Today Microsoft just released its Xbox Music streaming service to Android device owners. Of course, to use the app, users are required to have an Xbox Music account similar to other services offered by Google, Apple, or Amazon. Microsoft’s service allows access to all of a person’s songs and albums on Windows, Xbox and Windows Phone.
In the company’s blog post, Jerry Johnson General Manager of Xbox Music, talked a lot about solving the problem of other services being “complicated” or “disconnected.” Apparently, bringing Xbox Music solves this problem better than Google’s Play Music.
As a fan of music, I don’t think enjoying the songs I love should be this complicated or disconnected. To solve this problem, last year my team introduced Xbox Music, an all-in-one music service that gives you the independence to stream music for free, subscribe to all the music you want or download to own your favorite songs. And it’s all integrated across your tablet, PC, phone and TV.
Unfortunately, this offering from Microsoft doesn’t come with the ability to stream music offline. This is a huge feature in today’s music streaming services, as plenty of popular music apps such as Rdio, Spotify, MOG, etc. offer this very feature. Although Microsoft did say on its blog that offline use will be hitting both Android and iOS in “coming months,” which doesn’t assure users that they will see it this year.
Judging from the slides, it doesn’t look so bad. However the application is playing catch up to many of the other choices on the market.
Via Microsoft