Summary: 'Groove Music Pass', Microsoft's music streaming service, is being discontinued on 2017-12-31; subscribers get a prorated refund and an opportunity to get a 60-day trial of Spotify Premium; Groove app will offer playlist migration for your personally-curated playlists into Spotify.
Key facts:
- Read their official FAQ [1]
- If you subscribed to 'Groove Music Pass', you will (probably) need to back up music you downloaded using that particular service
- Windows Store-bought music files, or any other 'hard-file-on-disk' music files are unaffected; this announcement concerns a streaming service
- Groove app will remain available as a music player and (local) playlist manager, and will retain the integration with OneDrive to play files that are in your OneDrive
- Your OneDrive storage tier may shrink if right now you are getting more storage because of Groove Music Pass
> Windows Store-bought music files, or any other 'hard-file-on-disk' music files are unaffected; this announcement concerns a streaming service
Per the FAQ, the Windows Store is shutting down its music section entirely as well. You will have until December to download any purchased song files from the Store before it shuts down. The FAQ does state that all purchased songs that have been downloaded will continue to play, and suggests moving them to OneDrive (if you hadn't already) to continue to sync them and make them available on all your devices.
I had been a streaming customer from early 2008 until 2014. Zune was an amazing service. Xbox Music as a service was compelling, but the switch from Zune to Xbox Music was a great loss in quality & capability.
I switched to Spotify because it had the social features I liked from Zune, but I actually had friends using it (esp. via Facebook integration). It had more songs, better cross platform, and a much more stable desktop interface.
Props to Microsoft for taking the dog behind the shed and ending things. If only they had preserved their dignity and just ended it with Zune rather than stringing customers along on what was definitively not the most competitive offering.
I am betting Microsoft got some kind of deal with Spotify out of this. Spotify had an exclusivity agreement with Sony that kept the Spotify app off the Xbox One; that agreement lapsed and Spotify is on the Xbox One now. I would not be surprised if that and other things were in a deal between the two firms.
Here's what MS should have done: make Groove available on the web, macOS, Roku, and give more love to the Android/iOS apps. Implement social functionality, Last.fm integration, live performance, innovate more.
I never saw an ad for Groove. For a lot of people, that's just an icon in Windows they'll probably never clicked on. No wonder it failed.
Give the non-canceled rest a try as long as it's there. – Did you ever upload your own music in the cloud with Apple or Google but everything got messed up quickly and you had to fight with opaque upload mechanisms and servers representations? Give OneDrive with Groove a try. Just put music files into OneDrive's Music folder. No duplicates, no deleted songs, reliable, app on all mobile platforms, web-player, suggested playlists based on your own music in the cloud, Cortana integration, download for offline-play; best experience I ever had.
Great news for Spotify! It’s a shame Microsoft couldn't find a way to keep MSN Music, Zune Music, XBox Music, or Groove Music sustainable for their users.
The old Zune Pass was a pretty good deal. Unlimited streaming plus 10 drm-free mp3s a month. MS has actually been in the streaming music business longer than Spotify, when their myriad product lines are taken into account.
That said, they didn't execute well. Zune Music was too dependent on the Zune. Groove had no selling points outside the ms ecosystem.
Their main problem is that conceive the service as value added for the platform, which is basically non existent now except for Xbox.
If they instead spun off a group of engineers and allowed them to create a great streaming service with no restrictions or handcuffs because windows or office or IE or whatever is being pushed this month, and then use the platform as a value added for the service you would get much better result IMHO.
That would mean develop for every mobile OS + windows and osx as a minimum from the start, not as an afterthought. No windows live or whatever it is called now ( linkable if you want), etc. Things Microsoft would never approve.
> MS has actually been in the X business longer than Y, when their myriad product lines are taken into account.
> That said, they didn't execute well.
This has been the story of any number of MS product lines, unfortunately. Handhelds/smart devices, social media, streaming services, etc.
Microsoft is actually really good at recruiting research talent that spots the next trends emerging before they happen and coming up with compelling ideas/prototypes. They then proceed to trip over themselves during execution and while being first to market, being outcompeted by the second wave and coming in with a mediocre offering by the 3rd or 4th wave.
Rhapsody had the same model (not sure if they still do), and their catalog is as good or even larger than the rest. I'm still not sure why it's not considered the top competitor to Spotify.
For me, Apple Music is better because a) the song limit is dramatically higher than Spotify (10k vs 100k) and b) I am free to add my own music (not available via streaming) to the library which is then available on all my devices.
The song limit is really better in Apple, but you are able to add your own music in Spotify.
To listen to it in other devices I had to download it in them.
From what I remember having spotify, the only way to add your own music is to add it to a playlist from your computer, and then sync that playlist locally, so it basically just uses Spotify as a relay for your music on your computer. I'm assuming Apple is like Google Play Music, which lets you add albums and songs to your library that appear the same way as the streaming ones (within your albums/artists/etc) and don't need to be synced locally.
It is inside the app. It is the same process that you do to make playlists available offline. I only did that from my laptop to an android phone, I don't know if it works in all clients.
