MusicStreaming

Revision 8 as of 2010-10-07 03:21:34

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Ubuntu One mobile music streaming

What is it?

Mobile music streaming is a new service from Ubuntu One. It enables you to stream your music from your personal cloud to your mobile phone using the Ubuntu One Music app.

About the beta

We are opening the beta test of this feature to anyone with an Android phone. After the beta test is over in a few weeks, mobile music streaming will become a paid service. More information on this service and pricing will be available very soon.

Here are a few pieces of important information that you should know about the beta test.

  • It is only available for use with Android devices. The full service will also support iPhone.
  • Beta testers should use our beta Android app (Ubuntu One Music) to test the service. Download instructions will be sent to testers.
  • Only MP3 files are supported by the streaming server at this time.
  • This will be a short beta test focused around the service infrastructure.
  • Beta testers will be added in batches and will be notified when granted access.

We will try our best to give as many people as possible an opportunity to participate in the beta test.

How to request access?

Please fill out this form to request access to the beta.

Once we grant you access to the beta test, we will email you a link to download a beta version of the Ubuntu One Music app as well as device setup instructions.

How to use the app

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Ubuntu One Music (beta)

Our music app was built in collaboration with the developer of Subsonic and is fairly straightforward. We think we’ve made it fast and easy for your to get on with enjoying your music.

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Ubuntu One Music for Android has four basic functions.

  1. Home - Manage settings like caching and the number of songs to preload.
  2. Browse - Tap through all of your artists, albums, and songs.
  3. Search - Search your music.
  4. Current Song - Tap to display information about the song currently playing and control play functions.

You can even change the theme between light and dark.

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Feature FAQ

We know that you have a few questions.

Q: Can I stream my existing music to Ubuntu One or can I only stream music that I purchase in the Ubuntu One Music Store?
A: You can stream all of your own music as well as any music that you buy from the Ubuntu One Music Store. As long as it's an MP3 file and it's in your personal cloud, it can be streamed to your mobile phone.

Q: How do I move my existing music to Ubuntu One?
A: The easiest way is to right-click on the folder where your music is stored (probably ~/Music) and choose “Synchronize This Folder”. This will start the process of initially uploading your music to your Ubuntu One personal cloud. It may take a while for large music libraries and may require additional storage.

Q: Do you support playlists?
A: Ubuntu One mobile music streaming does not support creating playlists at this time.

Q: I can't see the album art!
A: At the moment, we're not yet supporting album art. We will soon!

Q: How do you know about a file’s artist and album information?
A: As soon as MP3 files are added to your personal cloud, our server software scans the files for ID3 tags (artist, album, song title, track #, song duration, etc.). When it completes each one, they'll appear as a streamable file on your mobile phone.

Q: What audio formats are supported?
A: We currently only support streaming MP3 files. We are evaluating methods to increase support for OGG, AAC, FLAC, and other audio formats.

Q: What is the bit rate of the music streaming?
A: Music is streamed at your file’s bit rate. We are retaining the quality of your high fidelity audio files by not downsampling the bit rate. Our Android app supports preloading and song caching so large file sizes should not affect the listening experience.

Q: Does music streaming require Wi-Fi?
A: Music streaming works over Wi-Fi and 3G (or faster) connections.

Q: Where can I get the apps for mobile music streaming?
A: Apps will be available in both the iPhone and Android marketplaces very soon. You will be able to find them by searching for “Ubuntu One Music.”

Q: Will the iPhone and Android apps be free?
A: Yes. We don’t expect users to have to pay for an app that works with our subscription service. There are great paid options available though, like iSub for the iPhone, that should work with our streaming service as well as others. We do not provide customer support for these applications and may not support all of their features.

Q: Why can’t I see music files that are folders shared with me?
A: We currently don’t support streaming audio files in shared folders.

Q: I see 'Unknown artist' listed with songs in it. What's going on?
A: Users commonly see 'Unknown artist' when they have synced aac (.m4a) files. Ubuntu One is not scanning those files for ID3 tags yet (just mp3 at the moment).The reason why you see a song title is that we make an assumption on the song title based on the filename.