Google Music gains free scan & match in US to compete with Apple's iTunes Match
Previously limited to Europe, the scan and match feature in Google Play's music service arrived in the U.S. at no cost on Tuesday, matching a key feature of Apple's iTunes Match.
Google announced Tuesday that its new matching feature will scan a music collection and quickly rebuild it in the cloud for free. Previously, users were required to upload their own music, a process that could take days for a collection with many gigabytes of audio.
Google Music allows users to match up to 20,000 songs from their music collection, and those tracks can be streamed back at up to 320 kbps at no cost. Google Play has a limit of 300 megabytes per individual song, and there is no option to purchase more storage to go beyond 20,000 tracks.
In comparison, Apple's iTunes Match will scan a user's music library and match it up with tracks available on the iTunes Store for $24.99 per year. iTunes Match has a 25,000 song limit ??5,000 tracks more than Google's free service.
When iTunes Match was announced by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011, he ribbed competing offerings from Google and Amazon, which at the time could take "weeks" to upload extensive music collections.
But Amazon's Cloud Player added iTunes Match-like scan and match functionality this July. Amazon allows users to import up to 250 songs for free in its Cloud Player, while a Cloud Player Premium subscription costs $24.99 per year and allows users to import up to 250,000 songs ? 10 times that of Apple's iTunes Match.
While Amazon has an official Cloud Player application available for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, Google has not yet released an official Google Music client for iOS. There are, however, some third-party options available in the App Store.
Google announced Tuesday that its new matching feature will scan a music collection and quickly rebuild it in the cloud for free. Previously, users were required to upload their own music, a process that could take days for a collection with many gigabytes of audio.
Google Music allows users to match up to 20,000 songs from their music collection, and those tracks can be streamed back at up to 320 kbps at no cost. Google Play has a limit of 300 megabytes per individual song, and there is no option to purchase more storage to go beyond 20,000 tracks.
In comparison, Apple's iTunes Match will scan a user's music library and match it up with tracks available on the iTunes Store for $24.99 per year. iTunes Match has a 25,000 song limit ??5,000 tracks more than Google's free service.
When iTunes Match was announced by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011, he ribbed competing offerings from Google and Amazon, which at the time could take "weeks" to upload extensive music collections.
But Amazon's Cloud Player added iTunes Match-like scan and match functionality this July. Amazon allows users to import up to 250 songs for free in its Cloud Player, while a Cloud Player Premium subscription costs $24.99 per year and allows users to import up to 250,000 songs ? 10 times that of Apple's iTunes Match.
While Amazon has an official Cloud Player application available for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, Google has not yet released an official Google Music client for iOS. There are, however, some third-party options available in the App Store.
Comments
"Google did it first."
/s
And the majority of the time after fixing that, it froze my devices.
Worked well on Apple TV though!
Quote:
Originally Posted by leewalker10
iTunes Match is terrible. At one point after creating one new playlist on my iPhone, iTunes Match then decided to create 30,000+ duplicates of that playlist, freezing every single device I had.
And the majority of the time after fixing that, it froze my devices.
Worked well on Apple TV though!
The only two people I know personally that had an issue with iTunes match were jail breakers who had who knows what on their devices.
Quote:
Originally Posted by allenbf
Google scanning my hard drive? Seems innocent and safe enough.
/s
Holy shit that's scary!
However, it will, over time have an indirect negative impact since Google is slowly ratcheting up the attractiveness of Android's ecosystem to try to match Apple's. Apps, photos, videos, docs, now music...... (Apple could start to respond to this move by essentially upping storage for its users, and offering it or free, but unfortunately will not do so).
Shameless, relentless, disintermediating, copyist juggernaut.
The competitors, cough, Google, has put out some really clunky apps in the past but boy are they looking good after a few years of iterations. Despite the examples of maps problems I'm still a real fan of the display in the new native map app so will likely continue using that. I trust Google Maps since I've used that much more (of course, since it's been around longer) but as a very light user anyway, I will likely continue using the built-in app.
I think there's an error with the headline. Should read "Google Music gains free scan & match in US to blatantly copy Apple's iTunes Match"
"There's nothing you can do that I can not take away from you".
Google to Apple:
"There's nothing you can do that we won't stoop to copying"
Quote:
Originally Posted by leewalker10
iTunes Match is terrible. At one point after creating one new playlist on my iPhone, iTunes Match then decided to create 30,000+ duplicates of that playlist, freezing every single device I had.
And the majority of the time after fixing that, it froze my devices.
Worked well on Apple TV though!
Great first post ????
Quote:
Originally Posted by ddawson100
C'mon, Apple, please bring out your best. I've used Safari very little since Chrome came out for iOS. The Gmail app is really sophisticated and makes the Mail app in iOS look as aged as a POP3 client. I miss the ease of managing podcasts with native apps. I appreciate Cards, Notes, Voice Memos but I really don't use those. My most-used native apps are Photos and Calendar but there are some attractive competitors.
The competitors, cough, Google, has put out some really clunky apps in the past but boy are they looking good after a few years of iterations. Despite the examples of maps problems I'm still a real fan of the display in the new native map app so will likely continue using that. I trust Google Maps since I've used that much more (of course, since it's been around longer) but as a very light user anyway, I will likely continue using the built-in app.
I will give you the Gmail App (not that I use Gmail anymore), but Safari is better in my opinion. I do wish Apple would put the tabs on top. I use the reader function and off line reading a lot. Moreover, according to Little Snitch Chrome tried to call home every five minutes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ireland
If it was a blatant copy it'd cost $24.99, but it's free.
That makes it worst because it is a classic example of anti-competitive behavior.
I don't think that is a logical conclusion. Being blatant doesn't mean a 1:1 mirror of every aspect of something. Chinese KIRFs are blatant copies that are much cheaper than the iPhone and often still look and act differently, but they are still blatant.
They have a clear way of obtaining revenue from their "free" service so I don't think there is any anti-competiveness that can be attributed to them. It's simply a different business model than Apple.
"Dear Android-Fan-in-the-future,
In response to your query as to why Apple spends so much time litigating yet Google does not:
THIS
...is why.
Kind Regards,
GTR"
Ironically, just a few seconds after sending this email into the future, I received a reply email from an Android fan advising me that, in their time, Google has changed it's motto:
"Google: Don't be Original".