14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung is trying to take on other mobile music service, such as Spotify and iCloud, with its latest announcement. Starting today, Galaxy S III owners will be able to take advantage of Samsung’s new Music Hub service, which promises lots of goodies for free, and even more for a price.
Unfortunately, Samsung announced that Music Hub would be originally launched on the Samsung Galaxy S III in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the UK.
The Music Hub is Samsung’s first all-in-one mobile music service and is meant to simplify and enhance the everyday experience of listening to music.
According to the South Korean company, the Music Hub is based on the technology services of mSpot, a company recently acquired by Samsung.
“We believe that today's mobile market must have an open mobile music system – one that offers all kinds of services across different devices. Music Hub removes all the barriers to your music,” said Daren Tsui, CEO of mSpot.
Samsung offers users versions of the Hub Music service, a free version and a Premium iteration, which is available for €/£9.99 per month.
The free version of Music Hub provides access to 19 million song catalog offered by 7digital. Users can listen to 30-second previews of all songs before making their purchases.
Furthermore, all purchased music is stored in the cloud and automatically appears on all of users’ devices. Obviously, the music can also be stored locally on devices for offline listening.
The Premium version of Music Hub allows users to upload and access their entire music collection anywhere, as well as enjoy unlimited streaming from the millions of songs in the Music Hub catalog and find new songs with radio stations based on the artists they like.
Samsung Music Hub also offers Scan & Match Cloud Locker, which uses scan and match technology to decrease upload time and ensure high-quality playback.
It appears that all unmatched songs found will be uploaded from user’s library so they can access rare or personal recordings. Samsung offers 100 GB of storage for all unmatched songs for free.
Radio is also a new feature offered by Samsung Music Hub. Users can create personal stations based on their favorite songs and artists, or even browse genre stations recommended by the developer.
The Music Hub has been especially optimized for mobile, so users will be able to limit their cellular data usage through advanced streaming and various downloading options offered by Samsung’s service.
There’s also a Web Player available, so users can access their music library and the Music Hub catalog/store online.