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Android product manager Yu Kuan-Lin was in Sydney for a Think Google mobile event, and he was talking up their upcoming streaming music service. The unnamed product, which is designed to extend cloud tech to the music piece of your Android mobile, is now being given a “holidays” release timeframe. Previous reports on Google’s streaming music product suggested a Fall 2010 launch. In either case, this service seems placed for the Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) release.
Google is clearly hoping to trump Apple at their own game by perfecting a music player that doesn’t require syncing with users’ desktop computers. There are plenty of rumors that Apple is working on a cloud-based version of iTunes, to raise their profile in content streaming. Apple’s acquisition of Lala (a streaming music service) certainly points in that direction.
Meanwhile Google had acquired Simplify Media, which would enable a desktop client that could access DRM-less music from remote mobile devices. And Vic Gundotra had suggested that since Android is already designed to update and sync wirelessly, cloud-based streaming music is the way Google will go. Your music collection would always be as close as your mobile.
Would this turn your Android phone into an iPhone killer? We’ll certainly be keeping an ear to the ground on these developments.
Reporting from Australia: Digital Media