Another Google Music rumour is making the rounds, but this one, courtesy of the Guardian, seems to have a lot of credibility to it.

According to the newspaper, Google's music service is less than two months from launch, and will be part of Android Honeycomb, the tablet-optimised version of Google's mobile OS.

Sanjay Jha, chief executive of Motorola Mobility, spilled the beans himself.

"If you look at Google Mobile services [via Android] today, there's a video service, there's a music service - that is, there will be a music service," Jha said

Motorola's Xoom tablet is getting the VIP treatment from Google, serving as the demo unit for Honeycomb's big features. If anyone outside Google is privy to the company's music plans, it's Jha.

I've gotten tired of hearing the Google Music rumours. The rumor mill's been murmuring about a Google digital music service to rival iTunes since at least 2005, and last year, the Google Music rumoirs picked up speed, with the expectation that Google would have its service ready for the holidays. But this one seems legit.

As for what Google's music service will entail, it's still a mystery, but previous rumors have talked of a digital download service paired with an online storage locker, so you could store songs locally or keep them all in the cloud. The locker aspect could require a subscription fee, perhaps in the range of $25 per year, Billboard reported in September.

Another possible feature that seems like a safe bet: automatic wireless syncing of new songs to Android phones. Google already added this functionality to the Android Market, so when you buy an app on a PC, it immediately downloads to the phone. A chance to ditch iTunes' USB shackles? Yes, I'd be interested in that.

Apple, meanwhile, is reportedly building its own online music service, either as a digital locker or a streaming, subscription-based service (or both). This rumour, too, has been around the block.

Where there's smoke with these rumours, I tend to think there's fire. The tricky part is always the timing. So let's try a vague prediction: Google Music is closer to launch than ever.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.c ... ID=3261659

Why do people have this idea that there can be only one of any thing, and therefore if something new comes along it must 'kill' what is there before? There's pretty much no evidence of that happening in general. We have more than one supermarket, more than one company selling tellys, more than one selling shoes... We already actually have a mass of online music retailers - iTunes, 7Digital, Amazon MP3 and more. So Google get involved er... fine. I hope they make money at it. But the rest aren't going to just stop bothering, as long as they make money at it too.

Jon

If they sell FLAC files, I'll buy. If they don't, I won't.

Does anyone sell lossless digital music? I don't think I've ever heard of anyone doing so. The bandwidth costs required would probably eat all the profits. Course Google Music doesn't have to make a profit. However if they were loss-leading it against the iTMS and Amazon MP3 store, there'd probably end up being some kind of government investigation. You can use profit from one part to run another part provided you can show there's a plan to at least break even long term. Running a business at a loss simply to damage a competitor is rather frowned upon...

Jon

I wouldn't mind paying more than for an MP3. I just want full sound quality and no DRM to I can back it up and use it how I like.

As long as Google doesnt comes up with a half decent "media" program then they will be streets ahead of itunes.

Google = web based, probly. In fact, I'd be only mildly surprised if they went to more of a spotify model - store the data in 'the cloud' and give you access to it on all the devices you like by some mechanism like a caching client of some sort. And the odd advert, of course.

Jon

I wouldn't go for that. I want the files on my local system.