Google rolls out ad-supported free music streaming, takes on Spotify and Apple Music

Well, that didn't take long. Google has unveiled an ad-supported free version of Google Play Music streaming service in the US. You won't be charged for listening to music but would have to deal with a few commercials in between.

You can create sort of your own radio station with songs, albums of your favorite artists. But you loose on-demand playback, offline support, creating playlists or background listening to YouTube music videos. The service is already live on the web at music.google.com but the apps for Android and iOS are going to take atleast a week to be updated. Google's streaming service is still living in Spotify's shadow and with the impending release of Apple Music things are going to get a lot tougher, which makes this quite a sensible move.

For all those folks who didn't want to give the paid unlimited version of Play Music can finally give the service a test run for free. Moreover, this way Google will rope in far more customers who might actually pay for the unlimited experience. Its a win-win for both us and Google.

Source: Google