Once again, we’re hearing rumors of a Google music service. They began some time last year and have resurfaced occasionally ever since. With the impending launch of Honeycomb and the Motorola Xoom, we may finally see Google Music become a reality. Sanjay Jha, chief executive of Motorola Mobility, let it slip while speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona:
“If you look at Google Mobile services [via Android] today, there’s a video service, there’s a music service – that is, there will be a music service.” He added that the value of the upgrade to the Android system, known as “Honeycomb”, which will power the forthcoming Motorola Xoom tablet is that “it adds video services and music services”.
Both Google and Apple are rumored to be working on streaming music services. Google has allegedly been working on a service allowing people to store all of their music in the cloud for $25 a year, while Apple could be working on a cloud-based iTunes which would support an “iPhone Nano” device with minimal internal storage.
The Motorola Xoom, priced at around $800 in the US to compete with the highest in iPad, is the center of both Honeycomb and the Google Music launch and is expected to become available within the next couple of months.
via Ars Technica