Google Play Music beats Spotify for music discovery

Source: pianetatech.it

I've been discovering and listening to more music since switching from Spotify to Google Play Music. I boil this down to three reasons:

1) The idea of building a Library of music without having to create Playlists. There's a difference, and it matters.

2) Google Play Music makes it significantly simpler to download albums and singles to your device by taking out the playlist step that Spotify forces.

3) The radio on Google Play Music actually plays the song you chose first. This means I actually use it, and discover new music this way.

On the other hand though, Google Play Music's big missing piece is still an iOS app - wtf Google? Close this gap, and there's no debate to be had. Since Google have consistently supported both iOS, Android and Web with almost all major services, we have to wonder what is happening behind the scenes to create this issue.

Should I Go Android?

The decision to leave your iPhone and join the world of Android is not easy. For many people, it may not even be the right thing to do. I think it all boils down to three questions you can ask yourself. By answering these you should know the truth about which ecosystem you'll be happiest in.

1) Do you want to customise your user interface?

The easiest difference between Android and iOS to notice is that Android allows a ton more options to customize the user interface. This goes further than just icons and widgets however. Android opens up the opportunity to replace your keyboard, replace stock apps, and of course use widgets to view app content, change settings, amongst other things. Take a look at some creative home screen customizations below, and decide if this would appeal to your tastes. I took these from the last few days in the Android Themes community on Google+, but the creative options are virtually endless.

https://plus.google.com/117990190438959642727/posts/Xni4pBANZai

https://plus.google.com/112162095736133226513/posts/K7dV7u8KW3Y

https://plus.google.com/115319832733106589841/posts/dPvHy7minuF

https://plus.google.com/112498623532480607566/posts/fAMQ64PNCzD

2) Do you use Google often?

Do you use Google Now? Calendar? Gmail? Google services are born and bred on Android, and while on rare occasion the iOS experience is stylistically better, the Android version is typically a step ahead and a step more functional. A lot is said in the tech community about Google getting better at what Apple is good at, faster than Apple is getting better at what Google is good at. The meaning of this statement is ultimately that today an Android phone isn't far off the "perfection" of the iPhone, but the cloud services Google supports it with are stronger. If you use Google's services more than the competition, Android will bode well for you.

3) How much do you love mobile games?

This is a question to swing you back in the opposite direction, and I feel it's important. While the tides may slowly shift as Google improves its strengths here too, today games are still better on iOS. They tend to launch first on iOS (think Temple Run, amongst many others) if they launch on Android at all (think Kingdom Rush - my favourite mobile game, only available on iOS). The only exception to this seems to be Angry Birds, which is generally cheaper on Android (at one point a version of Angry Birds was free, but $4.99 on iOS. I forget which and when.) For the time being if you think of your device as a gaming device before all else, you might stick with iOS for the time being. That said, I love playing mobile games, and waiting a little longer for major titles hasn't bothered me much. There is a large app store full of indie games waiting to be discovered on Android, as well the opportunity to install an emulator, so you can replay those classics!

Google+ Photos: An Offline App to Replace Your Gallery

Image from healthwired.com

Earlier this week I had a conversation via Hangouts with my mum and sister, both users of Google+ since I talked them into it. We were talking about our photos, in particular the ones we had taken on our vacation in India last month. (It was awesome, by the way!) During the conversation, my mum asked a peculiar question, which was, 'Can I view our Google+ photos offline?'

In our modern, super fast internet world, this question had never come up in my mind. At home and work I have a fast wireless network. But when I heard this question I immediately felt the value that we could harvest from this app. This 'Google+ Photos' app.

Let me talk about two services where their value propositions offer great user experiences - values that a Google+ Photos app would bring to Google+.

Spotify Premium

When you have a phone or iPod Touch that you use as your primary music device, Spotify Premium's download option is indispensable. Even though I exist in my wireless networks most of the time, having my favourite playlists and albums on my device all the time gives me the comfort that wherever I am, I can listen. Shouldn't this be the same with photo albums? It's an even bigger issue for photo albums actually, because a lot of the time you want to get them out you are showing them to other people, when you're in other places. You just want them to open and be displayed - no one wants to sign into their friend's WiFi just to show a few quick snaps.

DropBox

Of course, the above point seems ridiculous when the photos are actually stored on your device anyway. Often times you took the pictures on your phone, so you just open your phone gallery. Firstly however, this isn't always the case. If you use another camera, you still want to reach those albums, and they won't be on your phone unless you download them. Dropbox is a cloud service that does file backup in an intimate and close way on your computer - it acts like a local folder. On a Mac or on a Windows device, Dropbox creates a folder that feels at home and comfortable to use. Why should you have a gallery app here, and Photos in this other app over there? Google+ Photos should bring you the feeling of your albums and memories being local, while utilising the cloud too. Think about an app that retrieves +1s and comments when connected, and keeps them even when offline. The key value of DropBox is that it makes you forget about the difference between your machine and the cloud.

So, Google+ Photos. In my vision I see a separate app, to replace your gallery app, where when connected you can view albums and pictures shared with you and shared by you. When you come across albums you love and want to keep local, you select an option to do so, just like you can on Spotify. It doesn't download these files into some abstract folder on your device, but like Spotify, it simply marks them as available offline, and like DropBox, you can forget about the difference between cloud and local.

What's in the way of Google Glass?

When it was first shown to the world, I was amazed by Google Glass. With some time however, I became a little fatigued by seeing so much press and hype, but no consumer product. Eventually I realised that Google Glass in it's current form isn't all that great. There's a long way to go, but I saw a video today that revived my interest in Glass, and the future it lays ahead for us.

The above YouTube video completely blew me away. For the past few months the media's interest, in the product has somewhat dwindled. Hands on videos of the product are interesting, but where most people see something they find cool, they don't seem to see something they wish to buy and own.

Glass is young. Watching this video, I saw a clearer vision of what potential lies ahead on the road that Google is paving. I saw a future where a blind man that speaks Italian had a face to face conversation with a deaf woman that only understands French. And why not? All the tools we need exist - we just need to refine the technology, develop the platforms, and wait for time to do it's thing.

The biggest technical issue holding Glass back at this point is the battery. Powerful abilities like those shown above can only be leveraged in day to day lives if the device is able to be constantly on, watching and listening. This is just a technical limit though, and improvements in technology are likely to solve this problem with time. The difficult part is their privacy issue - one that will only get harder with time.

The Moto X phone that Motorola and Google have just released will be a decent test of where the public's privacy opinion lies right now. The future we're heading to will require a lot of consumer confidence in Google and other tech companies to protect data. I'm very curious to see how Moto X's 'always listening' ability plays out once it's available. For the time being, the tech bloggers seem to love it.

Having said that, always watching seems to be a whole different ball game. We can't say people completely hate the Xbox's new eyes, but reaction to the Xbox One's always watching Kinect has been a little resistant. Who wouldn't be a little freaked out by a device that is so sensitive it can see your heartbeat? All the time.

Will we tolerate a Glass device that is constantly recording, I wonder? If not, what does Google need to do to convince users that this is beneficial. The advantages will be impeccably clear, as this video above can demonstrate (a visually impaired worker can be given prompts about what lies ahead, without any interaction with the device), but the privacy concerns might raise a solid brick wall for them to negotiate.