Maybe I just live under a rock, but this is actually the first time I've heard of Groove music. I don't know if that's saying more about me or MS' marketing department.
Groove Music is the label attached to the state of disappointment that teenagers suffer when their parents buy their first smartphone as an affordable choice. They wanted Apple Music but it didn’t happen because they got a Lumia.
Apparently it’s on Windows 10 but everyone just installs iTunes or Spotify much like no one gives a shit about Edge and just installs chrome these days.
That says more about the platform than you or their marketing. The whole thing is rotting from the outside in.
It's really not. The discard rate of MSFT tech is pretty high. The amount of times I've seen people discard their WP handset decrying it as a "fucking pile of unreliable broken shit" is quite ridiculous.
Nice! But what's the point of the app now? Shouldn't they discontinue the app itself as well then?
Also, would be amazing if it would work both ways - you can play Spotify content in your Groove app because then you don't even need to install anything.
The Groove app is still useful for its OneDrive integration and local file support. It is a successor to Windows Media Player, so it would be strange for the app to disappear entirely. As someone that relies heavily on OneDrive streaming, I'm still likely to use the Groove app as much as I did before this change.
I was a Groove subscriber for a few months while playing Forza Horizon 3, for the in-game integration with Groove. I am guessing this is the end of that feature, which is a shame, and reduces some of the replay value of that game for me. There's a Spotify app for Xbox finally, after their PlayStation partnership ended, but I'm doubtful that games with Groove integration are going to get updated.
Groove integration in Forza Horizon 3 supports OneDrive playlists as well. (I've used that.) The use of the Groove app for its OneDrive integration still exists, so supposedly that feature will still work for OneDrive playlists.
If Microsoft wants to be competitive in browsers, they must make edge cross platform. It's a very capable browser and can hold its own against Chrome and Firefox. And it is continuously getting better. But if they keep it so tightly tied to windows 10, they are gonna have to discontinue it just like groove. I like to use edge on my laptop but there is no sync possible between my phone and it, because there's no edge for Android. Things like this keep people from adopting what is actually a good browser. Groove had the same problem. The app on desktop was pretty good, the service was pretty good, the app on Android was shit and not available in India.
If they continue like this we will soon see shutdown notices for Cortana, edge and others. A counterpoint is onedrive. They have excellent iOS and Android apps. The service is good in its own right. Onedrive ain't going anywhere.
Launching a DRM platform with the name "PlaysForSure" and then repeatedly making content not play for sure isn't really building trust in your company and branding.
The very bottom of the blog post links to the FAQ [1].
The FAQ says:
> If your Pass subscription goes beyond December 31, 2017, we will give you a prorated refund or a Microsoft gift card (see details below).
> Your recurring annual Groove Music Pass will continue through December 31, 2017. If your Pass subscription extends beyond December 31, 2017, then by February 1, 2018, Microsoft will give you a prorated refund from December 31, 2017 onwards (if we are able to issue a refund to your credit card/payment instrument on file). If we are unable to refund your payment instrument on file, Microsoft will provide 120% of that prorated amount in a Microsoft gift card in your Microsoft account to spend at the Microsoft Store.
> If you cancel your annual Groove Music Pass subscription before December 31, 2017, then:
- If you cancelled your subscription within 30 days of the start of your subscription, we'll give you a full refund if we have your credit card/payment instrument information and it supports refunds.
- If we can't refund your payment instrument on file, we'll provide 120% of that amount in Microsoft gift card value.
If you cancelled your subscription after 30 days from the start of your subscription, we'll give you a prorated refund (if we can issue a refund to your credit card/payment instrument on file). If we can't refund your payment instrument on file, Microsoft will provide 120% of that prorated amount in Store credit.
- To cancel your Groove Music Pass online, please go to account.microsoft.com/services.
- If you run into problems with cancelling, please contact customer support.
> I'm a monthly Groove Music Pass subscriber. What are my options?
> You can continue your subscription through December 31, 2017. If your subscription extends beyond December 31, 2017, then by February 1, 2018, Microsoft will provide you with a prorated refund from December 31, 2017 onwards (if we can issue a refund to your credit card/payment instrument on file). If your payment instrument on file does not support refunds, Microsoft will provide 120% of that prorated amount in a Microsoft gift card. You can also turn off auto-renew for your monthly Groove Music Pass subscription at any time. If you do, your subscription will finish at the end of your billing cycle.
Well, they pretty much have to- Spotify will run in the background of games on an Xbox. Groove is completely unnecessary- smart to partner with the leader to stay relevant.
Key facts:
- Read their official FAQ [1]
- If you subscribed to 'Groove Music Pass', you will (probably) need to back up music you downloaded using that particular service
- Windows Store-bought music files, or any other 'hard-file-on-disk' music files are unaffected; this announcement concerns a streaming service
- Groove app will remain available as a music player and (local) playlist manager, and will retain the integration with OneDrive to play files that are in your OneDrive
- Your OneDrive storage tier may shrink if right now you are getting more storage because of Groove Music Pass
[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4046109/groove-musi...