.

    My hope is that Google Music will help Apple strive to make iTunes better!

    • Jack November 18, 2011 at 12:42 am

      Hi Carolyn,

      I have made a point of trying to make sure that my music isn’t DRM protected. It has meant slowly ‘upgrading’ via iTunes+ but I think it is worth it to have access whenever and wherever.

  6. Adrienne November 17, 2011 at 10:53 am

    I agree with Julie, you’re talking to ghosts now! Alright then! lol…

    The only way I can listen to something is if it’s only an instrumental. I would really have to take some time to search for instrumentals I really like that I would want to listen to all day long, in the background. I much prefer a quiet work place myself.

    Have yet to give it a try, not sure if I will but good to know it’s there.

    Thanks for your ghostly update! 🙂

    • Jack November 17, 2011 at 5:03 pm

      I change my music all the time. Sometimes it is loud and sometimes it is soft and soothing. It really depends on my focus and mood.

      Google Music lets you upload 20k songs of your choice, so it is an easy way to monitor what you listen to or don’t.

  7. Julie November 17, 2011 at 8:02 am

    Holy cow, you’re talking to ghosts 🙂

    I have a different Droid and will have to check the app out. I usually have to be in silence to work but there is one thing I have to do today that would be greatly enhanced by some very loud music to pass the time. Thanks for the idea.

  8. Ruhani Rabin November 16, 2011 at 7:30 pm

    Hi Jack, I do agree with your points wholeheartedly. I can see a much more potential of google music. I’ve been using this since their private beta and so far it work flawlessly. About the upload speed ? It was pretty great on my side of the planet. I uploaded about 20GB of music in about 7-9 hours. My line is a shared ADSL 8MBps.

    • Jack November 17, 2011 at 12:40 am

      Hi Ruhani,

      I am really happy to hear that Google Music has been working well for you. I am excited about it.

      The upload speed is still slower than I would like but I can live with it.

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