Google is ready to expand into the music streaming world with a new subscription-based service. Its Play Music All Access service is already available online and on Android devices, but will soon be made available for iOS devices.
The streaming service launched on May 15th and is available at $9.99 a month with a 30-day free trial. It combines online radio and on-demand streaming, so it will let users pick what music they want to hear.
Early users of Google’s new service are impressed by its quality and intuitive controls, which provide a grid of recommendations and a search bar. It provides options with each song such as adding it to a library or just going to a radio station. There’s even the option to share the song’s YouTube music video to your friends on Google+.
“In Google’s fundamental DNA… is that we wanted to be universally accessible, and I think that philosophy carries through to today,” says Sundar Pichai, senior VP for Android, Chrome and Google Apps at Google. “A couple of weeks from now, we’re going to launch Google All Access Music… the teams are working like crazy to make it available on iOS.”
As this service has already proven popular for Android users, we can assume that it will do just as well on iOS devices. It’s made itself out to be a challenge for Spotify, Pandora, and other music streaming services, which is pretty par for the course with Google’s other creations. Maybe the price tag of ten bucks a month will scare away some potential users, but with all the options for selecting songs, learning about them, setting up playlists and exploring and finding new songs and artists, it is doing plenty to make itself worth the money.
Those interested are encouraged to try out the free trial. When it comes to iOS devices in the coming weeks, we can expect to see plenty of new users, though whether they’ll prefer it to the “99 cents to buy a song” model that iTunes uses will be another matter entirely.
Edited by
Rich Steeves 
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