Microsoft announced this week that you can now upload your digital music collection to OneDrive and play it across multiple devices. While you could always upload music to OneDrive, this is the first time you'll actually be able to play the music.
To upload music (only MP3, M4A, or WMA files), you must use OneDrive and place it in your "Music" folder. I tried it out and it's a pretty disorganized mess. You can't upload folders, only individual song files, so your OneDrive Music folder will be total chaos unless you want to manually clean it up or use the desktop apps.
Playback is done through Xbox Music, so you can use the Xbox Music app on your Windows PC, Windows Phone, and Xbox 360 or Xbox One. You can also stream from the desktop website on any computer.
You can't use the Xbox Music apps for Android or iOS, since those required a paid Xbox Music Pass (even if you had one you still wouldn't be able to see your collection), and the mobile website doesn't let you sign in at all. Maybe if you have an Android with Flash installed, but I doubt it'll work even then.
By default, Microsoft gives away 15 GB free for OneDrive, so that's like 3,500 songs max, unless you want to subscribe to Music Pass, and you'll get 100 GB extra for 50,000 songs total that you can upload.
Overall, I'm not impressed. It's sloppy implementation to something they should've done a long time ago. Google Play gives you 50,000 songs free, so why would I go with Xbox Music? I personally never play music on my Xbox—I just stream it via my iPhone to my soundbar.
So, is Xbox Music going somewhere, or is it a bad attempt at trying to get people to buy a Music Pass?
4 Responses
Yikes! You'd think they'd build a system where you could easily fix broken tags or offer some sort of "smart" organization. Seems like they rushed it.
I wonder how easy it is to navigate with an Xbox controller? And seriously, only 15GBs?!?
Well, there is "smart" organization in Xbox Music, just not in OneDrive. And while 15 GB seems low compared to Google Play, Apple only gives out 5 GB (though all of my iTunes music is stored locally), and Amazon only lets you upload 250 songs, upgradeable to 250,000 with Prime.
i think so
I'm definitely staying away from this. I already have all my music on GPM and their free 50,000 limit is good enough to keep me happy for a long time.
You'd think after their Zune fiasco they'd pay more attention to what the consumer really wants.
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