Xbox Music, Microsoft’s answer to Spotify and Apple’s upcoming iTunes Radio, is getting iOS and Android apps today. This is good news for the service that was previously locked to just Windows and Microsoft devices.
Xbox Music was launched a year ago, and recently a web app arrived, although it required Flash, so didn’t work on iOS devices. Bringing apps for Android and iOS gives the service a much better chance against the more established streaming music apps.
Microsoft also added free streaming to the web app. You just need to sign up for a free account to start listening. Streaming is unlimited for six months, after which there will be a limit, which is so far unspecified. Xbox Music lacks the social and discovery tools of Spotify, but Microsoft is promising more features in the coming months.
First up will be Web Playlists, a tool that scans web pages for artists and creates custom playlists of what it discovers. If you are reading about a festival, for instance, Web Playlist should instantly make a you a playlist of all the bands mentioned. It’s an interesting idea, and we’ll have to wait and see how effective it is.
Windows 8.1 will also feature Bing Smart Search, allowing you to play music directly from search results. There will also be something called Radio, which will launch playlists based on ‘your favorite artists’. Radio will come to the web version of Xbox Music this fall.
Click Here to download Xbox Music for Android
Click Here to download Xbox Music for iOS
[Source: Microsoft]
