Still holding out on the music streaming bandwagon? With the impending launch of Apple Music, Google wants to try to get you onboard first and on that note, the company today announced a new free tier to their music streaming service.
Google Play Music adds a new ad supported, free version in the US that will allow you to listen to the vast variety of hand curated music playlists on offer. Unlike Spotify, the free tier on Google Play Music will not let you play specific artists, albums or tracks. Users will be relegated to playlists that offer a music radio like experience.
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The free service will also bring in a fair amount of restrictions including but not limited to advertisements. As you’d expect, offline playback won’t work on Android or iOS devices. Additionally, users can skip music only six times per hour. Users also won’t be able to rewind, scrub through music or see the playlist queue. The music library though remains the same so there’s a good chance that there’s a playlist out there with your favorite band onboard. Even the free tier gets 320kbps streaming which gives Play Music a one up over the competition.
The free tier of Google Play Music is available on the web starting today. Android and iOS users will get an update with the new features later this week.