Google music out of Beta and in your [US] Android Market
By Thomas Newton
Google music has just been taken out of Beta, it looks fantastic with tight desktop and smartphone integration, but is unfortunately still exclusive to the US for the foreseeable future.
The launch event opened at 2pm in Los Angeles with Jamie Rosenberg highlighting that 200 million Android activations, Google+ and unrivalled cloud capabilities put Google in an incredible position to showcase and spread music.
Taking you through the journey, Google music begins with Music Manager, a desktop client that manages entire libraries of music. After the music is managed, it is uploaded to Google's cloud to be enjoyed from anywhere.
This includes from the Google music app for Android which has just been updated to version 4.0.9 for all our friends across the pond. Android Market has also seen an update and now incorporates music, allowing you to buy, browse and discover tracks without having to open a web browser or a third party app.
And it gets even better than that: when you buy a track, Google+ integration is so tight that you can donate a full free play of it to your circles. Once they receive your donated track, they can play it back once on Google+ from a web browser or through their Google+ Android app. With other features including a free song every day and over 13 million tracks licenced already, Google music looks pretty incredible.