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. 

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. 

Before Google Music launched, Google and the music labels were said to have had a hard time working out the hard details, but they eventually reached an agreement. A recent report said that a few execs in Google working for the Android department have been in talks with music labels for expanding Google Music, wanting a Spotify-like streaming service.

Spotify was apparently not content with only being one of the largest music streaming services in the States and have now set their sights on the personalized online radio sector. Long dominated by applications like Pandora, the latest update to Spotify brings a free radio section to the application, but it only works if you are in the United States at the moment.

Now, this does not mean that you can access Spotify premium, that still costs $9.99 a month to stream your music from your computer to your phone. However, Spotify’s plan may be to lure you in with the free radio and hope you will upgrade later on.

Do any of you pay for Spotify or use other music alternatives?

Play Link

Remember that new Spotify app that came out looking really nice and inspired by Ice Cream Sandwich a while back? That was just a beta test of the app, but now that Spotify has got all the kinks worked out they’re letting everyone in on the new application. And they’ve even added a few more tricks into the deal for you:

• Play queue
• Last.fm scrobbling
• Crossfade/gapless playback settings
• Widget – control Spotify from the home screen
• Folder support

The download is available now in the Play Store for those who want to get in on the music streaming action. We advise you stream now before those shared data plans kick in.

Play Link

Via: Spotify

Spotify announced this morning that their Android app is about to receive a complete overhaul, but before it goes live in the Play Store, they want to give you a preview. So you can download it below and take it for a spin. In this latest version, you will find full support for Ice Cream Sandwich, a massive redesign (that is buttery smooth by the way), new navigation menu, more social fun, high-res artist imagery, and more. 

According to a recent report over at The Verge, sources close to the project are divulging info that Spotify has plans on releasing a major Ice Cream Sandwich update. News of this should make many Spotify users quite happy, seeing as how a lot of them have view the application as “unusable” due to countless bugs and crashes. Besides the rumor of them working on a new version, no other information was gathered on what it may look like or feature.

Fantastic, now we have another application to patiently wait for, again. Let the patience commence.

Still using Spotify?

Via: The Verge

The Sonos Controller app for Android found itself a much needed update this morning, bringing it to version 3.6. Included in the update is support for more tablets like the Kindle Fire, more Spotify features (new releases and top tracks), and the addition of Slacker Radio to its music services.

If you own any of their HiFi speaker systems, be sure to update the software on all of your portable devices, but on your PC and Macs as well.

Our Sonos review.