Newsletter
Samsung is in to everything – besides their smartphones and tablets, they announced a new music streaming service back in March called, of all things Milk Music…because it is “fresh and organic.” That was just what the doctor ordered because you can never have enough music streaming services. Samsung’s Milk Music is a genre-based streaming app powered by the familiar Slacker, although Samsung has added over 200 stations and offers a completely customizable dial to include whatever you want. It is free and offers unlimited streaming, can only be used on certain Samsung devices, and there is no means for off-line caching. There is now a ‘Milk Premium’ option for $3.99 a month that allows you to skip as many songs as you want and play without an internet connection.
I guess Samsung decided that Milk Music needed a new partner, so today they introduce Milk Video – a new video streaming app much like YouTube. Once again, this new service is only available in the U.S. only and only on certain Samsung devices – Galaxy S3, S3 mini, Galaxy S4, S4 mini, Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 2, Note 3, Note 4, Galaxy Note Edge and Galaxy Mega – and is available in the Play Store now. The Milk Video is not yet ready for your tablet, but that will happen in the near future.
The app is beautifully done, much like Milk Music, and is certainly more sophisticated looking then its biggest competitor, YouTube. Samsung designed the app to be simple and easy to run, with very few menus getting in the way…maybe they could use these designers for TouchWiz. Where Milk Music used the circular dial to navigate around, Milk Video uses sliding menus – simply swipe up or down on the colored side-bar to scroll between the curated feeds of Following, Popular, Comedy, Entertainment, Gaming and How to.
Samsung claims that Milk Video is not meant to compete against YouTube, but one has to wonder exactly what Samsung hopes to accomplish with their new service, however, the way its designed, it will not replace YouTube, but merely supplement it. The app definitely has its share of videos to watch – most are short and designed to watch on the bus ride to work, with not many being over 3 or 4 minutes – but understand that there is no original content as users are not able to upload their own videos. Also, this service is intended for the Samsung devices we already listed, as Samsung is enticing the HTC, LG and Sony owners to cross over to a Samsung device as well as trying to keep existing owners that get hooked on their Milk Music and Video service. Of course, all of this is subject to changes as the service matures. Please hit us up on our Google+ Page and let us know if you have tried Milk Music or the new Milk Video and what you think of them…as always we would love to hear from you.
