Pages

Showing posts with label Google Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google Music. Show all posts

Sunday, June 19, 2011

[BREAKING] Google gets serious about selling music (and why I'll say: told you so)

Lets go back a few weeks...
Two days before the Google IO, I noticed some odd little code in the Google Market website.
I got all excited and stuff and blogged about it:
New news or no news? Why Google music and YouTube Rentals for Android devices are obviously ready to roll
But well, I was right.. With Google Music and YouTube rentals, but while I was waiting for the Beta Invite for Google Music, I totally forgot an important little fact that was missing:
Music sales.

Yeah, you heard right (if you are surprised now and didn't read the post I linked not even 3 seconds ago)
Google will sell music.

I didn't think of it until today, but I rechecked and the code is still there:





there is just one tab missing next to apps, movies and books...



So what is Google waiting for? Are you really asking that? Uh, no that was me.. uhm, but I can answer the question you didn't ask for you and stuff.
Google is still wrestling with the Music Labels that are all mad about Google Music and that Google doesn't want to prostitute itself for them.

The music industry is somewhat spoiled by success and just loves to exert their influence.

They want either:

  • a ton of money
  • or a software that uses cloud services to hunt down people who pirated music
Google offered a ton of money, but... the music industry might want both.

So, here we are, waiting patiently for the big G succeeding in negotiating with these nice people.
EDIT: Google won't start with their sales until they have at least one major label under contract, that's why they postponed the launch.

It might still take a while, but at least now you know Google's intentions.

I really hope Google won't kick my ass for uncovering that.. I love you guys, really I do :D And as a fanboy, I just can't help myself... It is an actual disease (totally, I swear!) :D So please be kind and don't kick me :-/

By the way... notice the "confidential" text in the code... it belongs to a hidden Google Buzz button.

Cheers

Discuss on Buzz

Friday, May 27, 2011

[UNCONFIRMED][HOW-TO] Force a Google Music invite... maybe

There are 2 ways that I've heard of lately that might lead to a Google Music invite...
First way:
Go to BestBuy and sign into your Google Account on a Motorola Xoom on display there.. or spoof the Xoom Browser user agent.

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 3.0; en-us; Xoom Build/HRI39) AppleWebKit/534.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Safari/534.13

More information here <- I strongly recommend visiting the thread!

Thursday, May 26, 2011

[BREAKING] Updated Google Music APK for all you guys outside US

WORKS ON GALAXY TAB WITH GINGERBREAD NOW (and other Samsung devices were it was broken before probably too)
Just grab it here -> http://www.multiupload.com/KIM5LQDL0K

Enjoy!

Saturday, May 21, 2011

[OBSOLETE?][HOW TO] find out when your Google Music Beta invite will arrive! [ANDROID needed!]

Ok, let's face it. Uncertainty is a bee, I know. But if you want to get a little certainty in your life... I might be able to help!

ATTENTION: THIS IS UNCONFIRMED SH*T, IF THIS UNCONFIRMED SH*T DOES NOT WORK, IT DOES NOT WORK. Uhm... Did that make sense?

To make it short: it is about as accurate as the prediction of the rapture today.
It also might be, that you have to install the leaked honeycomb Google music apk first
Download it here: 
http://www.multiupload.com/YTUNMZH16U Install it once instead of the original Google Music apk. Enable syncing for your account (under settings -> Accounts and sync), play around a little and try again.

UPDATE: ROOT EXPLORER NEEDED
UPDATE NR.2: It doesn't work for most of you guys... so sadly it seems to be a dead end ATM. But I'll continue poking around in the system for more reliable info.

Ok, you'll need a rooted Android for that (maybe it works without root... haven't tried), the Google Music Beta App and start it at least once(!!) (If you can't find it, you should probably use MarketEnabler to fake an US provider...) and a filemanager (I used RootExplorer for that, it also has a neat texteditor included).
Only thing you've got to do is to fire up RootExplorer and navigate to "/data/data/com.google.android.music/shared_prefs"


You might have less files than me, because I took the shot shortly after I got my invite!

Copy the signup.pref.xml to your SDcard if you don't have an integrated  texteditor or open it directly on the phone and check out the contents:


You should have a little less info in there but note the string named "holdoffUntil"... It contains a time-info... in particular it contains an Epoch Timestamp... so go to the site http://www.epochconverter.com/ and enter the value you find in the XML tag. In my case it is "1305953336454" ... convert it to a readable date and tadaaaa you get the time (approx.) your invite will (hopefully) arrive! In my case it was " Sat, 21 May 2011 04:48:56 GMT
that was about the time when I got my invite... it was a little earlier.. but I think it is no coincidence that it is the exact same date (even when the time isn't quite right) -> I got the invitation email at Fri, May 20, 2011 at 11:31 PM (GMT-07:00) that is ... about that time (yeah you have to add 7 hours to get GMT :P) ^^ somehow... Try it and let me know if it works!

