Android's Music purchasing process is a PITA for me.

[Eazy123]

Please bear with me on this one, and let me know if I'm wrong anywhere, because I admit I may be doing something wrong...

I love that Android has a music store. I really do, and I really want to use it. A few things are keeping me from enjoying it, however.

When I find a song I want, I hit purchase, agree to the terms, etc. So where's my song? I have to go into the Accounts and Sync (I don't auto-sync because it drains my battery), manually sync, and then the song is synced with my phone.

But it's not synced with my phone. It's in my account…in the cloud. So I can stream it, which would also drain my battery more quickly, or I could make it available offline in the music app. That's another step. So I do that.

I don't like Google's Music app. PowerAMP is much, much better IMO. So I open up PowerAMP, and where's my song? Not there. Turns out it's in Android/data/com.google.android.music/cache. And if I attempt to play that file through PowerAMP, the tags don't exist and the song name is some number with an .mp3 extension.

So what do I have to do? I have to find a computer, go to music.google.com, download the song from my account to my computer, and move it to my phone manually, which oddly enough keeps the tags and song info all intact, plus I can play it in PowerAMP just fine. Which begs the question: Why in the world can I not do the same thing on my phone? Why can't I just purchase and have the actual mp3 download straight to my phone instead of dealing with streaming, auto-synching and the cloud?

It should be much simpler than this, and maybe it is. If so, please, PLEASE tell me where I'm going wrong because this is driving me nuts. I am not an Apple fanboy AT ALL, but my brother has his iPhone, and when he purchases a song on his phone, the song is on his phone. No farting around. I want that.

 

[Tre Lawrence]

It is a bit clunky, IMHO.

I still prefer Amazon. It is straightforward OTA purchasing that can be used on multiple household devices.

 

[Eazy123]

It is a bit clunky, IMHO.

I still prefer Amazon. It is straightforward OTA purchasing that can be used on multiple household devices.

Have you had many issues with Amazon's music app? I wouldn't use the player, just the market part - but I've heard it runs constantly, plus I've heard that it cannot be uninstalled once installed.

 

[Tre Lawrence]

It came on my EVO, so I cannot attest to the uninstall part. I am rooted, so I could remove it if I wanted to. Not had any issues. I don't use the player, just use it to purchase music.

They give free mp3 codes out every so often, which is cool.

 

[Eazy123]

It came on my EVO, so I cannot attest to the uninstall part. I am rooted, so I could remove it if I wanted to. Not had any issues. I don't use the player, just use it to purchase music.

They give free mp3 codes out every so often, which is cool.

Nice! I might give it a shot then, thanks. Shame Google can't get something so simple straight.

 

[bluemike8]

yea i agree

 

[zorak950]

Google's model works extremely well if you don't mind streaming and just use their apps with it. I agree, though; the absence of genuine file syncing makes it a pain if you want to use third party apps with your music.

The need to manually set individual albums/artists/songs for local playback is annoying, but that's honestly something Google can (and hopefully will) fix with a settings toggle.

 

[Eazy123]

Google's model works extremely well if you don't mind streaming and just use their apps with it. I agree, though; the absence of genuine file syncing makes it a pain if you want to use third party apps with your music.

The need to manually set individual albums/artists/songs for local playback is annoying, but that's honestly something Google can (and hopefully will) fix with a settings toggle.

I don't doubt that one bit...Google did well, and I love the look and navigation of Google's music store as well. Even IF I only used Google's app (which IS nice, just sorely lacking in comparison to PowerAMP) - when I'm at work or at my place I have a spotty signal, so I prefer having the actual song on my phone. I just can't get behind the whole cloud storage/streaming revolution that's going on.

 

[zorak950]

I don't doubt that one bit...Google did well, and I love the look and navigation of Google's music store as well. Even IF I only used Google's app (which IS nice, just sorely lacking in comparison to PowerAMP) - when I'm at work or at my place I have a spotty signal, so I prefer having the actual song on my phone. I just can't get behind the whole cloud storage/streaming revolution that's going on.

I definitely sympathize with you there. Data coverage (not to mention bandwidth and caps) just isn't to the point yet where I feel like I can keep things I want to access on mobile in the cloud. It's not a bad concept, it just seems... premature in a lot of cases still. Even within a large city you'll run into dead zones, and if you get out of the urban setting it's a crapshoot. It's frustrating feeling like you aren't sure you'll be able to access your files when you go someplace new, and knowing there are places you are day to day where they're inaccessible as well.

Sync is a clumsy compromise between cloud and local storage to be sure, but it has the benefit of taking advantage of data when you have it rather than counting on its being available at the moment you want to open a file. Google's model is a bit ahead of its time I think.

 

[Tre Lawrence]

Can't argue with your points. I too prefer local music. For now, at least.

 

[Tre Lawrence]

Just learned that Google Music does allow you to share music with 5 devices.