Well, I'm finally getting on board with streaming services.
I'm a big music fan and my iTunes library is currently sitting at 250GB, mp3/acc of 256kbps or more.
I'm currently using 3 services since they are all giving 30 day free trials when you sign up for premium accounts:
Spotify: so far this is in the lead. I know more people on this, but yet, I don't care for them to know what I'm listening to or what they are, but I guess it's a way to "discover" more music. It's heavily playlists based, so it's great for making playlists of individual songs, but not a series of full albums. For example, if I want to make a playlist "Pitchfork's Perfect 10's", the only view is list view, and not album view. They really need to change this. The only way to get an album view is to add it your your "album" collection.
The UI is nice, but can use improvement so I think the fonts and graphics are too big and generic looking.
Rdio: So far I'm disappointed. The app simply crashes after every song. Looking on Twitter, it seems this problem has been going on for 2 weeks now. Not a good way for a new customer to rate the service. What's the point of a music app that can't play music? Part of the money I'm willing to pay a music service is not just for the catalog, but for the app improvements and customer service. A music app that can't play more than one song at a time, that has gone unfixed for 2 weeks, is a problem and speaks to the quality of the app and company that makes it. This is your bread and butter. 99% of my streaming (and downloading of tracks) will be done on mobile. This is unacceptable.
The UI is extremely nice and the best one I've tested. Though there is no "album view" for playlists. Seems this is common so I'll just have to live with it. The Music.app is the same way so I'm not sure why these companies continue to overlook this feature.
Google Play All Access Youtube Music Key (???): I think that's what it's called. I'm currently curating my iTunes library to reduce the number of albums I simply don't listen to anymore and are just sitting on my hard drive. I'm currently uploading the classics and really good albums. Alot of my greatest hits albums (ie R&B music) are being left off as well as all the singles I've acquired over the years. Also, I'm uploading many hip-hop albums that are STILL not available for streaming nor for purchase on iTunes for whatever reason, most likely because the samples never got cleared properly (late 80's early 90's) when all that was being worked out.
While I have only 23k tracks that fit well within the 50k limit, I don't want everything in the cloud - just the "desert island" type stuff. I can always stream the one offs. The UI could use major improvement. I'm not sure why the Artists view are circles, as most of the faces don't even show within them properly. The Album view is a 2 column view, which is ridiculous if you have a ton of music, but I can that's what the search bar is far. I wish you can change the theme, because orange is horrendous.
So far I'm leaning towards Google, since I can add my own files to stuff Google doesn't have (like I said, some unavailable hip hop albums, The Beatles, etc.). I really have alot of music on my hard drive that I don't listen to, grew tired off, thought was good but really wasn't. So curating is a must if I go with Google to keep things clean.
I do like how all of the apps so far leave the artist and albums that I have in the Playlist section OUT of the album and artist view of the rest of the app. This is a feature that I wish Apple would have with the music app, but after all these years, I've come to realize this isn't going to happen. Having artists/albums from my Playlists showing up in the other sections for Artist and Albums means lots of scrolling, and the Music app is laid out so wrong with their tiny alphabet, that it's hard to jump the right area of artists or albums.
My music library will getting archived to a backup drive and Dropbox when I pick a service.
What are your experiences with these services?
I'm a big music fan and my iTunes library is currently sitting at 250GB, mp3/acc of 256kbps or more.
I'm currently using 3 services since they are all giving 30 day free trials when you sign up for premium accounts:
Spotify: so far this is in the lead. I know more people on this, but yet, I don't care for them to know what I'm listening to or what they are, but I guess it's a way to "discover" more music. It's heavily playlists based, so it's great for making playlists of individual songs, but not a series of full albums. For example, if I want to make a playlist "Pitchfork's Perfect 10's", the only view is list view, and not album view. They really need to change this. The only way to get an album view is to add it your your "album" collection.
The UI is nice, but can use improvement so I think the fonts and graphics are too big and generic looking.
Rdio: So far I'm disappointed. The app simply crashes after every song. Looking on Twitter, it seems this problem has been going on for 2 weeks now. Not a good way for a new customer to rate the service. What's the point of a music app that can't play music? Part of the money I'm willing to pay a music service is not just for the catalog, but for the app improvements and customer service. A music app that can't play more than one song at a time, that has gone unfixed for 2 weeks, is a problem and speaks to the quality of the app and company that makes it. This is your bread and butter. 99% of my streaming (and downloading of tracks) will be done on mobile. This is unacceptable.
The UI is extremely nice and the best one I've tested. Though there is no "album view" for playlists. Seems this is common so I'll just have to live with it. The Music.app is the same way so I'm not sure why these companies continue to overlook this feature.
Google Play All Access Youtube Music Key (???): I think that's what it's called. I'm currently curating my iTunes library to reduce the number of albums I simply don't listen to anymore and are just sitting on my hard drive. I'm currently uploading the classics and really good albums. Alot of my greatest hits albums (ie R&B music) are being left off as well as all the singles I've acquired over the years. Also, I'm uploading many hip-hop albums that are STILL not available for streaming nor for purchase on iTunes for whatever reason, most likely because the samples never got cleared properly (late 80's early 90's) when all that was being worked out.
While I have only 23k tracks that fit well within the 50k limit, I don't want everything in the cloud - just the "desert island" type stuff. I can always stream the one offs. The UI could use major improvement. I'm not sure why the Artists view are circles, as most of the faces don't even show within them properly. The Album view is a 2 column view, which is ridiculous if you have a ton of music, but I can that's what the search bar is far. I wish you can change the theme, because orange is horrendous.
So far I'm leaning towards Google, since I can add my own files to stuff Google doesn't have (like I said, some unavailable hip hop albums, The Beatles, etc.). I really have alot of music on my hard drive that I don't listen to, grew tired off, thought was good but really wasn't. So curating is a must if I go with Google to keep things clean.
I do like how all of the apps so far leave the artist and albums that I have in the Playlist section OUT of the album and artist view of the rest of the app. This is a feature that I wish Apple would have with the music app, but after all these years, I've come to realize this isn't going to happen. Having artists/albums from my Playlists showing up in the other sections for Artist and Albums means lots of scrolling, and the Music app is laid out so wrong with their tiny alphabet, that it's hard to jump the right area of artists or albums.
My music library will getting archived to a backup drive and Dropbox when I pick a service.
What are your experiences with these services?
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