BTW: Once you got your invite, Google music is available worldwide, just like Google Voice! So fire up your VPN and get your invite!
Boooom, yeah! and lots of free music too!

Monday, May 16, 2011

[PREDICTIONS] What will come up next in the Google System? Part 1

You all know the drill... I have no special insider information about what's happening at Google, I just try to put all puzzle-pieces together and that's why my assumptions can be right or... complete bullpoo.

My predictions for the Google IO were quite... satisfying. There are still some open points that were not covered at the IO but are highly likely to happen.

First of all..
Chrome Store for GoogleTV

Hey, this beast is running chrome? What would you expect? I bet my ass they will introduce the web-store as soon as they update Google TV to Honeycomb in Summer 2011. Sadly, I'm almost sure, that they will just announce the Store instead of launching it. They need more Web-App devs who have their Web-Apps ready/optimized for the TV-Screen. The Web-Apps and extensions have to deal with a few things that you won't encounter in regular Chrome... For example the "overscan" etc... The other thing is, that they might want to ensure, that developers can test their Webapps/extensions right on the hardware, that's the reason why they wait for the update to Honeycomb in summer.

Chrome Store will get a separate Market or Category for GoogleTV Webapps

That's a no-brainer... otherwise people will just complain about the fact that the Apps are unusable (too small font-sizes, layout problems, navigation issues) or broken if they are not marked as "GoogleTV compatible"

The WebApps will have to ensure that they follow the standard-Guidelines for GoogleTV optimization
-> http://code.google.com/tv/web/docs/design_for_tv.html

Andrew Rabon also pointed out that there was a screenshot out in the wild, showing a new icon, presumably the web-store, on GoogleTV, so I'd say that it is fact that this will happen...

Blogger will get it's redesign

Yeah we all noticed the outage of the Blogger service lately... I guess that was the first attempt to roll out the new design, but who knows.. I guess they postponed the release until the next scheduled update... Might take days or weeks... Who knows. It will happen soon :)

+1 button and Chrome-extension rollout

As mentioned during the Google I/O it will happen soon. I guess it will be End of this month or mid-june.

Google Docs, GMail, Google Calendar offline versions

Will happen in the next few weeks, not much information about that yet...

Google Music invites

Will probably start to roll out end of this month.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

For everyone outside of the US: The Google Music Beta APK and how to apply for a Beta invite

http://www.multiupload.com/1PWUT5G88H

And if you want to apply for a Beta-Invite, use TOR or ddwrt hotspot shield, which worked for me to apply for an invitation! http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/dd-wrt_privacy (this one is sadly Windows only) but it contains adware, so uninstall when done!
After installing, go to  http://music.google.com/music/ and click the button!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

New news or no news? Why Google music and YouTube Rentals for Android devices are obviously ready to roll

And once again, my dear Google, I've to apologize for all that poking around in your guts.. But I can't do anything about my feelings for you...
Today I discovered something special... small bits of Google Music, buried deep down in the javascript code of the Android Market.. that's right. The Android market and nowhere else...

What does that mean? Basically that you will be able to push-sync the music to your devices... but let's step through every bit of my discoveries together.

The magic lies in the production-compiled javascript found easily inside the website.

here you are :D

Now let's see what we can find if we search for some music terms inside our javascript:


I beautified the code a little, so it is easier to read..

Here we have the first evidence of Google Music purchases:



Ze: "This music can be heard on..."


Nothing special so far, but wait...
Here we have the parts of the Audio-Player that is used for previewing the Audio-Tracks :)


function Ym(a, b, c) {
a = M(a.a, "preview-control", b);
Rb(b, "audio-playing", c);
Rb(b, "audio-idle", !c);
Rb(a, "pause", c);
Rb(a, "play", !c);
}

r.Pi = function() {
var a = M(this.a, "audio-playing");
Ym(this, a, !1);
Xm(this, uc(a, "tr", "track-row"), !1);
};


So, if you thought this was neat, wait for what comes next:
YouTube Movie Rentals on your Android device!

<h1 class="co-dialog-additional-header">', "How to watch your movie", '</h1><div class="co-dialog-additional-content"><table><tr><td style="width: 47%"><div class="chrome-icon goog-inline-block"></div><div class="co-dialog-additional-content-movies goog-inline-block"><div class="co-dialog-additional-content-title">', "On the web", '</div><div class="co-dialog-additional-content-info">', f, '</div></div></td><td><div class="android-icon goog-inline-block"></div><div class="co-dialog-additional-content-movies goog-inline-block"><div class="co-dialog-additional-content-title">', "Verizon Motorola Xoom", '</div><div class="co-dialog-additional-content-info">', "Open the Videos app on your Motorola Xoom.", "</div></div></td></tr></table></div>"), d = d.toString(), fj(c, d || ""));

If I may de-clutter that whole stuff for you:
"How to watch your movie" "On the web", "Verizon Motorola Xoom" "Open the Videos app on your Motorola Xoom."

