Google I/O: Nobody Noticed That Google Just Took On iTunes

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Google VP Vic Gundotra was speaking at the Google I/O conference. He mentioned something that a lot of people missed, but it’s pretty important – Google is taking on iTunes. The whole atmosphere at Google I/O seems to be “World Takes On Apple” and that’s exactly what Google is doing with the new music section in the Android Market.

Details are sparse, but TechCrunch was the first to bring up the implications of the Music section in the Android Market. The new Music store will be all web-based, which leads very early speculation that you’ll be able to listen to your purchased tunes from anywhere you can find a web browser. In addition to being all web-based, it’ll also auto-sync everything.

Nothing yet on what music companies will sign on with Google. Obviously, this is important, because if the selection is bad, people won’t bother. Nothing yet, but Google is a big name and Android is becoming more and more well known all the time. They shouldn’t have any trouble attracting all the major music studios.

Android phones historically haven’t been as good as playing music and media as the iPhone, because, frankly, the iPhone was an iPod first. But if you imagine the Android-based PMP devices from Archos and things that are dedicated music players, the idea of a built-in web-based music store is absolutely sick.

This of course, ties into Simplify Media, which Google bought and will let you stream media from your desktop/laptop to your Android.