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Google Launches Free Scan and Match Music Service to Compete With Apple and Amazon

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milo

macrumors 604
Sep 23, 2003
6,891
522
Does Google Play allow downloading matched and uploaded songs, or just streaming them? I don't think they did when they first launched the service, which made it much less appealing for me.

And I assume no iTunes playlist support? No play count, last played, ratings?

TXCherokee said:
iTunes Match has worked flawlessly for me. I'd be interested to know what issues others are having.
Click to expand...

No support for nested smart playlists, some wrong matches with no way to correct them (particularly clean/explicit), ends of songs getting cut off, issues with not updating play counts and last played, etc. And the matching in general still is pretty weak even after more than a year, particularly the case of matching all tracks on an album except for one or two. Apple absolutely should be able to get that working, particularly on albums that are extremely common.

Nunyabinez said:
Ok, the "fix match" lets you notify them that it failed and retry the upload again, not too exciting.
Click to expand...

Considering iTunes Match doesn't have any way to send feedback or fix wrong matches, I'd say that's pretty exciting. Match users have been asking for the feature for a year and Apple has yet to provide it.

Anyone tried the google matching yet? How accurate is it, what % of your files got matched, and if it makes mistakes is there a way to correct or force an upload?
 
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samcraig

macrumors P6
Jun 22, 2009
16,779
41,982
USA
milo said:
Does Google Play allow downloading matched and uploaded songs, or just streaming them? I don't think they did when they first launched the service, which made it much less appealing for me.

And I assume no iTunes playlist support? No play count, last played, ratings?
Click to expand...

Yes. You can import iTunes playlists.
Yes, there's play count.
Yes, you can rate your songs. (thumbs up or down)
Yes, there's last played.
There's sharing.
There's the ability to re-download your music.
There's "last added"

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LagunaSol said:
How many people actually know about this or do it?
Click to expand...

Really? How many people know how to turn off tracking in iOS or other features.

If you are concerned over privacy - you learn how to do this - whatever website, platform, etc is. If you don't - it's a user issue.



BaldiMac said:
Advertising revenues made up 96% of Google's revenues in 2010 and 2011.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312512025336/d260164d10k.htm
Click to expand...

And in 2012 I guess we'll see. Whether it's $1 or 4% or somewhere inbetween. The fact remains - Google does not soley make their money off advertising.
 
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milo

macrumors 604
Sep 23, 2003
6,891
522
Thanks for the info. Is play count synced with iTunes, or a separate one? It sounds like it isn't compatible with iTunes star ratings? And I assume it doesn't keep up with iTunes smart playlists, they are imported manually?
 
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dalbir4444

macrumors 6502a
Oct 30, 2012
572
0
Mr.damien said:
It's working like that for religion (like prove that god doesn't exist), I don't see any reason it won't work for this case :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You can't be serious. You can't make a ridiculous claim and then ask others to disprove it. Just shows you're going around spreading FUD.
 
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louis.b

macrumors regular
Jun 24, 2012
155
0
Sydney
And people wonder why Google and Apple just can't cooperate. Because Google just has to compete with Apple in everything to get more more more more more and more.
 
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samcraig

macrumors P6
Jun 22, 2009
16,779
41,982
USA
milo said:
Thanks for the info. Is play count synced with iTunes, or a separate one? It sounds like it isn't compatible with iTunes star ratings? And I assume it doesn't keep up with iTunes smart playlists, they are imported manually?
Click to expand...

No - play counts aren't synced. And no - not compatible with star ratings (at least at current) nor smart lists.

The app (on android at least) I find to be much better that the UI/UX on the web.

That being said - they've at least done quite a bit to make it a decent transition from iTunes. It's not iTunes - so I can accept that not every feature of iTunes can/will be ported over.

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louis.b said:
And people wonder why Google and Apple just can't cooperate. Because Google just has to compete with Apple in everything to get more more more more more and more.
Click to expand...

iAds, iPad mini, Apple Maps

This is what competitors do.
 
jasvncnt

jasvncnt

macrumors 6502
Jan 20, 2011
451
112
New Jersey
I use pretty much all of the Google products. Maybe its just me but I really dont care what info Google gathers from my web searches. Doesnt really bother me. I think the products they offer are very well done and most are free.
 
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coolfactor

macrumors 604
Jul 29, 2002
7,043
9,698
Vancouver, BC
nfl46 said:
I'm seriously considering moving to Android when Key Lime is released. They offer Apple like services a lot cheaper! Tired of paying premium when Google is offering their tablets, phones and services for a lower cost.

Edit: I'm aware maps are free!
Click to expand...

Ah yes, the bait and switch in action. Sooner or later you'll realize that "free" doesn't actually exist. Somewhere along the line, you'll be making the company money in some form, and/or give up some amount of quality user experience. There's always a cost.

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dukebound85 said:
is there a way to see what bit rate the song is playing after upload? or does it use the uploaded file to stream from?
Click to expand...

