Google Play Music

[pinkpanther99]

What are peoples experience of using Google Play Music? Is it available in Thailand? From what I understand you can store upto 20k songs (cloud) and then access them from your android device without the need for syncing. I've tried to get this working but without success so far.

Would be interested to hear from others who use this. How does it compare to something like iTunes?

Thanks in advance

[casualbiker]

not available in thailand

[chmod777]

The google play music shop is not available in Thailand, but you can use music manager software to upload your own music to their cloud. Go to play.google.com/music on your PC and look for a button that says UPLOAD, this should lead you to the software download.

[straycat911]

Dont know if the same thing, my tablet (samsung galaxy tab 2 10) has a music program called goole play music, dont know about storing music, but i use it to play music, its a good program, i will have to see anything about storing music like cloud, but some post say not available in thailand, yet i still can use it to play music with

[Torrens54]

Sorry if this might sound dumb but....

I play a lot of music off "YouTube" and it works fine.

[tingtongtingtong]

not available in thailand

Most things are available every where just get a UK or American IP address or VPN (google it)

spotifi is pretty good and it shows music that is similar to the music that you are listening to at that time which you might like.

Other than that i torrent the music or movies or books I want or youtube it.

one of many types of websites:

http://www.ukipvpn.com/

books:

http://calibre-ebook.com/

Edited December 31, 2013 by tingtongtingtong

[pinkpanther99]

The google play music shop is not available in Thailand, but you can use music manager software to upload your own music to their cloud. Go to play.google.com/music on your PC and look for a button that says UPLOAD, this should lead you to the software download.

Thanks a lot, I'll look into this

[druseth]

I had an account with Google Play, using an American credit card, with a USA address. I signed up for Google Play Music Unlimited Access when they first released it, and had no problems at all. It works flawlessly, through a browser, and on Android. I didn't need to use a proxy or mask my IP or anything like that. The key thing is having a payment method linked to the West.

I'm actually going to cancel my subscription this month. It's $8 we can use somewhere else. But I will greatly miss it! There is a huge selection, and being able to listen to whatever I want wherever I want it is nice. It worked through wifi and mobile data.

Edited January 1, 2014 by druseth

[Artist]

I have been using Google Play Music for some time. I uploaded several thousand tracks in my music library from my Windows PC, most of which had dubious origins. It accepted them fine.

I replay them from my Chromebook and Android tablet but mainly from my Nexus 4 phone. I love it.

What has made the biggest difference is being able to play music through my phone at any time any place. I have a very good set of Sennheiser bluetooth earphones and the sound quality is great. Its amazing to be able to sit and watch the sunset on a deserted beach and listen to music.

If I want to share with others I use a bluetooth Beatbox which for its size has great volume.

What has surprised me is that it plays perfectly over my phone's data link almost anywhere, so I don't need WiFi for it to work. They must be using some really smart compression techniques. I recommend it.

Edited January 1, 2014 by Artist

[casualbiker]

I have been using Google Play Music for some time. I uploaded several thousand tracks in my music library from my Windows PC, most of which had dubious origins. It accepted them fine.

I replay them from my Chromebook and Android tablet but mainly from my Nexus 4 phone. I love it.

What has made the biggest difference is being able to play music through my phone at any time any place. I have a very good set of Sennheiser bluetooth earphones and the sound quality is great. Its amazing to be able to sit and watch the sunset on a deserted beach and listen to music.

If I want to share with others I use a bluetooth Beatbox which for its size has great volume.

What has surprised me is that it plays perfectly over my phone's data link almost anywhere, so I don't need WiFi for it to work. They must be using some really smart compression techniques. I recommend it.

does it play from the cloud or does it download the track each time.. i tried it a few days ago and it would just hang up.. maybe it was the phone i was using.. it is a bit crap.

The Google Play Music website says Thailand is not on the list of countries where it works..

[Artist]

I have been using Google Play Music for some time. I uploaded several thousand tracks in my music library from my Windows PC, most of which had dubious origins. It accepted them fine.

