The soon to open Google Music Store might be one of the worst kept secrets in the industry. A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times said that Google's answer to iTunes was close to launching and Andy Rubin mentioned that the opening of the service would be coming shortly at last week's AsiaD conference in Hong Kong.
Another sign that the Google Music Store is close to opening
A huge sign that the Google Music Store is about to open reveals itself when you go to the Google Music landing page at music.google.com. From your phone, you are presented with a link (which currently is not in operation) to the Android Market where you can, "Get songs from your favorite artists in Android Market, including hundreds of free tracks." The link, when it is up and running, is set up to take you to https://market.android.com/music.
The link on the top of the page that says "Get Android App" sends you to the Google Music Beta app which offers a limited free trial, but does not allow you to purchase tunes from the Android Market. Longer than expected negotiations with the record labels is holding this feature back. The app allows you to store up to 20,000 songs for free and lets you access them from any Android device running Froyo or higher. You will also be able to create your own playlist and listen to your songs even when offline.
Right now, it is available only in the U.S. and it requires Flash to be installed. If you want to start your music collection now, some free tunes are available from the service. Add all of this functionality to a brand new Google Music Store, and it looks like iTunes will have some tough competition.
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