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Google Music is driving me nuts...

BCrawford

Member
When I first tried it out for the nexus, I loved it. The interface was exactly what I was looking for. Thumbs up or down, clicking on the artist of a song takes you to that directory(same with album), and the track change buttons are big enough to hit while driving without error(although this may be due more to the screen size of the nexus, rather than the app).

I already had all my music in the cloud so I went with it for a while. Before long the streaming aspect was bothering me. Track changes were not instant and when in a spotty service area your pretty much screwed. Keep in mind that I mostly use the music app while driving. The next thing that bothered me was the way the files are handled when they are cached on the device. I may be a little crazy about the folder structure of my music, but I can't imagine I'm the only one. Music stores all the files in one directory with no names, only numbers. If I wanted to make a ringtone or use the movie studio app how can I find the song?

So, I decide I'm gonna start from scratch and load most of my collection on the device and use music mainly without the streaming feature. I set the program to not 'cache music' and to display 'offline music only'. This fixes all of my issues. I can shuffle all as I'm driving and use thumbs up to create a favorites playlist(quick and easy). It even syncs my thumbs up back to the cloud. This works great. For a while.

Now I'm noticing every time music receives an update(which I had set to auto) I lose all my local thumbs up. So the only way I can get to them is to turn off displaying 'offline music only' and when I do this music wants to stream the songs from the cloud instead linking to the music on my device. Now when I look at my collection there are doubles. They are not cached on the device, but merely linking to the file in the cloud. Not cool.

I'm getting really tired of having to fix my music every couple weeks. I was using doubletwist on the D1, but I prefer music for the pros I listed above. If anyone has any alternatives they could point me to such as ways to get around the issues above or replacements for music which have the pros I listed I would greatly appreciate it. Sorry for the rant but it has been driving me crazy. :blink:
 
I'm not a big fan of either the Google Music store or player. You mentioned the funky naming of files you received from the Google Music store and that really upset me...having to retag info. I also find the music player does not have enough features for my preferences.

My solution was to use the Amazon mp3 store which downloads files using commonly accepted parameters and using PowerAmp for my player. PowerAmp will support all the gesture oriented navigation you like and also allow you to manage your music structure. Built-in equalizer, other tone shaping tools and even has a widget for the notification bar so I don't have to unlock my phone to change tracks (separate add-in). Also optimized for ICS.

You may want to check it out.

My 2 cents.
 
By any chance does power amp connect to google's cloud. That would be cool if so. Wonder if it's possible for them to add the feature or if Google has it locked down..

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By any chance does power amp connect to google's cloud. That would be cool if so. Wonder if it's possible for them to add the feature or if Google has it locked down..

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Google has it locked down as far as I know. I don't think any other program, can make use of the cloud features.
 
Love Google for the most part, but this Google Music app leaves a bit to be desired. I still haven't been able to get used to this uncomfortable interface. I just don't use Google Music much because I just don't like it. My feeling is that Google just tries everything from music to browsers, phones, wallet, tv's etc. Some work well some don't. Google tends to throw things at the wall and waits to see what sticks. You can't do everything great when you're trying to do produce products in so many categories....This music app has potential but I don't see Google doing much to push this app to the next level of being an easy, predictable, likable and a music player you would enjoy using...oh well there's always alternatives.
 
I like google music but I too have had issues. Apparently my market account is linked to my youtube account (for some weird reason?) and I uploaded and set up my google music account with my gmail account.

So if I purchase any tracks on my phone (via my youtube account) then they don't show up on my google music account (set up with my gmail account) unless I switch accounts.

Very annoying and impractical. I never even entered my youtube account into the market but set it up when I needed to access youtube on my phone, in the app.

Recently some of my tracks found their way into my main collection but it's still not very easy to make it all play nice. Streaming isn't a problem for me though, since I have great reception in my city pretty much everywhere I go.

Sent from my Droid Incredible on 2.3.4 using the DroidForums app
 
i just wish i could get my google music to upload all my songs...it gets stuck on song 649 out of 3000 EVERYTIME... ive tried everthing.. and reinstalling on my computer and nothing works
 
I actually love Google Music. I use it all the time - I cache the songs I listen to the most and stream the rest. The interface takes a little getting used to but I can get past that. I do wish the Music store had a better and bigger music selection. So far anything I've wanted to purchase isn't available. I'm still kinda old school in that I like to buy CDs and rip em to my PC and then upload to the cloud anyway. But being able to stream the same music to my phone and my work PC without managing two different libraries is great.
 
Google has it locked down as far as I know. I don't think any other program, can make use of the cloud features.

This is true. My understanding is that Google has not released the APK for Google Music which would enable others music player providers to modify their product for "the cloud." On the other hand, when you stream music you are trading-off some audio quality for convenience. PowerAmp (for example) is really targeted at people in the "audiophile" market and they would typically not choose to stream music regularly. Consequently, I'm not sure high-end 3rd party music player providers would adjust their product for "the cloud." IMHO! :biggrin:
 
By any chance does power amp connect to google's cloud. That would be cool if so. Wonder if it's possible for them to add the feature or if Google has it locked down..

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Someone pointed me to this the other day, so I might as well share. It supposedly pulls your cloud music and lets you use it in a variety of players ( https://market.android.com/details?id=com.t3hh4xx0r.cloudsniper )

To the OP, I HIGHLY recommend PowerAmp!! Been using it for 2 years, and have tried many alternatives since then but I always seem to come back to PowerAmp. I can't recommend it enough. Also, they finally added the ability to allow the UI to be skinned in the latest update, and yesterday they said they are almost done making an SDK so developers can start theming it :]
 
Someone pointed me to this the other day, so I might as well share. It supposedly pulls your cloud music and lets you use it in a variety of players ( https://market.android.com/details?id=com.t3hh4xx0r.cloudsniper )

This is a very interesting app. Thanks for sharing. The only thing I noticed while reading the app description was the claim that other music players would not find Google music. I use PowerAmp and it finds my Google music. The problem is the id3 tags are screwed-up so I have to fix them. That's what makes Google Music a pain in the tush for me! :biggrin:
 
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You can download the desktop client to google music and then download all your purchased tracks with it to your computer. They will be very organized in separte folders and properly tagged and stuff. Then transfer them to your phone. I know that defeats the purpose of streaming. I only download my favorite songs to my phone and then stream the others when I'm in the mood for them. The desktop client downloads them perfectly and I don't know why the phone client does it like it does.

Edit: sometimes when using the google music app I have double songs I guess because there is one in the cloud and one on the phone. I use poweramp most of time and only use the google app when I need to stream something not on the phone. The desktop client is the same program you use to upload all your music into the cloud. Somewhere in the settings is an option to download all your purchased songs.
 
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