Google will launch a native Google Music iOS app later this month
If you've been against trying Google's Play Music All Access streaming service for lack of an official iOS app, it may soon be time to change your tune. Sources aware of Google's plans have let slip to Engadget …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google's music ambitions have been public for years — speculation about a Google music store ran back in 2010 alongside talk of an Android-tied launch, and by February 2013 Bloomberg reported Google was building a full subscription music service. That subscription, All Access, has so far lacked an official iOS client, which is exactly the gap Engadget's sourced report targets.
First-order effects
- The claim itself is unconfirmed — sourced to unnamed people aware of Google's plans — but if it holds, iPhone and iPad users would get a native way into All Access instead of relying on workarounds, removing the main objection Engadget says has kept them off the service.
Second-order effects
- An official Google Music client inside Apple's App Store would put All Access in head-to-head competition with every other streaming subscription available on iOS, and the pickup by Apple-focused outlets like MacRumors and TUAW shows how directly the news lands on Apple's home turf.
Third-order effects
- If Google ships first-party media apps on its rival's platform as a matter of course, subscription music stops being a differentiator tied to any one operating system and becomes a pure content-and-price contest across all of them.
The trend: Subscription streaming services are breaking free of their home platforms, with each major OS vendor now expected to distribute its music offering on competitors' devices.