As expected, Google announced a subscription streaming music service, Google Play Music All Access. This means Google will finally compete with Spotify, Rhapsody, and Rdio. It allows you to explore millions of tracks, listen to them immediately, and what you see is personalized, based on your listening history.
When you view your library in Google Play Music, you will now see your own uploaded library, plus everything you’ve listened to in All Access. Google describe it as ‘radio without rules‘. There are curated playlists, which you can reorder and edit on the fly too, picking out anything you don’t like, while adding other songs. All Access comes with a 30 day free trial, and launches today in the US, with more countries coming soon. Pricing after that is competitive with Spotify and other services, at $9.99 per month.
The interface looks cool, and the swipe controls also look really easy to use, but Google Play Music All Access doesn’t really offer anything not seen in other streaming services. Its power, like all Google services, comes with its easy integration into the Google ecosystem.
