One of the biggest announcements to come out of Google I/O last week was Google’s new streaming music service called Google Play Music All Access. It’s like Spotify meets Pandora, in that you can check out any album at any time, play them as many times as you’d like, or use them to create special radio stations. It works on both mobile and desktop and is currently available as a free trial, but will jump up to a monthly subscription service once the trial ends. You can sign-up before the end of June and lock in for $7.99 per month, however, the price will go up to $9.99 on July 1. It’s pretty awesome, though, that’s for sure.

But for many of you who are considering a move to All Access from something like Spotify, there is something you should consider should you have had the unfortunate pleasure of moving to a tiered data plan with your wireless carrier (shared data plans included). All Access lacks any sort of control over the quality of the music that is streaming through your device, meaning it can eat up data in minutes. 

Now that you have had four or five days to fully dive into two of Google I/O’s biggest announcements – Hangouts and Play Music All Access – we thought it was time to see who is garnering most of your attention. I’ve fully committed to the new Hangouts and am already figuring out how to convince friends and family to make the permanent switch over. All Access on the other hand is sitting in limbo on my devices, since it is not compatible with the Nexus Q for the time being. See, I use Google Music quite a bit in my office, but only through the Q, so I’m unable to take advantage of my free trial at this point. I’d certainly like to use the hell out of it – just can’t for now. Tim on the other hand, is an All Access machine and couldn’t stop using it the entire time we were at I/O.

So what about you? Are you using both? If so, which is taking up most of your time?

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Now that Google I/O is wrapping up here in San Francisco and we finally have a chance to take a minute and breathe, we decided to sit down and do an overview of the new Google Play Music app along with its accompanying All Access service. Announced on Wednesday as a subscription-based Pandora and Spotify competitor, All Access is an important piece to the media puzzle for Google. The future of music appears to be in streaming services. 

Not only did we not get a new version of the Nexus Q yesterday at Google I/O, but to make matters worse, anyone who has one of the original versions from last year has found that they can no longer use the media center with the newest version of Google Music. Once the new version of music has been installed on your phone, there isn’t an option to switch over to the Q. That’s right, the number one reason to own a Q is now not even an option. 

The update for Google Music which includes a new UI, their new All Access streaming service, and Listen Now feature is live! Once you update, don’t forget to check out All Access with the 30-day free trial. 

We have heard rumors up until this point, but today during their keynote, Google made their new streaming music service official. Google Play  Music “All Access” gives users the ability to search through Google’s huge amount of songs and the ability to play them instantly. An all new UI allows you to swipe away songs if you don’t want them and the ability to make radio stations instantly based on one song. The price of this new streaming service is $9.99 per month, but everyone gets a 30 free trial. If you are an early adopter and sign up before June however, your price is only $7.99.

The I/O keynote is still going on, come and join us!

Update:  The service is now live! Get to it here. 

According to industry sources who spoke with The Verge and the New York Times, Google will unveil a new streaming music service tomorrow at Google I/O. After inking deals with both Universal and Sony, the service finally has the go-ahead to compete with the likes of Spotify and get the jump on Apple who has been taking its sweet time launching a similar service. 

Happen to be one of the people hoping to see a Google Music app redesign sometime in the future? Well, you are not alone. While we wait on Google to breathe some fresh air into their app’s design, there are developers out there that are making their own works of music app art, such as this one called, Now Playing.