Google Music drops out of beta and is now available to the masses - with new Music Store too

It’s official folks, Google Music has finally graduated from beta, and it’s now available to the masses for free – well, as long as you’re in the US. Google dropped the official news at their “These go to eleven” event, where they also expanded on the Google Music app's functionality.

Easily going to appease many of the existing base of Google Music users, Google explained that they’ll continue to offer the popular music streaming service for free – even to new users who sign up! Indeed, that’s substantial considering that you’ll be able to store your songs to the clouds, well, up to 20,000 tracks actually. Nevertheless, the capacity should be sufficient for even the most hardened music enthusiast out there.

Using the Google Music app for Android, you’ll also have the ability to ‘pin’ certain songs in your collection to your handset directly. Specifically, it’ll store the song locally so that in the event you don’t have any data connection whatsoever, you’ll still be able to listen to your tunes on the go. Yeah, it's not something entirely new, but it's always a nice thing to offer.

Besides enjoying all of the songs in your catalog, Android users will now have access to the new Google Music Store that’s accessible through the Android Market. Complementing their video service, the Google Music Store works similarly to what Apple and Amazon currently employs with their respective services. Obviously, you can purchase whole albums or individual tracks, plus, they’re priced similarly at the starting cost of 99 cents.

Now don’t think that quality will be comprised, that’s because all songs in the Google Music Store are in 320kbps MP3 format – so it’ll maintain a high level of quality. Finally, T-Mobile customers appear to have a slight advantage because it was announced that they’ll be able to pay for songs using their T-Mobile account.

Definitely a win for all music fans out there, the only thing that’s preventing Google Music from exploding even further, is that it’s only limited to the US right now. Of course, we’re sure there are people elsewhere that are salivating to check it all out, but they’ll need to wait until Google gives the thumbs up for its expansion. Until then, US users can dive in and check out all the new offerings surround Google Music.

source: Google