I replay them from my Chromebook and Android tablet but mainly from my Nexus 4 phone. I love it.

What has made the biggest difference is being able to play music through my phone at any time any place. I have a very good set of Sennheiser bluetooth earphones and the sound quality is great. Its amazing to be able to sit and watch the sunset on a deserted beach and listen to music.

If I want to share with others I use a bluetooth Beatbox which for its size has great volume.

What has surprised me is that it plays perfectly over my phone's data link almost anywhere, so I don't need WiFi for it to work. They must be using some really smart compression techniques. I recommend it.

does it play from the cloud or does it download the track each time.. i tried it a few days ago and it would just hang up.. maybe it was the phone i was using.. it is a bit crap.

The Google Play Music website says Thailand is not on the list of countries where it works..

I don't know exactly how it works. You can opt to store tracks on your device, but I haven't done that. As far as I know its streaming but buffering the music so that a short outage of the data link doesn't stop it playing.

Yes it works fine in Thailand, I never have a problem. I set it up months ago when I was in Australia and there might be a problem is setting it up in Thailand. If I get such regional restriction problems (or Thai censorship) I use https://www.tunnelbear.com/ which is free unless you use it a lot, very easy to set up and allows you to spoof your IP address to a choice of the English speaking Western countries USA, Canada, UK, Australia etc

[SoloFlyer]

^ You say TunnelBear has Australian IP addresses now. I see on their site the Aus flag has a little dollar sign. Are you paying to get Aus access??

[Artist]

^ You say TunnelBear has Australian IP addresses now. I see on their site the Aus flag has a little dollar sign. Are you paying to get Aus access??

Yes I used it a lot for a while and went over the free limit so paid $5 for extra time and since then I have a choice of Australia, I wasn't sure if I paid for that or they just added to the free list.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

A lot of folks posting here who aren't very familiar with the Google Music service.

In answer to the OPs questions:

I believe you do need a U.S.-based Google account and linked payment method (or other country where the service is officially available) in order to initially set-up Google Play music. In signing up, I believe Google also will require you to have a computer IP address that matches one of the countries where the service is available -- which can be obtained via VPN or proxy as mentioned above.

Once you've done that, you will be able to access and download the Google Play Music Android app onto any Android devices. There's also a Google Play Music Manager that installs on your PC to manage the uploading and downloading activities. Once set up, the PC and Android apps can be used anywhere to play your own music regardless of computer or Android device IP location.

Google Play Music has both free and paid components available:

The free part is, you can upload up to 20,000 of your own songs and have them stored in the cloud via Google Play Music. Once they're stored there, you can play them via streaming anywhere via the web/PC or Android app without having to worry about your IP address/location, just by signing into the correct/permitted Google account.

Google Play Music essentially mirrors designated music folders on your PC, so when you add new music to those folders, the songs also get uploaded to your Google Play Music cloud storage. You can also re-download your own files back to any device from your Google Play Music cloud storage.

The paid part is, you also can purchase MP3 songs/albums via the Google Play Music store, and those automatically are also stored to your Google Play music cloud storage, though they do not count against your 20,000 upload song limit. To purchase music, you do have to be signed into a Google Play account from a permitted country, but you don't have to be using an IP address from that country in order to sign in once the account has been created.

Here's Google's info page on how the Music Manager and 20,000 music files issue work:

https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1229970

Then in the paid realm, there's also Google's new Google Play Music All Access service, which is kind of like a competitor to Spotify, which allows streaming of music you don't own and haven't uploaded. Looks like it's priced at $9.99 a month with a 30 day free trial.

https://play.google.com/about/music/

This link above does a good job of explaining both what the basic free Google Play Music service does vs. what the paid All Access service provides in addition.

Here's Google's link on subscribing to the All Access Service:

https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/3139566?hl=en

It looks like it may only be available in the countries where Google Play Music is available. But I haven't tried All Access, so I can't speak to that for certain. In any event, it's not so much the IP location that's the issue, as having a Google account based in the right country that makes the difference.

Here's Google's list of countries where the Google Play Music and Google Play Music All Access are available, based on the location of the user's Google account:

Music

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States

Music All Access

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States

https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/2843119?hl=en

Interesting, in that there's no country in Asia proper listed there.

Edited January 2, 2014 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I should mention, for anyone interesting in online music streaming via mobile devices, the Spotify service last month announced that it was greatly expanding its free offerings on tablets and smartphones.

Not quite listening for free to any album you like anytime...but heading in that direction:

The new tablet version of Spotify will mimic the free desktop app by allowing users complete control over what music they choose. The free smartphone version, available for iOS and Android, will allow users to shuffle randomly through their own playlists, playlists by friends and artists’ catalogues. Users won’t be able to select individual songs on demand with the mobile version, and neither the tablet or mobile apps will let people download songs to their device, a feature of the premium version of Spotify.

http://business.time.com/2013/12/11/spotify-offers-free-music-on-mobile-devices/

I used the Spotify tablet app on a recent trip, and it was great.

I have a variety of albums I like saved as Spotify playlists... So, on the tablet for free, it wouldn't let me play/stream those albums in original songs order...but it would play the same set of songs in random "shuffle" mode.

When I wanted to play an album on Spotify that I didn't have presaved as a playlist, it would let me select and play any individual song, but it wouldn't allow me to play the whole album per se... unless I went the playlist route mentioned above.

And like Google Play Music, once the proper country Spotify account has been established, you don't need to worry about mobile device IP address in order to use and play music via its mobile apps.

[Artist]

It looks like it may only be available in the countries where Google Play Music is available. But I haven't tried All Access, so I can't speak to that for certain. In any event, it's not so much the IP location that's the issue, as having a Google account based in the right country that makes the difference.

I set up the free trial of the All Access Service while I have been in Thailand and it works fine from here. The whole question of whether Google allows you to change your home country or access the Play Store from another country is very confused and messy. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2169261

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

At least in terms of accessing the Google Play Store via PC, it does appear that one's IP address/country is still a factor in what Play Store content is available.

For the same U.S. Google account, when I log-in from outside the U.S. WITHOUT a VPN, I get this very limited content.

But when I log into the same U.S. Google account from outside the U.S. WITH a U.S. VPN, I get the full spread of content.

However, that restriction appears to only related to being able to access and download/install the various apps, such as Google Play Music, and perhaps to make purchases.

However, once Google Play Music is installed on a PC or Android device via a permitted Google account, the music streaming function for one's own uploaded or previously purchased songs appears to work fine regardless of what IP is active for that PC or device.

Edited January 2, 2014 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[SoloFlyer]

^, I haven't been able to get access using TunnelBear. Spotify I now can, but haven't gone too far down that path yet.

[Artist]

^, I haven't been able to get access using TunnelBear. Spotify I now can, but haven't gone too far down that path yet.

Did you set up your Google account in Thailand initially then?

[druseth]

does it play from the cloud or does it download the track each time.. i tried it a few days ago and it would just hang up.. maybe it was the phone i was using.. it is a bit crap.

The Google Play Music website says Thailand is not on the list of countries where it works..

It plays from the cloud, unless you "pin" an album to download for offline use. You can set the quality for streaming, in order to save data. If you want to save individual songs, not the whole album, you can make a playlist, and then download that playlist.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I noticed a rather annoying thing about Google Music's Android app on my tablet on my recent trip, which led me to using Spotify more.

Traveling inside Thailand and using hotel wifi, I could stream songs from my own collection in Google Play Music just fine without any VPN required. But then what I noticed was, for some reason, the normal 1 GB of ROM space available on my tablet had suddenly dwindled to almost nothing.

