Google To Challenge Apple iTunes with Music Service

Filed in archive Emerging Tech on June 23, 2010

Despite multiple attempts, it appears the dominance established by Apple's iTunes music service has yet to be rattled. Google thinks it has what it takes to be the first to dethrone "The Big A".

Google has announced plans to launch a music download service tied to its search engine later this year, followed by a cloud-based subscription service for smartphones running its Android operating system in 2011.
This web service will allow people to buy and download songs, just like with iTunes, the major difference here being its tie directly to the Google search engine, so that results for a particular artist or song would be linked directly to the music store.

Insiders suspect Google's online store would be a preliminary step toward a more ambitious cloud-based subscription service. The service would allow smartphones running its Android software to stream music directly from the Internet, so that users wouldn't need to save songs on their devices.