Google chose this week to make its most audacious launches yet - but the publicity it would otherwise have garnered was one of the less serious casualties of Superstorm Sandy. A glittering New York event, timed in part to steal Microsoft’s thunder as it launched Windows Phone 8, instead became a series of blog posts. But those blog posts revealed a challenger to Apple’s iTunes music store, the service that has in many ways been the foundation for the success of all its gadgets, as well as a new phone and a new tablet that’s the same size as the iPad.
The phone and tablet add a new level to Google's competition with Apple because they seek to further drive the dominance of the Android software platform - improvements to screens, speed and general services see the addition of a better keyboard, notifications centre and the ability to allow multiple users to log in and out of one tablet. You can read our reviews of the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 here.
It’s that music store, called Google Play Music, that is perhaps the flagship feature, however: it offers users instant access, free from any web connected device, to up to 20,000 songs they already own thanks to a ‘Music matching’ service that rivals such as Apple charge £21 per year for. And it also offers a music store for people to buy tracks and albums from in Europe for the first time. Launching on 13 November, it is likely to offer a new challenge to how people listen to music. Augmented with a subscription model, such as Spotify, users could theoretically have access to every track they’ve ever wanted to listen to.
Sami Valkonen, Google’s head of international music licensing, says the service offers an entirely web-based option that means consumers need never lose access to their music, wherever they are. He calls it "the future of music", and adds that even music labels, previously wary of new models, are now open minded. Consumers of the existing service in America, too, are buying more music through the service and listening for longer. Combined with a service to promote new, unsigned bands, it may yet provide the breakthrough Google’s already made with its Android phones and tablets.
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