| By Alan Henry Google Music vs Amazon MP3 vs iTunes: Which Online Music Store is the Best for You?
Each music store is a little different. This showdown is all about the music stores that these companies offer—not their respective players, applications, or services. We can't help but mention them in terms of usability and integration with the store and the user experience, but we're going to try and focus on the features of the stores and steer clear of the bugs or quirks of each player. Google Music: The New Kid on the Block is Perfect for Android Faithful, Indie Music Lovers, and Free Music FanaticsGoogle Music has been around for a while, but Wednesday's launch of the music store put Google in direct competition with Apple and Amazon (among others.). The new music store has been added to the Android Market so you can access it on the web or any Android device. The web player is still as sharp as ever, and combined with Google's Magnifier music blog gives you multiple points of entry to download great free music you've never heard, and shop for albums you've been waiting for. Who Google Music Is For
ProsGoogle Music's biggest perk is that aside from the songs themselves, it's free. Accounts and storage for 20,000 songs is free, as is additional storage for any free or purchased songs. The music store boasts a 13 million track catalog of songs from three of the four major labels and thousands of indie artists. Tracks come in DRM-free 320kbps mp3 files, and you don't need to download another app to get access to your purchases. They're automatically added to your Google Music account (you can download them there), and are available instantly in the web player and on your Android device. Indie music lovers and independent musicians will love Google's new music store. After all, $25 for the Artist's Hub gives you access to 200 million Android devices, not to mention the Google Music users who use the web player on their desktops or iOS devices, and 45 million Google+ users. No other music store has embraced indie music the way Google has, and that's huge, not just for indie musicians and fans, but DJs, basement bands, and anyone else who wants to get their name and their music out there. Hear that? It's the last nail being driven into MySpace's coffin. Google's music store is pretty compelling, especially for Android users (although the web player on iOS is slick too), prefer webapps to desktop players, or own a lot of music already they'd like to take with them. ConsOne drawback to Google Music is that it's only available in the United States. It's unfortunate, but it's a reality of dealing with the music industry in different parts of the world. The agreement that works for labels in the US may not be the agreement that works for the labels in the UK, or in Australia. These things take time, and Google decided to play on its home turf first. Speaking of labels, the gaping hole in the music store where Warner Music should be is unfortunate. One Google rep on-stage at the event casually mentioned that "other labels are welcome if they choose to join," clearly a statement designed to both point the finger at Warner for missing the bus and assure viewers that Warner should be along shortly. Here's hoping they are. The only other minus we could find is pricing. Songs are competitively priced, but in more than a few cases they're not the best price. This makes sense, since Amazon and Apple have history and a bit more bargaining power, but we live in a time where the difference between a $0.99 track and a $1.29 track can mean a lost sale for the more expensive store. Amazon MP3: The Pioneer of DRM-Free, Cheap Music Soldiers On Despite the CompetitionLong before Google got into music, and before Apple was willing to remove DRM from purchased songs, Amazon MP3 came pre-installed on Android phones and allowed you to download DRM-free mp3s and copy them to any of your devices. Today, Amazon boasts a huge catalog, offers free cloud storage for your purchased music, and continuously beats the competition on price. Who Amazon MP3 Is For
ProsAmazon MP3 is overall the most affordable music store available, a feat considering its 16 million track catalog. The store has music from all four major labels, and it is a great place to look if you're searching for specific songs, special releases, and EPs that the other stores don't have. Purchases come as 256kbps variable bitrate MP3s without DRM, and can be automatically added to your Amazon Cloud Drive. When you do add them, the space they take doesn't count against your overall storage limit. It doesn't hurt that Amazon MP3 is already on many Android devices. Before the Google music store existed, it was the only good way you could browse, buy, and download music directly to your Android phone. It's still a great option, and Amazon hasn't sworn allegiance to any one mobile OS. Amazon's play as the music store with one of the biggest catalogs of popular music at super-low prices makes it an attractive option, or at least a place to stop and check prices before you buy from another store. ConsOne of the biggest problems with the Amazon music store is the Amazon Downloader. It works in most situations, but when it doesn't, it sucks badly, and the fact that you have to download an app to download the songs that you just purchased at Amazon is a nuisance at best and a troubleshooting nightmare at worst. Of course, you can always just have your music dropped into your Amazon Cloud Drive, but let's be honest, given the pricing and storage limits, is anyone actually paying for Cloud Drive? We also really have to ding Amazon a bit for the quality of its player. The web player is no real joy to use, and the fact that the app is only available for Android leaves iOS users somewhat out of the action, which sucks. It means that iPhone and iPad owners who want to buy from the Amazon MP3 store have to buy, download, and then add their music to iTunes if they want it on multiple devices: no Cloud Player for iOS users unless they use the special iPad-optimized webapp. Finally, if you're an indie music fan or love independent artists and labels, your mileage may vary with Amazon MP3. There are indie artists and labels at Amazon, but the focus is clearly on more popular musicians and major labels. Also, Amazon's music store is only available in the US and the UK. If you like to share music with friends, Amazon's social features are limited to Twitter and Facebook buttons to tell your friends about your purchase, and if you like to preview before you buy, you can listen to a 30 second clip of the song - a far cry from iTunes' and Google's 90-second previews. iTunes: The Biggest Digital Music Store Still Thrives on Its EcosystemRegardless of what you think about Apple or the iTunes software, there's no debating that the iTunes Music Store transformed the way we enjoy music. It heralded the end of widespread piracy and proved to the music labels that you don't have to treat music fans like criminals to convince them to buy music. With the launch of iTunes Match and iCloud, the iTunes Music Store just got much more attractive. Who iTunes Is For
ProsiTunes is clearly the best option for people invested in the Apple ecosystem. The music selection is massive—larger than any of the other stores—with over 20 million tracks in the catalog from all four major labels and scores of independents. Even if you don't have an iOS device, it's a great music store with a broad depth of music at solid prices. The days where everything was $0.99 are over, but the vast majority of songs are still around that mark, with older songs and releases by independent musicians often less than that. iTunes also has a huge selection of comedy, spoken-word, latin music, and other genres with narrower appeal, along with "sub-stores" created by specific companies (like Starbucks) and playlists by celebrities to feature music they enjoy. Tracks can be previewed for 90 seconds, and purchased songs come as 256kbps DRM-free AACs. From there it's automatically added to your music collection, albums get their own playlists, and the song is added to your "Recently added" or "Downloaded" playlists. Combined with an iOS device or iCloud, iTunes is still a great music store and holistic music experience. Without either of those however, it's a huge music store where you'll have no trouble finding something you like at a decent price. ConsFor as big as its catalog is and as deep its library is, iTunes hasn't really changed or improved in any meaningful way in years. You don't necessarily want to fix what isn't broken, and we get that iCloud and iTunes Match will give iOS users a new way to back up and access their music on other devices (even though iTunes Match doesn't stream and has no web player) but to get the most from these services you have to be fully wrapped up in Apple's ecosystem. Even freeing your music from iTunes if you prefer to listen to it on your non iOS device or in another music player can be an irritating process. Possible, but an unnecessary pain. For as great as its shopping experience is, iTunes loses points for its lackluster social experience, which consists entirely of Ping—Apple's half-assed social network that no one really uses (unless they're using it to post to Twitter.) Plus, even though Apple bought and killed LaLa back in 2009, we have yet to see a meaningful web component to iTunes. There's iTunes Preview, but frankly, it's awful. Where other music stores are integrating social networks to help you discover music and giving you more ways to enjoy the music you buy anywhere, iTunes is spinning its wheels. That's fine for now, but it won't be forever. The Verdict: Which Music Store Deserves Your Money?If you've followed along with us so far or you've skipped to the end to see which service you should buy your music from, the answer is—as always—that it depends on what kind of music lover you are:
Everyone Else: Zune Marketplace, eMusic, and the OthersApple, Amazon, and Google aren't the only players. There are still a lot of smaller, independent music stores out there, even if most of them are struggling to get by. Bandcamp is a great indie music store that lets artists sell directly to their fans, and EMusic is still kicking around with a 13 million song catalog and DRM-free mp3s. Subscription-only services like the Zune Music Store, Napster, and even Rhapsody often sell individual tracks and walk the line between a la carte and subscription-only. For music lovers who don't mind renting their music instead of owning it, it may make financial sense to sign up for all-you-can-eat plans where you get tons of music for a monthly fee. With the Zune store, each month you used to get to keep some of the songs you've rented, so it's a little of both worlds. They may not have the selection or mobile and cloud features that the big guys do, but these services are worth mentioning because they cater to specific markets or often go out of their way to be platform agnostic. A Nod to Streaming Music ServicesSpeaking of renting music, no look at online music stores would be complete without mentioning the explosion of streaming and cloud-based music services, some of which work with music you own, and others that exist purely in the cloud. Contrary to traditional music stores, with these services you're paying for regular access to a service's music library. You don't own anything, and you don't even rent the songs themselves—you just pay to listen to them whenever you like. Streaming music services are trendy, and many of them even allow you to cache songs offline to simulate the feeling of owning your music. Most of them are platform agnostic, and offer apps, webapps, and tools for every OS. Even so, most people use them in addition to—not a replacement for—a music store that lets them buy or listen to their own music. That may change as they grow in popularity. Which music store excites you the most? Where will you be spending your money? Perhaps you prefer a different store we haven't mentioned, or you're giving up on buying music entirely and going the streaming route instead. Whatever you think, let us know in the comments below. You can reach Alan Henry, the author of this post, at alan@lifehacker.com, or better yet, follow him on Twitter or Google+. 
| November 18th, 2011 Top Stories
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Google opened its new music store to all comers in the US this week, touting its partnerships with music labels and indie musicians, and its broad reach thanks to the Android Market. The new store has millions of songs for sale, but whether it's a game changer, serious competition for iTunes and Amazon MP3, or the best online music store out there is another question entirely. Let's take a look at each service based on its features. 
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