Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Google Play Subscription Music Service Finally Arrives on iPhone

SpectatorHere said:
As others have mentioned the uploaded library feature is NOT quite as reliable as Match. On occasion things show up and disappear...random weird stuff you didn't upload appears in your library, etc. However, it 99% works, and this has the awesome benefit of being FREE. Your whole library, backed up in the cloud, accessible from any Internet capable device.

I love this, because iTunes and iOS have burned me too many times.

Begin rant.

Just recently I lost my entire iTunes library off my main computer. Don't know where it went..just gone. Luckily, it's still on a synced device.

If this was the first backup/sync issued I'd had, it would be one thing, but losing music, photos, backups appears to be amazingly common amongst people I know and going by forum postings.

iTunes and many other big time software like iCloud is NOT always friendly or obvious. People don't know what iCloud backs up as opposed to a local back up, or whether previous backups are overwritten on a sync, or even if you need to sync at all anymore, and then what about wifi sync? How does a company focused on user interface and simplicity continue to screw up this badly with one of their premiere software platforms???

And if you make a mistake and need to retrieve files from a phone or backup, does Apple offer a free product to at least help you out in a bind? Nope, you have to buy some shady forensics software with paypal....

End Rant.

So, yes, access to Google Play Music is a good thing. Also makes it easier to leave Apple's walled garden if you ever decide to migrate away...or even just add a competitors product to your family of devices and want to share (it is your music after all)>
Click to expand...

You lost your entire music library off your main computer and some how it's Apple's fault? My guess is you have a virus on your PC or you have no idea what the hell you are doing. Probably both.

If millions of people's music library were randomly disappearing from iTunes, there would be riots in the street. I guess it's easier to hop on a message board and blame others for your problems versus rolling up your sleeve and putting work in to identify the real issue.
 
Rocko1 said:
Yeah, unless you are listening to Nazi rock or terrorist trance, I wouldn't worry about NSA giving a rats ass what you listen to.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and don't forget the stacks and stacks of war-criminal metal, extremist electronica and insurgent indie I have in my iTunes library. ;)

Whoops, I've already said too much.
 
Black Magic said:
You lost your entire music library off your main computer and some how it's Apple's fault? My guess is you have a virus on your PC or you have no idea what the hell you are doing. Probably both.

If millions of people's music library were randomly disappearing from iTunes, there would be riots in the street. I guess it's easier to hop on a message board and blame others for your problems versus rolling up your sleeve and putting work in to identify the real issue.
Click to expand...

You're free to think what you want but iTunes and iCloud will still be horrible pieces of awful. It's hardly just me and one missing library I have to reconstruct. You could verify this yourself if you weren't lazy (or you're disingenuous, take a pick).
 
I loved All Access on my S3. Now trying to set it up on my 5S but every time I try to play a song, I get an "error while trying to stream music" message. It can't be an internet issue b/c I'm currently getting about 35Mbps of VZW LTE awesomeness
 
JayIsAwesome said:
I loved All Access on my S3. Now trying to set it up on my 5S but every time I try to play a song, I get an "error while trying to stream music" message. It can't be an internet issue b/c I'm currently getting about 35Mbps of VZW LTE awesomeness
Click to expand...

Keep in mind the app is new, so there is probably extra heavy loads on the Google Play Music servers right now with everyone trying it out.

I had the same issue last night. Oddly, it worked on LTE but had problems playing on my own WIFI! (probably coincidence).
 
dmylrea said:
Keep in mind the app is new, so there is probably extra heavy loads on the Google Play Music servers right now with everyone trying it out.

I had the same issue last night. Oddly, it worked on LTE but had problems playing on my own WIFI! (probably coincidence).
Click to expand...
Good point, I'll give it some time. Thanks!
 
I've been using Google Play on my iMac since this summer and never had any issues. It was working earlier today but for the past couple of hours I can't reach the servers on my phone or iMac. The servers are most likely getting hammered.
 
To the joker claiming that downloading music for offline use isn't supported on Play Music: it is if you're a subscriber and Google certainly didn't tell you it isn't.
 
kis said:
To the joker claiming that downloading music for offline use isn't supported on Play Music: it is if you're a subscriber and Google certainly didn't tell you it isn't.
Click to expand...

No, on Android you can download music if you're not a subscriber and what people is saying is that they can only download uploaded music, not the one they are paying with the subscription
 
Oletros said:
No, on Android you can download music if you're not a subscriber and what people is saying is that they can only download uploaded music, not the one they are paying with the subscription
Click to expand...

So you're saying on Android you can download content you have no rights to since you're not a subscriber? How do you even get access to the content if you're not a subscriber? I don't get what you're saying...

It certainly makes sense to be able to download (offline use) your own uploaded content, but no sense to be able to download content that you're not paying for...
 
dmylrea said:
So you're saying on Android you can download content you have no rights to since you're not a subscriber? How do you even get access to the content if you're not a subscriber? I don't get what you're saying...

It certainly makes sense to be able to download (offline use) your own uploaded content, but no sense to be able to download content that you're not paying for...
Click to expand...

No, I'm saying that on Android you can download the music you have uploaded and, if you're a subscriber, you can download the subscribed content
 
Sincci said:
IMO the best feature is the ability to play your entire music collection pretty much anywhere via the web interface, no matter what platform you are using.
Click to expand...

Also the reason that if all things are equal, I buy my movies from Google vice Apple or Amazon. No app needed except a modern browser, platform agnostic.
 
Last edited:
Google Play transcodes much of my music ==> Fail

I used Itune Match to legalize a very large music library in part dating back to napster (which I have been updating to lossless over the years by buying & Ripping CDs). I spent a number of years with much of my library in FLAC before moving it all to iTunes & thus MP3==>AAC & FLAC==>ALAC with some rarer titles still being unmatched MP3.

According to https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1100462?hl=en :
"FLAC, ogg, and aac files are transcoded to 320kbps mp3"

So, instead of matching files as iTunes Match does & giving me cleanly ripped files, Google play gives me aac files transcoded to MP3 320. In my experience, Apple's AAC 256 files are better than even pristine codes from lossless > MP3 320 while AAC ==>MP3 320 gives audible artifacts so Google's choice of transcoded MP3 320 is a big step backwards.

Google's choice is incomprehensible: Why transcode aac files into MP3 instead of just using AAC/ALAC (both open formats now)?!? AAC/ALAC support cannot be that hard to implement. Instead I'd have to see almost everything transcoded to inferior MP3s? OK, so my Mac Mini doesn't go into airplane reactor mode like the Dell before it did, but it's still a useless step which would bog it down for over a day. No, just no...
 
How does this compare to spotify? Is it a legitimate alternative?

Are there an app for OS X? - Either first party or third party?
 
Now that service is available up here in Canada, curious to know how the app differentiates between "uploaded" versus "all access" content. There's a free one month trial that's being offered and I'm curious to see what access to a 25 million on-demand catalog would be like.

More importantly, if you cancel All Access, I assume your catalog reverts to whatever you uploaded?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back