Google Beats Apple’s Cloud Service to the Punch

Google just spent the last few hours unveiling new technology and services at their global developer conference, Google I/O. Perhaps the most interesting announcement was that their new cloud service, Music Beta, is ready to go.

The completely cloud-based music service will compete directly with Amazon‘s newly released Cloud Drive, as well as whatever Apple has up its sleeve. It’s surprising that Google was able to unveil the service so quickly, as their talks with record labels had been rumored to have soured…

You may recall that we reported on a Reuter’s article last month that claimed that Apple’s cloud service was ready to go. They claimed that Apple was set to beat Google to market with their cloud offering.

That’s obviously not the case, as mum is still the word with Apple about their new music locker service and Google Music starts rolling out today. The Beta version is available by invitation only at first, but will be rolled out to the masses shortly.

Both Mac and Windows users will be able to use the the web-based Google Music Manager to upload their music collection. Google is offering space for up to 20,000 songs, as opposed to Amazon’s 1,000. The service will be accessible from all Android devices, available via an Android market update.

I must say that Apple certainly has their work cut out for them. Storage space for 20,000 songs along with the fact that the service is currently free might have the Cupertino company going back to the drawing board. Hopefully Apple divulges some information about their cloud offering at their own developers conference next month.

Is Google’s Music Beta impressive? Or will Apple’s offering blow them out of the water?

[BGR]