The biggest missing piece of Google Music has finally fallen into place, with yesterday's announcement of the Google Music Store. While the search giant has a way to go before catching up with Apple's iTunes (Free, 4.5 stars) or Amazon's well-stocked MP3 store and Cloud Player (Free, 3.5 stars), Google is at least now seriously in the online music sales game. And that's extremely important for the 200-million-and-counting Android phone and tablet users, who haven't had a way to acquire music comparable to what iPhone, iPad, and iPod users have. The launch of the Google Music Store certainly marks a time for Android users to rejoice. But can they feel the equal to the Apple loyalists yet?
The Android version of Google Music has yet to be updated to include the store, but Google Music on the web is open to anyone who wants to sign up for an account. This review concerns only the Web version. Look for a review of the Android Google Music App in the near future.
When I tested Google Music while it was still in beta at the company's I/O conference in May, my main complaints were its lack of a direct way to purchase music, issues with streaming music over weak connections, and an inability to specify which song files or folders to include in Google's music cloud. Aside from these concerns, the service's simple interface was clear and serves its purpose well. We know that the song-purchasing feature has been addressed, as that's the big reveal in the Google Music Store. Let's take a look at how well it does this, and find out whether my other reservations have been remedied.?Signup and Setup
Getting started is a simple matter of directing your browser to music.google.com. You'll need a Google account, whether Gmail, YouTube, or Apps. And before you can download anything?even free tracks?you'll need to enter your credit card information. Even though the site header no longer says "Beta," the license agreement, to which you'll have to agree, and the window title still says beta. The license agreement asserts that you must have the rights to any music you upload, and that Google will terminate your account if you're a repeat infringer.
Adding Your Own Music
The first thing you see on the Google Music website's muted orange borders is instructions on the two ways to get music into your account: downloading, installing, and running the service's accompanying Music Manager software; and shopping in the new music section of the Android Market. I tested the service in Firefox on a low-end Windows 7 laptop with a fast T3 connection, and on a 2.6GHz Intel-based Macbook with a slow DSL connection.
Music Manager starts with a quick half-megabyte download (18.5 for Mac), and on my hardly screaming system, it installed in but a few seconds. A headphones icon appears in the Windows system tray, where you can call up the Manager's window with a double click. The app has been updated since my "hands-on" article about the beta, with tabs for Upload, Download (for purchased music), Advanced, and About. And there's much better choice over what you want uploaded to the service?you can add or remove specified folders or even iTunes and Windows Media Player playlists. You still can't designate individual songs, but the playlist and folder controls should be enough for anyone. Still, if you choose the Music folder, all subfolders get uploaded, too. You can't remove folders at a lower level, so you may have to move things around.
The Advanced choices let you set a bandwidth rate in case you have other heavy uses for your Internet connection. You can throttle the Manager down to 128Kbps, or just let it run as fast as possible. You can also choose whether to start the software when you start your computer, and whether to send Google crash data. Clicking this link will wipe out previous settings and kick off a wizard dialog that lets you choose whether to keep your Google Music in iTunes, Windows Media Player, the Music folder, or another folder you specify. First-time users get this wizard the first time they run the Music Manager.
At the bottom of the wizard dialog, you can see how many songs you have and how much space is left. The next page tells you how many songs Google Music found.? I had 7,846 songs and remaining space for 11,948?the service accommodates up to 20,000 in total. But it turned out that only 1,777 of my songs were valid, while 6,009 were rejected as invalid! Most of these files weren't actual songs, but just WAV and OGG files that I wouldn't want on Google Music anyway. The service can handle MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC, and OGG?more than iTunes Match, which doesn't support lossless FLAC (Google Music downgrades it to 320Kbps). Amazon only supports MP3 and AAC files up to 100MB.
Next, you tell the Manager whether it should automatically upload any new songs found in the chosen folder. After a page explaining the tray icon, you'll be told that your music is uploading.
My 1,776 songs took 4 hours to upload on a very fast T3 connection. This isn't so bad for a one-time process, but if you have a huge library and not such a fast Internet connection, you'd be much better off with Apple's iTunes Match. That service also benefits you by upgrading any music to a higher quality if its bitrate is below 256Kbps and it's in Apple's library.?
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/9J1aS6WoKDs/0,2817,2385570,00.asp
dean ornish dean ornish yom kippur yom kippur diamondbacks wolf creek wolf creek
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন