Quick warning to the cross section of you that both love your Google Music and frequently flashing new ROMs onto your device(s), which I imagine might be quite a few of you.

Google has recently put a limit on the number of ‘devices’ that a user may deauthorize in a year and at [...]]]>

Quick warning to the cross section of you that both love your Google Music and frequently flashing new ROMs onto your device(s), which I imagine might be quite a few of you.

Google has recently put a limit on the number of ‘devices’ that a user may deauthorize in a year and at just four that limit could definitely be a problem. If you weren’t already aware, the ceiling for devices that you can have authorized on a single Google Music account at any given time is ten.

I suspect if you are savvy enough to flash a new ROMs you can already see where the problem is, but for those that aren’t aware the phone is given a new ID within Google Music each time you register it after flashing a new ROM. So the same device could potentially eat up your entire quota after just a few new ROMs.

Considering the dedicated and often vocal ROM development community that Android has fostered, it’s possible that we will see some serious backlash over this which could in turn lead to a reversal or at least a softening of the policy by Google.

In the mean time if this sounds like it may be a problem for you I would recommend heading over to the XDA thread listed in the VIA link below as they are already discussing potential workarounds such as restoring accounts via Titanium Backup to avoid a new authorization.

I’m hoping this is one of those situations where the full ramifications of the policy change were not thought through properly and that we will see Google come up with a workable solution, but as the vast majority of users would never run into this problem it’s entirely possible that it will stand.

Update: It seems that Google may have fixed this problem without saying a peep about it as the deauthorization limit seems to have suddenly been lifted. I was able to deauthorize all of my current devices from my list just moments ago after having hit the limit of four this morning. There’s been no change to Google’s policy in the Play Store Support page yet so we’ll have to see if Google has replaced the restriction with something more lenient or just done away with it completely.

Update 2: Here’s the official update from Google. The upshot is that for the time being you’re free to deauthorize devices at will, but that won’t be the permanent solution.

Yesterday we made a change to our device policy for music on Google Play. Any user can associate up to 10 devices to his or her account. Once you have connected 10 devices, you may add a new device only by deauthorizing an existing one from your account, and you may do this up to four times per year.

We limit the number of times you can swap out new devices at the request of some of our music partners in an effort to limit abuse. We understand this has caused some issues for users who often deauthorize and reauthorize the same device, and we are currently re-implementing the solution in a way that works for our users and music partners.

We apologize for any inconvenience and will update this page as new changes are made.Google Play Support

According to Google insiders that spoke with CNET, the search giant’s music service is not doing as great as expected. Despite the success that Android has, and its seamless experience with Google Music, users are simply not adopting the new service. The situation has Google very disappointed, as they expected a good percentage of [...]]]>

According to Google insiders that spoke with CNET, the search giant’s music service is not doing as great as expected. Despite the success that Android has, and its seamless experience with Google Music, users are simply not adopting the new service. The situation has Google very disappointed, as they expected a good percentage of the Android population to prefer Google Music over alternatives.

The music industry has been experiencing issues since the internet became popular; it’s hard to sell music when users can easily download it (steal it) from popular sharing services. But what is even harder to do is change people’s media consumption habits. Music in the cloud is a fairly new idea, and people have not quite gotten used to it yet to gleefully adopt it. Not to mention that tiered data plans have made it less enticing to use such services, which tend to be data-heavy.

Many of those that do use streaming music services tend to lean towards services like Spotify, Rdio and Rhapsody (among others), which are subscription based, but it seems like the majority of the population is still playing music locally. And, sadly, a great percentage of these users probably still buys music via iTunes, especially if they’ve already made quite the investment with iTunes in the past.

Regardless, Google has a strong backbone in the mobile industry, which is why its expectations were not matched. At the time of Google Music’s launch, there were over 200 million activated Android phones and tablets. It wouldn’t take a big percentage of those users to make Google Music a success, right?

Google has already integrated music payments to the Android Market, and Google Music is very intuitive and simple to use with Android devices. There is also a great variety of music available on the market, so we do not know where Google is falling short. It seems to us like it is just a matter of breaking habits.

Google is not giving up on us, though. We already know that a home entertainment system is coming, and we can be pretty sure that Google Music will be deeply integrated. And we can be sure that more great things will continue to come.

Personally, after using most other music services out there, I have decided to stick with Google Music. Subscription services are great, but I found that I usually stick to the music I already like and own anyways. I was listening to the same playlists all the time and paying a monthly fee to do so. Instead, I just decided to keep everything in Google Music (or locally), and just purchase new albums as necessary.

We are interested to see where are readers stand in all of this, though. More specifically, how much Android enthusiasts use Google Music. What music service do you guys use, if any? Do you prefer uploading your music and listening to it in the cloud, or are subscription services better for your needs?

Let us know what you think, and let’s see what Google has for the future. Things are looking very promising with Google’s recent approach in hardware.

Have you purchased any music from the Android Market yet? Google just offered up some free hit tracks from Drake, Maroon 5, and Mary J. Blige in order to promote their Google Music service. Just click the links below to be redirected to the Android Market and add the free music to your library (sorry, [...]]]>

Have you purchased any music from the Android Market yet? Google just offered up some free hit tracks from Drake, Maroon 5, and Mary J. Blige in order to promote their Google Music service. Just click the links below to be redirected to the Android Market and add the free music to your library (sorry, appears to be US only).

• Drake “Take Care (feat. Rihanna)” - http://goo.gl/x1aGw
• Drake “Make Me Proud (feat. Nicki Minaj)” - http://goo.gl/Cb5Ri
• Drake “Fancy” - http://goo.gl/4BzzA
• Maroon 5 “Moves Like Jagger” - http://goo.gl/3Y8Xf
• Maroon 5 “How” - http://goo.gl/OowOP
• Mary J. Blige “Need Someone” - http://goo.gl/ITXH0

These latest free tracks are in addition to the Free Song of the Day and the hundreds of other free tracks. Let us know about your Google Music experiences in the comments below.

Back in late December, Android Developer Andrew Neal revealed some of the new features coming to the CyanogenMod 9 music app that had control freaks everywhere dying for a taste. While the default music app in Android 4.0 isn’t terrible, it does lack much in the way of customization and control. Andrew Neal’s new [...]]]>

Back in late December, Android Developer Andrew Neal revealed some of the new features coming to the CyanogenMod 9 music app that had control freaks everywhere dying for a taste. While the default music app in Android 4.0 isn’t terrible, it does lack much in the way of customization and control. Andrew Neal’s new CyanogenMod music app aims to fix that. Finally, last night, Neal took to his site Seeing Pixels and released an early 1.0 build of the music app for Android 4.0 devices.

At first glance, the CyanogenMod 9 music app (it just appears as Music with a blue icon on your Android device) isn’t all that different from the default music player. The default theme is slightly varied from what comes stock with Ice Cream Sandwich, but you might not even notice if you weren’t looking. The total overhaul comes from the setting menu.

There’s a ton of options and setting under the customization menu option, but that’s only the beginning. There’s some in-depth audio options including a full equalizer with bass boost, shake and flip gesture support and a theme chooser. The music theme template for the app was also released yesterday, along with a Google Music theme. The default theme that comes with the app looks much more native on Android 4.0 than Google Music, but options are what this app is all about.

As much as I like the CyanogenMod 9 music app, I need Google Music. All my music is on Google Music now. And the CyanogenMod 9 music app lacks Google Music support. Because of this, it could never become my go-to music app for Android. I will keep it installed for anything local, but that won’t be much.

To try out the new music app for CyanogenMod 9, head on over to Seeing Pixels now. Be sure to let us know how you like it.

The default music player in Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, leaves much to be desired in the way of customization. There are options to change some of the settings for Google Music and playback, but that’s about as far as customizations go. The fine folks behind CyanogenMod are looking to change that, for rooted and [...]]]>

The default music player in Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, leaves much to be desired in the way of customization. There are options to change some of the settings for Google Music and playback, but that’s about as far as customizations go. The fine folks behind CyanogenMod are looking to change that, for rooted and non-rooted users alike.

Android Developer Andrew Neal recently sat down with The Verge and spilled some details on CyanogenMod 9’s upcoming music application. Among the normal options found throughout the default Android music app, CM9’s music app will feature fully customizable notification area playback options, shake controls, the ability to search the Android Market, options for setting music as ringtones and gesture recognition.

In keeping with the spirit of CyanogenMod ROMs, the music app will eventually come equipped with a full theme engine, allowing users to take total control of their music playback experience.

Fortunately for non-rooted users, the CyanogenMod 9 music app will be made available as a stand-alone download in the Android Market.

Progress on the rest of CyanogenMod 9 is coming along quite nicely. Every day, more and more devices land ports and early alphas of the ROM. The Droid X and Droid 2 Global are just two devices to see their own version of CM9 come out in the last week. Surely, we can expect to see many more devices gain compatibility soon.

Now that the endorphins have worn off and we’ve had a little time to digest Google’s Music Store launch, we can begin to tackle both the good and the bad that result from Google’s Music Service.

One of the most acclaimed additions to the service was the tight integration with Google+. Users can purchase [...]]]>

Now that the endorphins have worn off and we’ve had a little time to digest Google’s Music Store launch, we can begin to tackle both the good and the bad that result from Google’s Music Service.

One of the most acclaimed additions to the service was the tight integration with Google+. Users can purchase songs on the Google Music Store and share their purchases with people in their circles, who in turn receive 1 free listen to the full song you purchased.

While being able to see and hear what your friends and acquaintances are purchasing on Google Music is an awesome addition to the Music service, the tight Google+ integration potentially has at least one significant drawback. If Google’s Music Store takes off, streams are going to be more cluttered. For every person out there who enjoys sharing and receiving shared music, another one doesn’t, and Music shares are automatically shared to the main feed for all who’ve circled you to see.

Google can easily remedy this potential issue by integrating Music similarly to how they integrated Games. Games has its own separate tab on the Google+ home screen, and Games notifications are buried within the Games tab, leaving your main stream clutter free (unless you count the hundreds of animated gifs floating around out there).

This solution would let users who are interested in seeing what others are listening to the ability to quickly and easily find music posts, and would keep streams clean for users who don’t really care about shared music.

We’re aware that launch day is not an accurate projection for how this service will be used in the future after the excitement has died down, but we also recognize that Music sharing has the potential to be big. With over 200 million Android devices out there, and Google heavily pushing their Google+ social networking service into all aspects of their business, we are not likely to see Google+ music sharing fizzle out anytime soon.

What do you guys think? Is building out a separate Music section in Google+ a good idea, or are we making much ado about nothing?

Today Google held their special event to officially announce Google Music, which included a ton of mini-announcements. There was literally so much information that it could turn into a dozen posts, but we captured the hightlights in bullet form after the jump. Read on for all the latest details.

Are you ready to crank the volume up to 11? You’ve seen the event invite and leaked screens. Now it’s time to watch the live show. Google’s special music event goes live in 30 minutes. Tune in at youtube.com/android. Developing…

TechnoDroidVe have gotten their hands on screenshots from the oft-rumored Google Music Store, which we expect Google will launch on November 16 as a sub-store of the Android Market. Though we’ve previously dug up music store icons from deep in the .apk of the Android Market before, TechnoDroidVe have provided the first market screenshots.

Google has just sent out invites to an event centered around Google Music. Unfortunately they aren’t playing any fun games with the invite; it’s just white text on a blue background. So there was a bit more to the invite than we originally believed, check it out in the gallery below. There’s an image [...]]]>

Google has just sent out invites to an event centered around Google Music. Unfortunately they aren’t playing any fun games with the invite; it’s just white text on a blue background. So there was a bit more to the invite than we originally believed, check it out in the gallery below. There’s an image below the text, which contains among other things a T-Mobile logo, so feel free to let that fuel your guesses as to what Google has up their sleeve.

They did elect to title the event “These Go to Eleven,” which is probably my favorite quote from This is Spinal Tap, but I’m not really seeing that as a worthwhile hint. (If you have a favorite quote please share in comments, I love that movie.)

Anyway, when we last tuned in to the Google Music rumor channel in October, we had some mobile browser captures showing an option to “Shop Android Market” for music. This coupled with Andy Rubin’s comments at the All Things D event in China last month point to the unveiling of the Google Music purchasing component. A music service that didn’t let you buy music wasn’t the most logical thing, at least not from a business standpoint, so it’s good to see that Google has finally managed to work things out with the music industry.

And on the plus side, we do still have a degree of mystery involved here. Andy Rubin quite pointedly said that their service “will have a little twist; it will have a little Google in it. It won’t just be selling 99-cent tracks.” The going wisdom is that the twist is a sharing component, possibly integrated with Google +, but there hasn’t been any definitive confirmation.

Next Wednesday at 4:00 PM CST we’ll have our answer. You can watch the livestream at www.YouTube.com/Android. In the meantime what are your guesses for the twist? Do you think it’s a sharing component and do you view that as a potential killer feature for Google Music?

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