Google has purchased Candian firm PushLife for what’s rumored to be $25 million. What exactly do they do? They make it possible for your Android or BlackBerry device to play music from your computer via online streaming, and said music can even be from your iTunes library, at least the tracks with no DRM. Back during Google I/O 2010 the search firm showed off what a potential future scenario would look like if you could stream all the music on your PC straight to your mobile phone and since then Amazon has managed to launch just that in a product they’re calling “Cloud Player“. Doesn’t anyone actually realize how insane all of this really is? You buy music, which you then have to download to your computer, then you have to upload that same file to another computer, one located in a server farm in a state that has cheap electricity, and then you install an application on your device so you can access those songs, all because you’re either A) too cheap to buy a larger microSD card or B) too lazy to sync your phone to your PC.
There’s a better way and it’s called Spotify, Rdio, MOG, Rhapsody, or the many other subscription services out there that give you access to a library of million of tracks, more than you’ll ever be able to listen to in a lifetime, as long as you keep on paying a pitifully tiny monthly fee. If you can’t afford the $10 a month to use these services, then chances are you don’t have a large music library anyway, so a high capacity memory card is right up your ally.
Anyway, we’re likely to hear more about the PushLife service at Google I/O 2011 in May, and expect Apple to launch something similar at their Worldwide Developers Conference in June, if not then at their annual iPod event that has traditionally taken place in September.