After checking around, what I discovered was that even though I wasn't selecting to download those songs to my tablet, the streamed content from Google Play music was being stored on and eating up the available ROM on my tablet, and the only way to clear it seemed to be a command within the app to clear all stored content. Just doing a "cache clear" from an app like App2SD didn't get rid of the files.

And what's worse, as best as I could tell, there didn't appear to be any easy way from within the Google Play Music app to set a setting to say NO... please store the streamed content on my SD card, and not on my ROM. Google also doesn't make it easy to find just where exactly the app stores the streamed songs once they're deposited on your Android device, if you had the idea to go looking for the files manually.

So, after dealing with all that for a while and checking about solutions, I ended up spending the rest of the trip listening to music via Spotify.

With Google Music, I wouldn't care if it's taking up space on my PC... But for smartphones and tablets, ROM space is often at a premium. And streamed song content will begin eating it up very quickly.

Edited January 2, 2014 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[SoloFlyer]

^, I haven't been able to get access using TunnelBear. Spotify I now can, but haven't gone too far down that path yet.

Did you set up your Google account in Thailand initially then?

Yep. Sounds like thats the problem.

[Artist]

I noticed a rather annoying thing about Google Music's Android app on my tablet on my recent trip, which led me to using Spotify more.

Traveling inside Thailand and using hotel wifi, I could stream songs from my own collection in Google Play Music just fine without any VPN required. But then what I noticed was, for some reason, the normal 1 GB of ROM space available on my tablet had suddenly dwindled to almost nothing.

After checking around, what I discovered was that even though I wasn't selecting to download those songs to my tablet, the streamed content from Google Play music was being stored on and eating up the available ROM on my tablet, and the only way to clear it seemed to be a command within the app to clear all stored content. Just doing a "cache clear" from an app like App2SD didn't get rid of the files.

And what's worse, as best as I could tell, there didn't appear to be any easy way from within the Google Play Music app to set a setting to say NO... please store the streamed content on my SD card, and not on my ROM. Google also doesn't make it easy to find just where exactly the app stores the streamed songs once they're deposited on your Android device, if you had the idea to go looking for the files manually.

So, after dealing with all that for a while and checking about solutions, I ended up spending the rest of the trip listening to music via Spotify.

With Google Music, I wouldn't care if it's taking up space on my PC... But for smartphones and tablets, ROM space is often at a premium. And streamed song content will begin eating it up very quickly.

That's interesting. I don't have a similar problem on my Nexus 4 phone, Google Play Music is using 2 GB of cache but I still have plenty of spare space.

I said previously that I thought that GPM was buffering some tracks and I see from the GPM settings that I have set an option to Cache during playback and Automatically cache music while charging and on WiFi, so obviously it is caching some tracks. There is an option to Clear the cache but I haven't needed to use it. For me it works perfectly without any issues.

The biggest problem I have had has been understanding the menu structure but I am beginning to get the hang of it now.

I generally try to stay within the Google ecosystem as the more Google knows about my interests and tastes (including music) the better it can anticipate my needs.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

And what's worse, as best as I could tell, there didn't appear to be any easy way from within the Google Play Music app to set a setting to say NO... please store the streamed content on my SD card, and not on my ROM.

Ahh...doing a bit of searching tonight reminded me of some of the answers I found during my recent travels on this subject.

There was a flurry of news reports in early Dec. about the then-forthcoming version of Google Play Music finally including support and the choice of storing its music files on users' SD cards.

But, what a lot of those same reports left out, was that the SD Card support added to the Music app, at least for now, is being limited to KitKat-running and "some" older devices. Well, I have the latest version of Google Music on two different ICS devices with SD cards, a phone and a tablet, and the option for SD card support in Google Music isn't available in either of them.

So if you're using a KitKat device, look for that under Settings in Google Music. But for non Kitkat devices, if you don't see the storage location option under Settings, you'll know why.

BTW, in another wrinkle, apparently, there are also other ways to gain SD Card access for Google Music files on ROOTED devices, if you happen to be using one of those.

[Artist]

As my phone is a Nexus its running KitKat