They claim to stream back at 320kbps.

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OldSchoolMacGuy said:
I thought it just needed to scan now. Instead it's uploading each and every song of mine.
Click to expand...

Probably needs to be a server-side scan.

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dalbir4444 said:
You can't be serious. You can't make a ridiculous claim and then ask others to disprove it. Just shows you're going around spreading FUD.
Click to expand...

You just said what he said. hahaha

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samcraig said:
And in 2012 I guess we'll see. Whether it's $1 or 4% or somewhere inbetween. The fact remains - Google does not soley make their money off advertising.
Click to expand...

They charge for corporate Google Apps accounts at $50 a head. Probably just a fraction of their revenues, but your point is valid based on this alone.
 
Renzatic

Renzatic

Suspended
Aug 3, 2011
9,561
10,118
Gramps, what the hell am I paying you for?
Mr.damien said:
It's working like that for religion (like prove that god doesn't exist), I don't see any reason it won't work for this case :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

The burden of proof is on the accuser there, dude guy. Would you want me walking around telling everyone you killed Jimmie Hoffa, and then, when you show up in front of a jury obviously claiming otherwise, I just retort...

"Yeah? Well prove you didn't"!
 
Sedrick

Sedrick

macrumors 68030
Nov 10, 2010
2,596
26
I wonder if Google can match my ripped CDs any better than Apple. I doubt I have one complete CD where at least one or two of the songs weren't uploaded even though Apple matched 80% of the album. Just how dumb is their software? Chances are those remaining one or two songs are from the same Album.

And for all the tin foil hat crowd, stop searching for man sized Victoria Secret garments. :p
 
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dona83

macrumors 6502
Nov 26, 2004
319
47
Kelowna, BC
I love iTunes Match, but I'm glad Apple has competition. Complacency is never good for the consumers.

Besides, Google's service is not available in Canada yet, but I want to see how they match international music which makes up 20% of my library.
 
Confuzzzed

Confuzzzed

macrumors 68000
Aug 7, 2011
1,630
0
Liverpool, UK
Sedrick said:
I wonder if Google can match my ripped CDs any better than Apple. I doubt I have one complete CD where at least one or two of the songs weren't uploaded even though Apple matched 80% of the album
Click to expand...

I wouldn't bet on it. Only 50% of my physical iTunes collection was uploaded by google play...
 
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latestmonkey

macrumors 6502
Aug 13, 2002
309
0
I pay for amazon mp3 music and it's good but the ios app crashes all the time.

If there was a decent google play app (music), it'd put it over the top.
 
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samcraig

macrumors P6
Jun 22, 2009
16,779
41,982
USA
Confuzzzed said:
I wouldn't bet on it. Only 50% of my physical iTunes collection was uploaded by google play...
Click to expand...

Google's Play store has about 15M songs (I believe) vs Apple's 25M (I believe). I imagine it really depends on what music you have in your library. Everyone is bound to have their own success/failure based on their content.
 
Confuzzzed

Confuzzzed

macrumors 68000
Aug 7, 2011
1,630
0
Liverpool, UK
milo said:
Is play count synced with iTunes
Click to expand...

No

milo said:
It sounds like it isn't compatible with iTunes star ratings? /QUOTE]

Yes, you are correct. Although it has it's own binary rating system (thumbs up or down) that appears randomly so I assume a rather poor attempt was made to import star ratings from iTunes

milo said:
And I assume it doesn't keep up with iTunes smart playlists
Click to expand...

Well, at least for me none of my smart playlists ported across. Never mind keeping up to date (as in cloud based sync?! Nowhere near that level of sophistication). I say this again. Google play is a VERY rudimentary web based system. Not a patch on iTunes (yet)

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latestmonkey said:
I pay for amazon mp3 music and it's good but the ios app crashes all the time.

If there was a decent google play app (music), it'd put it over the top.
Click to expand...

It's a streaming service. Unless you're on LTE and unlimited data plan I would imagine your experience will be very unsatisfactory (certainly in large parts of Europe where LTE is still immature)
Click to expand...
 
AppliedMicro

AppliedMicro

macrumors 68020
Aug 17, 2008
2,212
2,531
Snowy_River said:
Are you aware that AAC is just a fancy name for MPEG-4 Audio, or m4a? It's not really a "vendor-specific" format. I haven't seen an audio player that couldn't play m4a files for a long, long time. Maybe ten years ago, but no longer...
Click to expand...
Granted, it's not vendor-specific (really made a mistake thinking that).
But there are enough players without support for AAC, with the Sandisk Sansa Clip/Clip+ line being notable examples that are still being sold. For a small, inexpensive player, they are really good ones (audio quality is much better than the iPod shuffle, and at least on par with the iPod touch).

But I might consider switching to AAC - even tough open source (Rockbox!) support is - unfortunately - limited in some areas.
 
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