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Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

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Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#21

Post by Vermeulen »

They've had years to fix all the issues people have had with this - and yet everyone still hates it (based on Reddit / App reviews). Playing music offline is broken, browsing playlists is insanely slow, and it lacks so many basic features of GPM/other services (like actual random shuffle and not a smart radio that plays the same 10 songs). Combining Youtube Likes with the music thumbs up makes no sense - I now have lecture videos that randomly play while trying to shuffle my library (that I guess Youtube somehow mistook as music). Even how it integrates with Google Assistant is terrible compared to the old product.

I understand why the switch to the new service was needed, from a license/business perspective. But no idea why they can't just listen to their users and at least match feature-wise the product it's supposed to replace. I've lost faith in Google's ability to produce software and not just endlessly rebrand things.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#22

Post by buro9 »

xiphias2 wrote: post #7

I'm a Google Play subscriber, and I'm pissed, because YouTube Music was always forcing videos on me, and was harder to use for offline listening (stopping music when I locked the screen, like other people). What is better to switch to right now, YouTube Music, or Spotify?

Spotify.

Also made the move as a result of the switchover and far happier for it.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#23

Post by makecheck »

ozmbie wrote: post #6

How is it that Google create/rebrand/close so many music and chat services over the years. While Apple have a single message service (iMessage) and a single music service (Apple Music) that have been consistently branded with constant growth and show no signs of being shut down? As a consumer I have no idea what’s going on with some areas of Google’s products. It’s a major turn off.

Apple has had iTunes, and for a time a music “social network” Ping. The original messaging tool was called iChat before it was iMessage. Apple has also had multiple Internet services that were more or less the same (iTools, .Mac, iCloud). Even Contacts used to be called Address Book, and Wallet used to be called Passbook.

Google still does worse but renaming things is pretty common.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#24

Post by treis »

city41 wrote: post #13
xiphias2 wrote: post #7

I'm a Google Play subscriber, and I'm pissed, because YouTube Music was always forcing videos on me, and was harder to use for offline listening (stopping music when I locked the screen, like other people). What is better to switch to right now, YouTube Music, or Spotify?

I switched from Spotify to Amazon Music Unlimited, as I found it to be much less buggy.

Amazon doesn't allow HD music in their Linux client and unfortunately does not play nicely with the Google ecosystem. Shame too because I really liked it.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#25

Post by electriclove »

necubi wrote: post #15

This is a bummer. I gather that I'm one of the few users of Google Play Music, so it's not surprising it's being killed. But it was one of the few streaming services that had the ability to upload your own music, a good catalog, and widespread device support. YouTube music is OK, but worse in a bunch of respects. It separates out your uploaded music into a separate library (admittedly the matching in Play Music was a…

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I'm thinking of putting my music in my Google Drive and using Plex (on a seedbox server). So my music is safe and accessible but I still need to pay for a streaming service because I like the discovery options they have.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#26

Post by crocodiletears »

xiphias2 wrote: post #7

I'm a Google Play subscriber, and I'm pissed, because YouTube Music was always forcing videos on me, and was harder to use for offline listening (stopping music when I locked the screen, like other people). What is better to switch to right now, YouTube Music, or Spotify?

I made the switch to Apple Music after GPM went on life support. It's got some weird UI choices (Apple conventions, I assume - I'm on Android), but I've been pretty happy with it, and it's more or less sold me on investigating how far an android user can invest in their cloud services ecosystem.

I avoid Spotify because I'm leery of their podcast play, especially given their employee's protests over the Rogan contract. Just because Rogan's too valuable an asset to compromise, doesn't mean they won't go after smaller podcasters.

Apple by contrast has been a fairly responsible steward of the podcasting ecosystem with its publicly available index, and hasn't attempted to exert undue control over individual podcasts beyond delisting them from their search engine.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#27

Post by electriclove »

Vermeulen wrote: post #21

They've had years to fix all the issues people have had with this - and yet everyone still hates it (based on Reddit / App reviews). Playing music offline is broken, browsing playlists is insanely slow, and it lacks so many basic features of GPM/other services (like actual random shuffle and not a smart radio that plays the same 10 songs). Combining Youtube Likes with the music thumbs up makes no sense - I now have l…

Me too and I've been a long time fan, user, shareholder, evangelist, etc. I feel they just can't execute anymore (software and hardware).

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#28

Post by xiphias2 »

dlandis wrote: post #18
xiphias2 wrote: post #7

I'm a Google Play subscriber, and I'm pissed, because YouTube Music was always forcing videos on me, and was harder to use for offline listening (stopping music when I locked the screen, like other people). What is better to switch to right now, YouTube Music, or Spotify?

If you watch YouTube, then probably it's best to stick with Google since you get ad-free YouTube with your subscription (I think?) . Otherwise probably Spotify is better.

I have both Youtube and Google Play subscription, but never listen to Youtube music because the sound quality is quite bad. But now I'm getting really pissed:

Youtube Music has only 256kbit AAC compression...that's a no go for me. I tried Tidal once, but the user interface was very slow, so I unsubscribed.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#29

Post by atrus »

dragonwriter wrote: post #19
bla3 wrote: post #5

Google Play Music wasn't very popular, but it was surprisingly good. YouTube Music is ok, but it lacks that quality without a name and has many small glitches that make it much less pleasant to use.

> YouTube Music is ok No, its quite bad. In addition to being flat-out buggy (I've had it multiple times in the last week just decide to switch to a playlist it invented rather than the one it was directed to play), it doesn't support basic music playing functionality like song or playlist repeat, and (surprisingly) its Google Assistant integration is awful, forcing you to use casting from a different device for basi…

What platform are you on. because I know for a fact that you can repeat individual songs, and playlists on the Android app. I'm also wondering about the casting, since I regularly cast (again from the Android app) to my minis at home.

Re: Google Play Music, Music Play Store and Music Manager are going away

#30

Post by parliament32 »

xiphias2 wrote: post #7

I'm a Google Play subscriber, and I'm pissed, because YouTube Music was always forcing videos on me, and was harder to use for offline listening (stopping music when I locked the screen, like other people). What is better to switch to right now, YouTube Music, or Spotify?

I switched to Spotify and I'm pretty happy. It's a bit more buggy and some features are missing, but overall it's a decent replacement and I'm liking the playlists/radio more.
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