Xbox Music Launches on Android and iPhone
Microsoft is taking on entrenched music streaming services like Spotify by offering Xbox Music on more platforms. The software giant has announced today that Xbox Music will be available on both Android and iOS. The apps are already live and free to download, but there are a few caveats.
While Xbox Music streaming is free and ad-supported on Windows 8 and now on the web, the mobile apps require a subscription, which costs $9.99 per month, or $99.99 for a year. In exchange for your money, Microsoft is offering unlimited ad-free streaming of all the tunes it licenses. The assortment is on-par with services like Spotify and Google Play All Access.
The app plugs into all the other Xbox Music devices out there so you can sync playlists and saved tracks. Microsoft says it plans to issue updates to the app every 4-6 weeks, which is a good thing. Xbox Music is currently lacking a feature that many users will be expecting—offline mode. There is currently no way to cache songs to the device to listen to without an internet connection. Microsoft says this feature is coming in a few months.
The apps themselves look fairly clean. There are a few UI elements specific to each platform, but they are recognizable as the same app. The iOS app is optimized for the iPhone only, but you can install it on an iPad if you don't mind the blown up UI. The Android app seems to have a large number of device restrictions. No tablets of any size can install the app, and even some high-resolution phones like the HTC One are unable to get Xbox Music.
For anyone subscribing to Xbox Music Pass, this is an incredibly good development. However, if you're on the fence about which streaming service to go with, Microsoft's offering probably won't win you over until it's a little more fleshed out.
Source: http://appscout.pcmag.com
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