Why does Google Play Music never come up in any of these discussions? I've found Google's recommendation engine to be far beyond competitors. They also allow uploading your own library which no other service out there does. Plus, you get Youtube Red for free with GPM, which is great value. They have the same family plan, and 320kbps.
Apple Music doesn't include iTunes Match, they're complementary: while Apple Music does perform matches like iTunes Match, iTunes Match gives you DRM-free AAC 256 as downloads while Apple Music matches are DRM-ized.
This means that if you use source files to match with Apple Music then delete the sources, you lost them, whereas with iTunes Match you would have sort of "converted" them.
You can see the difference by adding the "Kind" column in the "Songs" view of iTunes.
I've never used iTunes match, but it sounds like you are "matching" your music signature which music that is already on Apple Music. Can you upload brand new songs that are not on the system with it? This is a major reason why I went with GPM, a significant number of the music in my library was not on any streaming service, and back then, it was the only way to get those albums streamed for me.
When I tried it for the free month, it was really unresponsive at times. The UI wasn't even that terrible, it was just it's responsiveness. One example being that it would hang almost every time I opened it while it was playing something, so I would have to wait 10 sec before I could do what I wanted to do. Spotify's, and even Apple Music's apps are much better, at least on iOS. It was cool that I was able to upload a lot of my video game music that isn't up for streaming anywhere, and YouTube Red was nice as I do watch a lot of YouTube content, but I had to leave because of the app.
Now I use Spotify for most of my music and GPM for uploaded stuff, because that part is actually free, surprisingly.
Having used Apple and Spotify I really like what Google is doing. They bought Songza a few years ago and their station recommended engine is so much better. You pick from moods, time of day, feelings, intensity, location, etc. Also Chromecast is much nicer to use than than Bluetooth based solutions.
lack of playlist folders is the main thing that made me move back to spotify. I was using Google music for a year or two and made maybe 80 or so playlist before it got to much to handle. I had way more playlists on spotify and I would have moved them over to Google if there was a way of organising them
most of the new music i find these days is on discover weekly so I don't have as much of a need to upload tracks.
it is really odd that none of the other services have added that feature yet. talk about being behind! its been 7 years
another thing that bugged me about Google music is the albums and singles being mixed up and also the album view not showing the order by year. it seems to be just random.
but apart from that its pretty decent and it is odd that its not mentioned as much as the others
I use apple match (not apple music), which allows uploads of your own music to play anywhere.
I'm not sure why google doesn't get much mention, neither does napster (formally rhapsody) which a friend uses and likes. or amazon music for that matter..
Spotify has (or had, I haven't used it in years) a similar feature called Local Files. You have to be on the same network as the computer to sync the files, and there's little metadata on them, but you should still be able to comingle local and Spotify music. It's not quite the same, but it's something.
It's definitely nowhere near the same. My music is at home, and the whole reason started using a music subscription is exactly to listen to it at work or at the gym. If I was home, there are dozens of free services that stream your music locally.
It's pretty close. If you use the download feature on a playlist that contains local files while in the same network, the file is copied to the device. So you'd have it at the gym or at work, you just need to make sure you've downloaded it to the device first.
It's basically music upload without the upload (and therefore always-available nature).
That's fair, but it's still not a negative. I'm curious what it lacks that makes everyone go towards other services. My point is that it has everything, and more.
I've curious, when was that? I know that Google's engine has improved quite a bit over the years. Considering it's 7 years old, I'm sure it has changed quite a bit since the early days.
What is it lacking that no one ever considers it?