http://rootzwiki.com/news/_/articles/series/ Sun, 19 May 2013 18:00:39 +0000 86400 Ongoing Series http://rootzwiki.com/news/_/articles/series/press-vs-feedly-marchs-head-to-head-app-battle-r1481 Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:29:42 +0000 86654aa91382ffa290d510f1d2dd3353 http://rootzwiki.com/news/_/articles/series/magazine-style-news-reader-showdown-flipboard-vs-currents-r1398 Sat, 16 Feb 2013 20:28:16 +0000 4e116472d8d66d4a4122b279f7da37f6 http://rootzwiki.com/news/_/articles/series/will-google-music-support-third-party-players-r634 Many people enjoy the convenience of having access to their entire music library (or at least 20,000 songs worth of it) in the cloud, and many also like the stock Play Music app that Google uses. However, many have clamored for months for Google to release APIs (application programming interfaces) so that their favorite third-party music players can access their Google Music libraries. Has any progress been made towards achieving this? What obstacles stand in the way? Is there any way to access our Google Music libraries now?No Official Google APIs YetSome might consider it odd that Google, a company known for being open-source and with a reputation for allowing third-party access to its services, has not yet released APIs to allow third-party music players to access users’ Google Music libraries. Likely, there are concerns that the RIAA would try to shut down Google Music if third-party players were able to access users’ libraries. Without Digital Rights Management protection, ther... Thu, 12 Apr 2012 22:10:51 +0000 6dd4e10e3296fa63738371ec0d5df818 http://rootzwiki.com/news/_/articles/series/how-google-music-can-bridge-the-gap-with-its-competition-r622 Google Music Can Already CompeteAs was hinted at in the first article of this series, Google Music already has a number of key strengths compared to its rivals. The chief advantage it has over iTunes is its integration into Android, a fast-growing platform that is showing no signs of slowing down (200 million Android users and counting - the HTC One series and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S III, and even Sony’s vastly improved XPeria line should continue to make Android’s growth explode...). It’s biggest advantage over Amazon MP3 is its far superior Play Music app. Google Music’s cloud storage also give you more free storage than iCloud and Amazon’s cloud storage (for a 20,000 song library, if each song averaged 4MB in size, Google Music would be giving you 80 GB for free, whereas iCloud would charge you $100/year for 70 GB and Amazon would charge you $50/year for 55 GB of your non-Amazon-purchased music). It’s biggest advantage over subscription services like Spotify and R... Mon, 09 Apr 2012 02:18:51 +0000 c7af0926b294e47e52e46cfebe173f20 http://rootzwiki.com/news/_/articles/series/storm-clouds-for-google-music-r615 Storm Clouds on the Horizon Google is supposedly facing early struggles in its efforts to become a dominant player in the online music arena (pun intended), and the company will need to address several issues if it hopes to compete effectively with iTunes and various popular music subscription services. According to a recent article by Gary Sandoval for Cnet, Google Music is slow out of the gates with its entry into the downloadable music arena. In Sandoval’s opinion, this may be a symptom of a larger issue, but for the purposes of this article, I will limit my focus to the music aspect. Google is facing issues along 3 fronts in its efforts to become a viable music option among its Android audience and to become a force in the digital music industry overall: its music player, its cloud storage service, and its online Play Store music catalog.The issues Google needs to address are as follows:The music player:While the main app is well-designed, sporting a clean interface and surprisi... Fri, 06 Apr 2012 23:53:17 +0000 71a58e8cb75904f24cde464161c3e766 http://rootzwiki.com/news/_/articles/series/rootcamp-life-on-base-r489 Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:43:42 +0000 1baff70e2669e8376347efd3a874a341 http://rootzwiki.com/news/_/articles/series/rootcamp-orientation-day-r417 Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:04:59 +0000 9a1756fd0c741126d7bbd4b692ccbd91