Google Play Music

Google Play Music undergoes complete overhaul

Google Play Music has recently undergone an overhaul in an attempt to stay competitive in the ongoing streaming wars. Google’s attempt to stick out involves a proposed huge degree of personalization, with the Google Now features that revolve around personal recommendations being applied to the streaming service. Via The Verge:

Using machine learning and clues like location, activity, and weather, the app tries to serve up a smorgasbord of playlists that will match your mood and moment. “At a high level, Google’s mission is to make the world of information really accessible and useful to people,” said Elias Roman, the lead product manager for Google Play Music. Google Now might do that by suggesting you leave for the airport early to avoid bad traffic on the highway. “There is a role for Google to play in music that is similar.”

Every time you open the app, it completely refreshes what you see, trying to serve the perfect selection. Tapping the app on Saturday night I got options for a cocktail party playlist and some serious dancehall jams. When I opened it again late Sunday afternoon, I got offered a playlist for relaxing at home and another for cooking dinner. The interface, based on cards, feels a lot like Google Now, and so does the approach to just-in-time doses of pertinent information, in this case the tunes you need.

That sounds not unlike the now-defunct Beats Music, and it makes sense for complete personalization to be a selling point for Google given how their other products try to aim directly at the user. Have you used the new Google Play music app? How is it?