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Comment by matart | Hacker News Reader

I really like spotify because I can use it on my phone, PS3, laptop, etc. My phone can be the remote to my sound system in another room.

I also have a small data plan on my phone so I do not stream music. Spotify allows me to download their songs for playing offline.

Does Google Music provide these or similar?

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Spotify also has a native(-ish) OSX client (can you use Google Music outside the browser?) and excellent playlist drag/drop and sharing support. Plus, I love their iOS user interface. No other service has come close in either area.

I just wish they had better local file support.

Forget the "-ish". Actually, forget the "native". Their app is no more or less native than Rdio's was.

You have to use 3rd party apps to get Google Music outside the browser, but it's still essentially just using the regular web page with the addition of being able to use the media keys.

You can use the media keys with Google Play Music in a browser, at least in Chrome. No third-party app required.

I could be wrong, but I don't think those work globally (without an addon). Or has that changed recently?

It requires a bundled by default, Google Music app. If you disable or delete it, the media keys will stop working. Here is the download link for the app :

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-play-music/...

I use gear music player for google music https://www.gearmusicplayer.com/. It's fantastic (but not free).

What an incredible app. Just bought it!

A couple of years ago Spotify rewrote their clients to use CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework), so since then their clients are in some sense native and in some sense not, and much more consistent across platforms.

Anyway, I agree with you that they have been pushing the envelope in terms of mobile functionality, especially iOS. Lately I'm not happy with how Android has crippled their lock screen experience by screwing up the lock screen widget API - but that's not Spotify's fault.

To any Spotify skeptics, I highly recommend trying the premium service. The social feed, cross-device sync, BPM matching for runners, collaborative playlists, Spotify Connect (ability to switch and control music playing on another device), Algoriddm Djay integration, all changed the way I experience music. Their radio/suggestions engine is not as good as Pandora's, but is slowly improving. The only thing that is sort of a letdown is the visualizations API, but I can see why it's not a priority.

> A couple of years ago Spotify rewrote their clients to use CEF

Eh. And not to sound like a cranky old man, but that shit sucks.

It's ridiculous that their "app" needs 20-30 seconds to boot on a modern computer. It's a damned music player. Plus, when the machine is under load, it skips like a 1993 disc player. And the damned thing crashes routinely.

Pre-CEF I was terribly impressed by their mac client. It's been a pretty ugly cliff they've fallen off though. They did a developer blog post some time ago detailing how teams are all using separate JS routines and libs... and I have to say, I wasn't surprised. It's rare that a popular app regresses in performance and usability quite as much as they have.

It takes roughly 2.5 seconds to load on my machine, not sure what's happening on yours that means it takes 20-30 seconds.

That's still 5-10x slower than it should be.

I use Google music, mostly because I got in on it early and get it at small discount for $7.99/mo.

I use it on my phone, in my car (via bluetooth from my phone home stereo (via bluetooth from my phone), television (via chromecast from my phone), and laptop (via the web).

It also allows me to upload my offline library, which was unique when it came out (I think?) but isn't so much now (right?).

My wife has Spotify, and she uses it the exact same way. Eventually we'll decide on one based on something trivial (like me being willing to switch, and she being not willing) and do a family account. And once we do, that will be that until the service closes or changes drastically. The services aren't that much different.

No uploading your offline library was not unique when it came out nor unique now. Initially Apple's implementation was much better since it fingerprinted the song and linked it to their library so you only had to upload songs not in their library.

And actually the services are quite different if you spend a lot of time with them. I switched from Spotify to Apple Music and now considering buying both.

Google Music has definitely used fingerprinting for some time - I think from its inception. I haven't used Spotify for a long time, so I'm not sure how it works.

Spotify does not allow you to upload your music or anything like that. You simply have access to their full catalog, and can choose to download any part of it for offline consumption.

This is false, this feature definitely exists.

Correction: A local spotify install can find music on your computer which can be played through the spotify client, but you cannot UPLOAD this music for use on other clients.

The Spotify desktop client can act as a Media Player for your other media, but you cannot upload it like you can with other services (which would be pointless, seeing as you already have access to 100% of Spotify's catalog).

Yes, GPM has supported fingerprinting for a really long time.

But absolutely not from inception. iTunes Match had about a six month lead on that. It was a major differentiator at the time.

(i also prefer spotify)

google music also allows you to remote stream music, as long as it has a chromecast plugged in (there's no support outside that afaik)

it also allows you to download music

you can use on your phone and laptop, but i don't think there's console support right now.

You can also cast to anything by Sonos, though it's a bit buggier.

I was also interested in whether Google Music supported offline music playing since I have rdio and rely on that feature. It looks like it does: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1250232?hl=en

And they just added this awesome jogging feature that finds songs that match a specific BPM.

Google's UI is, as always, horrendous. Big fan of Spotify as well.

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