Uploading was a bitch, because half my music files were uncompressed FLAC files. The ones that weren't uncompressed were the ones I bought online, legally free (musicians giving them away for free), or ripped long ago before I realized I should be utilizing FLAC.
It took me 3 days to upload 681 music files. And when you select the music manager program to upload at the fastest rate possible, it sucks your entire bandwidth, effectively preventing any browsing online during that time. The upload manager is a bit quirky, because it doesn't always "start upload now" when you hit the "start upload now" button in the Advanced tab.
Now that I've got *some* of my music uploaded, I'm listening to a blend of free music and my uploaded music, which is nice, really. I dig all of the older jazz music that's available for free, with artists like Aretha Franklin, Billie Holliday, Thelonious Monk and more.
Will I try to sync other folders and upload more music? Maybe a few more, but definitely not any more uncompressed music. It's not feasible to upload my entire collection...it would probably take a few months at the speed of Clear, and they'd probably send me a nasty letter that I was hogging the bandwidth.
Oh, and since the Android app requires 2.2 or higher, I'm shit out of luck until I buy a new phone or a tablet...either of which may occur soon, or not.
If you're keeping track, iCloud doesn't upload your music, but instead searches your music and figures out what it is, then uses its vault of music online to stream to you. Google Music actually uploads and converts your uncompressed FLAC music to a suitable 320Kbps bitrate. Or in other words, keep your original, uncompressed files locked away at home on your network drive, lest you wish to lose some fidelity forever.
So what does this mean? Well it means that were I to use iCloud, instead of 3 days to upload a few dozen folders of music worth a few gigs it would take a few minutes, because Apple doesn't do uploads. But the music on my Google Music is better quality, (320Kbps vs 256Kbps), and I don't have to pay $99/year. I can also imagine, Apple probably doesn't have all the music that I have, considering my eclectic tastes. Since I don't use iTunes, it just doesn't make any sense for me, anyways.
A side note: they've updated the mobile Google Docs, but the only problem is, the interface doesn't work with Android 1.6's native browser very well. I've had to fall back onto Google Tasks. This has nothing to do with Google Music, but it was on my mind while I was writing about Google. :D
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