So, YouTube rentals come to our Android devices real soon! You have to keep in mind that this is the Production-Code of the Android market and not the canary-build! (Yeah, they actually have testing builds of all the webapps too -> Poke around in the Google Voice code and you find the proof for the canary version)
So that means that basically they just have to flip a switch and get going!


function Oc(a, b) {
var c = b || new N;
Kc(Bc(a, {
xe: "movies",
Ze: "This video can be watched on...",
mg: "You are renting...",
lg: !0,
kg: "Rental period",
ig: "Compatible with..."
}), c);
if (!b) return c.toString();
}
function Eg(a) {
return a.a == "YOUTUBE_MOVIE";
}

Here the embed code for the Trailer-Popups:



sa("enableTrailerPopup", function() {
var a = M(Gc.c, "trailer");
if (a) {
var b = a.getAttribute("data-trailerId"), c = a.getAttribute("data-docTitle");
T(Gc.u, a, $, function() {
var a;
a = {
wi: b
};
var f = new N;
Jc({
dg: "https://www.youtube.com/embed/" + O(a.wi) + "?autoplay=1&vq=large&rel=0&autohide=1"
}, f);
a = f.toString();
Vi(Fc.a[4], a || "", c, "trailer-dialog", .98);
});
}
});


Here are some more findings... these Variables define the page-selectors that determine the current visible page:


function Hg(a) {
if (a.indexOf("app-") != 0) if (a.indexOf("album-") == 0) return "MUSIC_ALBUM"; else if (a.indexOf("artist-") == 0) return "MUSIC_ARTIST"; else if (a.indexOf("song-") == 0) return "MUSIC_SONG"; else if (a.indexOf("book-") == 0) return "OCEAN_BOOK"; else if (a.indexOf("movie-") == 0) return "YOUTUBE_MOVIE";
return "ANDROID_APP";
}


And some wording-definitions:


switch (c.Li) {
case "ANDROID_APP":
c.wb ? d.a("Installed") : d.a("Purchased");
break;
case "OCEAN_BOOK":
d.a("Read");
break;
case "MUSIC_ALBUM":
d.a("Listen");
break;
case "MUSIC_TRACK":
d.a("Listen");
break;
case "YOUTUBE_MOVIE":
d.a("Watch");
}

And some status messages:

var Ai = {
ANDROID_APP: "This app will be downloaded to your device shortly.",
MUSIC_ALBUM: "Your album is now ready for you to listen...",
MUSIC_SONG: "Your song is now ready for you to listen...",
OCEAN_BOOK: "Your ebook is now available for you to read.",
REFUND: "Your refund was successfully processed.",
YOUTUBE_MOVIE: "Your movie is now ready to watch..."
}, Bi = {
ANDROID_APP: "Processing the install request...",
MUSIC_ALBUM: "Adding the album to your library...",
MUSIC_SONG: "Adding the song to your library...",
OCEAN_BOOK: "Making the book available to read...",
REFUND: "Processing the refund request...",
YOUTUBE_MOVIE: "Making the movie available to watch..."
}, Ci = {
ANDROID_APP: "Please sign-in to purchase this Android App.",
MUSIC_ALBUM: "Please sign-in to purchase this Album.",
MUSIC_SONG: "Please sign-in to purchase this Song.",
OCEAN_BOOK: "Please sign-in to purchase this Book.",
YOUTUBE_MOVIE: "Please sign-in to purchase this Movie."
}, Di = {
ANDROID_APP: "Please sign-in to install this Android App.",
MUSIC_ALBUM: "Please sign-in to get this Album.",
MUSIC_SONG: "Please sign-in to get this Song.",
OCEAN_BOOK: "Please sign-in to get this Book.",
YOUTUBE_MOVIE: "Please sign-in to get this Movie."
};




For all those who were brave enough to browse all that lame code until here... One of Googles infamous Error messages :D

"Oops, we're temporarily having trouble with your order. Right now our engineers are busy searching the back room for another copy of \"" + (a.f + "\". Once they find it, we'll be back in business. Apologies, and please try again later."




By the way there is in fact a hidden "Post to Buzz" button, but it is obviously not enabled... I don't know why :(



<div class="google-buzz-button-container goog-inline-block"><a title="',"Post to Google Buzz"

And my personal favorite:
'" data-message="CONFIDENTIAL - INTERNAL ONLY! POST USING ONLY YOUR GOOGLE.COM ACCOUNT! '
This string is included in the hidden buzz button! :D

So, what I expect:

The appearance in the production code probably hints that one or more of these features will be revealed at the Google I/O 2011!
Only 2 days left!