I uninstalled Flash Player on my computer, now that most sites no longer need it. Adobe's Flash Player is still bundled with Chrome, so I had to disable it from the chrome://plugins/ page.

One of the only Google services that still requires Flash is Google Play Music, but only if you don't use Chrome or Internet Explorer 11. I tried opening Google Play Music in Firefox and Safari and got this message: "Missing Flash Player. You need the latest Adobe Flash Player to listen to music."


There's actually a Lab experiment called "HTML5 audio" in the settings and it's grayed out and disabled. It claims that it allows you to "listen to your music without the need for Flash. Support for this lab is still experimental, and it may not work in all cases," informs the description.


Well, it looks like the Lab experiment only works in Chrome, not in other browsers. It's hard to tell why HTML5 audio is still an experiment and not a regular feature that works in all browsers. YouTube's HTML5 player works well in most browsers and Google Play Music uses the same back-end.

Google Play Music is no longer only about music, now it also lets you listen to podcasts. The podcasts section is already available in the web interface and it's rolling out to the Android app in the US and Canada.

"We'll connect you with podcasts based on what you're doing, how you're feeling and what you're interested in. Similar to our contextual playlists for music, we want to make it easy to find the right podcast - whether you're a podcast aficionado or listening for the first time," informs Google.

Here are some podcasts that are available: "Freakonomics Radio", "The Nerdist", "Radiolab", "Stuff You Should Know", "TED Radio Hour", "This Week in Tech", "WTF with Marc Maron", "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!".




When you subscribe to a podcast, the Android app will automatically download the most recent episodes or notify you when there's a new episode.

The latest version of the Google Play Music app for iOS brings a new icon, a timer feature in the settings and an updated search bar that helps you find music faster.

There's a new "sleep timer" feature in the settings, which stops the music when timer ends. For example, you can set the timer and play your favorite tunes for falling asleep. A similar feature is available in the built-in Clock app for iOS and it works for any music app.


The new app icon is less recognizable than the old one and it's also asymmetric.


Here's the old icon:


Apparently, Google's music service will add support for podcasts next Monday.

Google Play Music started to offer a new family plan: $14.99/month for up to 6 family members, just like Apple Music. You and 5 other family members can subscribe to Google Play Music All Access and keep your own playlists, radio stations, ratings and recommendations. The new family plans are available in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, France and Germany, while also requiring regular Google accounts (no Google Apps, for now). You can only sign up from the Google Play Music app for Android, but everything else works for all the platforms supported by Google Play Music.



Google says you can "share a payment method on Google Play so your family can purchase apps, movies, books and music." It looks like Google will add a family sharing feature for Google Play, so that purchases are shared between family members, just like in iOS. Hopefully, sharing the payment method will be optional.

Google Play Music's desktop site has a new feature that lets you delete history. At the bottom of the settings page, there's a new section called "delete recommendation history". According to Google, this "removes the history used to give you recommendations and customize radio. This will not remove ratings and play counts on individual tracks."


Google shows a long list of recommended radios and albums and you can manually remove them by clicking "not interested" for each radio and album. After using the new "delete recommendation history" feature, I expected to see that all recommendations are removed and Google will start to show new suggested albums and radios based on the songs you play from now on. Unfortunately, that's not the case: Google still shows similar recommendations.

Speaking of historical data, it's surprising that Google Play Music still doesn't have a feature that shows all your recently played songs. It should be an auto playlist, just like "last added" and "thumbs up" and users should be able to export it.

{ Thanks, Camilo Moreira. }

Google Play Music is a great music streaming service, especially if you pay for the All Access subscription. If you're not a subscriber, you can only listen to the music you uploaded/matched using Music Manager or the Chrome app and the music you bought or got for free from Google Play.

When Apple launched iTunes Radio in 2013, it seemed ironic that Apple offered a free ad-supported service, while Google had a paid subscription service. Now that Apple Music is ready for launch, it's time for Google to offer the missing free radio feature.


"Google Play Music now has a free, ad-supported version in the U.S., giving you a new way to find just the right music and giving artists another way to earn revenue. Our team of music experts, including the folks who created Songza, crafts each station song by song so you don't have to. If you’re looking for something specific, you can browse our curated stations by genre, mood, decade or activity, or you can search for your favorite artist, album or song to instantly create a station of similar music."


The free radio feature is already available if you're using the Play Music website and it's rolling out this week to the mobile apps for Android and iOS. It's US-only, for now.

You can skip video ads, just like on YouTube:


Here's the message you see after 6 skips in an hour or less: "you're out of skips, get on-demand and offline access to millions of songs for $9.99 per month". You can always start a new radio and you'll get your 6 skips back.


The main limitation is that you can't play a certain song. If you click a song from the new "top charts" or "new releases" sections, Play Music will start a radio with similar songs.

Whether you're using the free Google Play Music in the US or you're an All Access subscriber, you get thousands of new radio stations grouped by genre, activity, mood, decade, and more. Music for sleeping, dark music, 1950s music, world music, car ride music for kids - these are only a few examples.

