> This app is incompatible with all of your devices.
I have 4 different android devices, which all fully meet youtube's version requirements. This is baffling. I guess it doesn't like that i'm in germany?
Edit: Yep, after installing the APK, the app complains my account is not american. So it's just a very lazy way of region-locking with misleading error messages.
"Incompatible with device X" means "Cannot be installed on (your) device X" (be it for region restriction, lack of phone capabilities, or anything else ...), not that it cannot technically work.
Might not be super clear but the entire store works like that and always has, so it's nothing to do with youtube music.
It's not incompatible with the device, it's incompatible with the region. If it were incompatible with the device itself, you would expect it to continue being incompatible when that device was in a different country.
Technically, I believe that means it's "incompatible" with your SIM card, from which your region is derived.
As an expat, I vastly prefer Apple's approach to all this: if you have a method of payment in one country, you have a completely valid account for that country.
I'm in the UK at the moment, but have a US region Play Account via a Gmail account (a trick I learned to be able to install OpenTable for US reservations when it kept offering me UK restaurants).
The key is to use a VPN to surface from a US IP address, they are limiting install to GeoIP.
After you have installed it, you can open the app and choose a different Google Account (a non-US one) to use with the app. But it will always do a GeoIP check on opening the app, so you have to keep using the VPN. This allows you to access your existing Google Music and YouTube accounts even though you just installed under a different account.
As for the app, works really well. I like the audio vs video toggle at the top, and that it's picked up on the things I've listened to or watched within Google Music. The auto-advance onto the next video feels more intuitive than the Google Music "Start Radio..." button, and the recommendations are good.
It's also really really nice to have the music play in the background, screen off... and then to make it foreground and at that point it resumes the video, sync'd perfectly. They do seem to be playing optimised audio tracks from videos, not audio tracks.
This is just a better interface for music than Google Play Music which feels too cold and sanitised for something so emotive as music. This stands back a bit, let's the music and video step to the front.
The only catch. I can't pay for it using my UK account. So it looks like I have a couple of weeks to choose whether I want to shift my Google Play Music subscription over to my US Play Account or not. Right now... I'm thinking not, and to wait. But who knows how long the wait will be.
This seems to be an advertorial. Even when it talks about what's missing it shrugs it off like an unrealistic demand:
> The one feature I really find lacking in Music is the ability to make playlists, but I know that when it comes to music services I’m hungry for power features that don’t necessarily appeal to the masses
This article is an ad, not a review or analysis of the service.
It really seems pointless when I've been using Google All Music Access for over a year and have access to all the music I know and love, all cached on my phone for offline use.
I've not read the article, but it makes sense to remember that 'payment' can come in various forms, not just cash. Access, favors, special privileges granted, etc.
This isn't my purview, per se, but I know there is some concern about this sort of thing, particularly in political reporting which has become much less adversarial compared to the not so distant past.
You're of course unlikely to find many of these concerns voiced very loudly in the 'press.'
Sure, but that applies to basically all articles (especially political ones, as you note). Every single reporter is balancing their interest in preserving access with their goals of accuracy in publishing.
Advertisement is a specific term and applying it to all articles that you don't agree with undermines its usefulness.
As a former Dj I can say that youtube is an invaluable tool to find rare out of print vinyls. Spotify and the like only have popular music. Apart from youtube the only other option is to download illegal mp3s.
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[ 7.0 ms ] story [ 95.4 ms ] threadI have 4 different android devices, which all fully meet youtube's version requirements. This is baffling. I guess it doesn't like that i'm in germany?
Edit: Yep, after installing the APK, the app complains my account is not american. So it's just a very lazy way of region-locking with misleading error messages.
Might not be super clear but the entire store works like that and always has, so it's nothing to do with youtube music.
As an expat, I vastly prefer Apple's approach to all this: if you have a method of payment in one country, you have a completely valid account for that country.
The key is to use a VPN to surface from a US IP address, they are limiting install to GeoIP.
After you have installed it, you can open the app and choose a different Google Account (a non-US one) to use with the app. But it will always do a GeoIP check on opening the app, so you have to keep using the VPN. This allows you to access your existing Google Music and YouTube accounts even though you just installed under a different account.
As for the app, works really well. I like the audio vs video toggle at the top, and that it's picked up on the things I've listened to or watched within Google Music. The auto-advance onto the next video feels more intuitive than the Google Music "Start Radio..." button, and the recommendations are good.
It's also really really nice to have the music play in the background, screen off... and then to make it foreground and at that point it resumes the video, sync'd perfectly. They do seem to be playing optimised audio tracks from videos, not audio tracks.
This is just a better interface for music than Google Play Music which feels too cold and sanitised for something so emotive as music. This stands back a bit, let's the music and video step to the front.
The only catch. I can't pay for it using my UK account. So it looks like I have a couple of weeks to choose whether I want to shift my Google Play Music subscription over to my US Play Account or not. Right now... I'm thinking not, and to wait. But who knows how long the wait will be.
For the curious about bandwidth requirements for HD video over VPN: https://goo.gl/photos/BG7JeTxe8UNbWMGL9
> It's also really really nice to have the music play in the background
Apparently this works on the IPhone but not on Android...
> The one feature I really find lacking in Music is the ability to make playlists, but I know that when it comes to music services I’m hungry for power features that don’t necessarily appeal to the masses
This article is an ad, not a review or analysis of the service.
http://gizmodo.com/youtube-music-is-breathtakingly-pointless...
Saying that it was is a pretty major accusation and, if true, would be a gigantic breach of journalistic ethics.
There's a huge difference between a positive review and an advertisement. Conflating the two is intellectually lazy.
I've not read the article, but it makes sense to remember that 'payment' can come in various forms, not just cash. Access, favors, special privileges granted, etc.
This isn't my purview, per se, but I know there is some concern about this sort of thing, particularly in political reporting which has become much less adversarial compared to the not so distant past.
You're of course unlikely to find many of these concerns voiced very loudly in the 'press.'
Advertisement is a specific term and applying it to all articles that you don't agree with undermines its usefulness.
I like a small band called annenmaykantereit from Germany . I cant find their stuff anywhere(Apple,Spotify...) other than YouTube.