Tuesday, May 10, 2011

What's the point of Google Music?

Apparently Google Music is the next big thing in the music and tech industry.

With the service, currently in beta and is US-only, you can upload 85GB of your music online, and stream them anywhere anytime on any device.

Sounds great? Except it isn't. The benefits are so minuscule I can't see why anybody would want to use this service.

Firstly, why would anyone want to upload 85 GB of music files to the cloud, only to waste more bandwidth to stream again? Most mobile networks are scaling back the amount of bandwidth they give their users - and the few unlimited data options available are expensive. Hell, 85 GB is half of what I am allowed to download on my ISP!

You can't stream while traveling on the Tube or visiting remote places where 3G signals are weak. And even then, good luck with battery. Streaming stuff on 3G can be a bitch and smartphones aren't getting any better when it comes to power optimisation. You could argue that you can play music at a friend's place. Well I could too, by carrying a small cheap harddrive or plugging in my phone. Or are people really that lazy?

Finally Google Music requires Adobe Flash. Right away this limits the use of Google Music to devices that has Flash. And let us not forget that most workplaces (at least those that I know off) has banned the installation of Flash on their computers (with good reasons).

A couple of people have brought up that it could be used as a backup. Well 85 GB isn't even enough to back up 1/8th of my FLAC collection.

1 comment:

Cialis said...

I don't even get the point of having internet on your cellphone (i guess that if you work with internet it's ok) but if you don't it's a waste of time and money, music i guess that it's ok to have your ipod when you go to work, when you are working and the music on the computer it's indispensable, but on you social space... come on!!!