Google Play Music for the Web wasn't the only thing updated to Material Design last month. Google also updated the mini player that's displayed when you install the Chrome app.

The mini player is still standalone, so it works without having to open Google Play Music in a new tab. It has some new animations, controls hide when you're not using them, there's an icon that shows the main player and you can click the song's title or the artist's name to open the album page or the artist page in Google Play Music.

Here are some screenshots from Chrome for Mac and Windows:




{ Thanks, Angelo Giuffrida. }

Google Play Music's web app switched to Material Design and has a new interface that closely resembles the mobile UI. The left sidebar is now a hamburger-style menu, photos are bigger, there's more white space and everything looks like a mobile app stretched out to fit a much bigger screen.







"We're moving towards making the web feel more like an app and less like a series of web pages strung together by links," said Google UX designer Bryan Rea. "The new header, the slick transition as you scroll, the collapsible nav, new animations, these all feel like things you expect in an app not on the web. For the increased focus on big, immersive artwork, when you're listening to music, you can get lost in it (in a good way). With the new album and playlist pages, you enter an immersive world focused on the music you're enjoying."

Google Play Music had a special playlist called "Shared with me", but it's no longer available. The playlist included all the songs shared with you by Google+ users.


Here's how Google described this feature: "Share a free play of the songs and albums you've purchased on Google Play with your friends on Google+. They can share their purchases with you too. Forget the name of that song shared with you last week? No problem, you can find all of the music shared with you in your 'Shared with me' auto playlist."

The auto playlists section from the sidebar only has 4 auto playlists: "queue", "thumbs up", "last added" and "free and purchased".


{ Thanks, Boris Larson. }

Google Play Music now lets you upload up to 50,000 songs and store them for free. Until now, the limit was 20,000 songs. Assuming that the average size of an MP3 file is 4MB, you can backup 200GB of music.

When you open Google Play Music's site, you'll see this message: "Encore! Encore! Now you can upload up to 50,000 of your favorite songs and listen to them on your phone or on the web."


To upload music, you can use the Chrome app or Music Manager for Windows/Mac/Linux. Google only uploads songs if they can't be found in the Play Music database, which has more 30 million songs. Otherwise, Google uses the high-quality version from its own database and doesn't waste bandwidth to upload your music files.

{ via Android Blog }

Google has updated the Play Music app for Chrome and you can now use it without having to open the Play Music site in a new tab.

I sometimes forgot about the Play Music tab, closed the tab and music stopped playing. Now the mini player continues to work even after I close the Play Music tab.


You can click the "I'm Feeling Lucky" dice button and start a radio based on your listening history. Another option is to open the Play Music site, start a radio or pick a playlist. Then you can close the Play Music tab and use the controls from the mini player: pause music, play next song, play previous song, thumbs up/down.

The mini player also supports keyboard shortcuts:

* left arrow - previous song
* right arrow - next song
* down arrow - decrease volume
* up arrow - increase volume
* p / space bar - pause/play music
* r - toggle repeat between off, all, and one
* s - toggle shuffle on or off
* = - thumbs up

{ via François Beaufort }

A side effect of the YouTube Music Key service is that the Play Music app for Android/iOS and the desktop site started to show relevant YouTube music videos for the songs you are playing. There's a "watch video" button placed on top of the album art and a "start video" menu option (it's called "watch video" in the iPhone app).





Google Play Music for Android shows the video inside the mobile app, so it doesn't launch the YouTube app. Google Play Music for iOS opens the YouTube app.


In the desktop site, the YouTube player is overlaid. Press Esc or click outside the player to hide it.


I've checked a long list of songs and the "start video" option is available for many popular songs that have music videos. You can also find YouTube videos when searching for artists and albums.

Thanks to my Google Play Music All Access subscription, I've been able to try YouTube Music Key, the new feature that transforms YouTube into the music streaming service with the largest collection of music videos.

If you use All Access and you have the latest version of the Play Music app for Android, you should see this message in Play Music:


Open the YouTube app and the most obvious new feature is the download button that lets you save almost any music video.


The "add video to Offline" dialog lets you pick the video quality: normal (360p), HD (720p). You can click "remember my settings" to no longer see this dialog.



The Offline section shows all your offline videos and playlists.


You can download entire playlists. The music tab from the "what to watch" section features a lot of music playlists, including Songza playlists.



The "background & offline" section from the settings lets you customize background listening, video quality, offline storage and lets you disable downloading videos when you're not using Wi-Fi.


By default, YouTube continues to play music videos in the background, but you can disable this feature or only enable it when using headphones or external speakers.


Use the music controls from the notification bar or from the lock screen. Pause a song, play the ext song from the playlist or go back to the YouTube app.



When you're offline, you can only use the Offline section and play the music videos you've previously downloaded.



Another benefit: whether you're playing music videos online or offline, the YouTube app won't show ads. It's important to keep in mind that the new features (offline playing, background listening, ad-free experience) are only available for music videos, not for any YouTube videos. In fact, they don't even work for all music videos, probably because of licensing issues. You'll find many videos that show this message: "background listening unavailable - this video cannot be played in the background".