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Ubuntu One Music for iOS arrives in the App Store
A few days ago, Canonical outed the beta version of its Ubuntu One Music app for Android. It's nascent, to say the least -- lacking things we've come to expect from music players like album artwork and playlists. Now Ubuntu One Music has arrived in App Store -- and the iOS experience looks every bit as Spartan.
And by that, I mean I'd like to kick it down a hole. But seriously -- the interface is very basic, and the plain black-and-white screenshots in the App Store aren't very exciting. On top of that, there's no mention of the fact that a subscription is required to use U1 Music (not on the snippet page -- as pointed out in the comments, it's in the 'more info' section) .The iTunes listing merely states, "Ubuntu One Music streams your entire music library from your Ubuntu One personal cloud to your iPhone. Listen your music wherever you are or wherever you're going."
And by that, I mean I'd like to kick it down a hole. But seriously -- the interface is very basic, and the plain black-and-white screenshots in the App Store aren't very exciting. On top of that, there's no mention of the fact that a subscription is required to use U1 Music (not on the snippet page -- as pointed out in the comments, it's in the 'more info' section) .
Want to access the music in your free 2GB Ubuntu One storage? That'll be $3.99, please. Otherwise you'll be greeted with the same screen I saw (image after the break).
That fee seems a bit steep for the ability to stream music to my iPod touch, especially when there are plenty of other options which allow me to do it for free (like Zumocast) -- though admittedly there are probably fewer options available to Linux users than those of us on Windows or Mac systems.
Maybe I'm being too picky, but I think this is the kind of thing you might want to mention to users before they download your app.
Comments
1
Subscribe to commentsMatt GriffinOct 13th 2010 10:43AM
Lee: It looks like you missed reading the full app description from the '...More' link in the App Store. This contains "Ubuntu One Mobile, a paid subscription service from Canonical, is required to use Ubuntu One Music" as well as full pricing and feature information about the service. Album art, AAC file support and caching are coming soon!
Zumocast's approach looks interesting but it's only useful if you want to go to the expense (dollar and time-wise) required to setup and run your own server. Ubuntu One Music connects to your music that's stored in your Ubuntu One personal cloud. No personal server required. Setup just takes a few seconds (http://bit.ly/bISEBQ) and is coming soon to Windows.