Rdio + Google Music

Time to switch it up again... Spotify's Android app has never been better than mediocre. Specifically, it's far too playlist-centric, so there is no easy way to complete simple tasks like sync a single album for offline playback. Rdio is much more album-centric in its web interface and on Android. The app has a lot of the nice UI design that makes MOG nice, but without the frustrating connectivity issues. Plus Rdio syncs a single queue across multiple devices, which allows the app to act like a remote if music is playing elsewhere.

In conjunction with this move is my focus toward mp3 playback via the cloud. I invested quite a bit of time in the Amazon Cloud Player before deciding to go with Google Music. I'm drawn to Google Music for its automatic caching features - there is no need to manage which albums are actually present on a device. The Nexus 4 has very limited storage, so a big cloud locker is clearly Google's vision for the future.

The Amazon MP3 app is nice, but it doesn't scrobble. I quickly grew tired of manually downloading and managing music files on my phone. I was attracted to the Amazon Upload at first, because its peak upload speeds were greater than Google's. But after some use, I realized that Google's actual throughput appears to be higher, because upload speeds are more consistent.

AVRCP 1.3 is also a deal breaker for me... I really love having artist/track info displayed on the dash in the car. Spotify on Android does not support this, so Rdio is a better choice. Oddly enough, Android ships with version 1.0 of the protocol, which does not support metadata. So I have also dabbled with Cyanogenmod 10/10.1 on the Nexus 7 and Nexus 4 - the Bluetooth libraries implement version 1.3.

Related links:

• sway.fm - Chrome Extension, multimedia key control and scrobbler for Rdio, Amazon Cloud Player, Google Music, etc.
• AVRCP v1.3