Third party Google Music client for Windows Phone now available

By Daniel Rubino
last updated

Although we're fans of Zune (or LastFM) on our Windows Phone, on occasion we get the request for a Google Music (music.google.com/ (opens in new tab)) client. While we're not holding our breath for an official app from Google anytime soon, there's no reason why devs can't do it on their own.

For those who don't know, Google allows you to upload your entire music library to the cloud and gives you the ability to stream anywhere. It's not actually a bad idea as it allows you to backup your collection, free up hard disk space and easily download it again when needed. The service is free for your first 20,000 songs which should get your started (though uploading 20K songs may take some time). [Side note: We're really hoping Microsoft takes SkyDrive + Zune in this direction for Windows Phone 8 and the desktop OS].

Today, Gooroovster is now available on the Windows Phone Marketplace. The app goes for $3.99 which is on the high side but there is of course a free trial. The app has been in private beta for weeks though and initial feedback for the app has been very high, making this seemingly a great solution for those with Google Music as their primary music resource. (Beta testers will be getting one final update very soon to match the released version--kudos to the dev for that).

Allowing you stream via the Zune music player under lockscreen/background and access your entire library, the app is exactly what many have asked for as it even has a very Metro UI. For that, we're giving it our seal of approval.

Give Gooroovster a shot here in the Marketplace and submit feedback and requests via the UserVoice forum.

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been here covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, Microsoft Surface, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics and ran the projectors at movie theaters, which has done absolutely nothing for his career.

20 Comments
  • This is just what I need being a dual Android and WP7 user. Installing now!
  • Update: Just bought it (£2.99 UK money ~ $4.72) and it works wonderfully.
    Combined with my unlimited data plan, this is perfect for me. :D
  • I don't consider $3.99 high for this kind of app. Google Music is awesome and paying such a small one time fee for accessing my entire music library that is stored for free in the cloud is amazing. Kudos to developers!!! :-)
  • Oh yes. I'll have some of this please.
  • Anyone else finding it isn't showing anywhere near close their full library? When I first logged in, I only got the option to sync most recent tracks, not the full library. Is this just a limitation of the free trial, or is it a problem with the full version? Because right now, what I can see works well, but it's a tiny fraction of my music, and I'm hesitant to drop $ on something if I don't know if it works correctly.
  • Its probably a limitation of the trial. I don't know for sure since I didn't use the trial (beta to full version) but I've not had your problem at all. I have the max 20,000 songs and they all synced with no issue (rather quickly, I might add, considering the amount). This is a fantastic app! :)
  • I figured this was probably the case. it's a shame he didn't actually say so anywhere in the app description, I expect that'll create a lot of confusion in the short term.
  • But my collection is already augmented by my ZunePass, and if I don't have a song I just jet over to the marketplace. Google can eat it. MSFT has got my back.
  • This is simply brilliant! The long wait is finally over! Finally I can stream my gigantic music library right from my phone. Makes it even sweeter given the fact that grooveshark is blocked over here! Big ups to the devs!!!
  • Ok, so I recently purchased the Cloud Music app and used SDExplorer (on my pc) to get a ton of my music into my Skydrive account.  While the CM app has often been a buggy mess of an app that I find myself regetting paying the $1.29 for (hopefully it'll improve soon), it's been a surprising treat that I can simply use the official Skydrive app and play any of the songs from there with generally no issues.
    Ok, the whole point of my rant here is this: what does Google Music offer that's better than what I can currently do with Skydrive (for free!) on my WP?
  • possibility to upload upto 20,000 songs which is definitely more than 25GB that skydrive offers is the difference.
  • I don't know it offers anything better.  I wrote Gooroovster for me first, that might sound selfish :)  but I have all my music on google music and I'm a .NET developer.  I almost drove into a dtich one day trying to use the web browser for GM and deiced to give it a go.
  • Yes, the 500 songs is a trial limitation.  It's not so much a limitation, it's just that refresh all is disabled.  Refresh last added is the "Last Added" auto play list that shows up in Google Music.  I'll update description with that info so it's clear but I'm waiting on the first update to publsih first.  I was hoping I could get the update out sooner.  Once that update is published I'll be able to update the info about how the trial works.  I think I could go ahead and update the info but I've read where people had troubles with this while they were waiting on an app to get published.
    I'll update the knowledgebase as well.  It's at http://gooroovster.uservoice.com.
    The marketplace version is pretty solid but the update includes these changes:
    https://gist.github.com/1809437
     
    The next planned release will have artist background art on the player, more metro tiles, and hopefully live tiles and pinning of music items to the start page.  Any questions, shoot them over to support@gooroovster.com
  • That's awesome, and thanks for the reply. :-)
  • Know what? I agree. Other than YouTube, GM is the only google service I use. But I have to give credit where it's due. For those of us with extensive music collections, Google's done it right. And Gooroovster just made it a whole lot better. When Microsoft lets me keep my 200+GB of music in the cloud with full access to it from my phone via Zune, I'll gladly jump on board.
  • That's funny - these are the only two G services I use, too.
    Kudos to the developers for bringing out a strong v1.0 product. I posted an announcement along with a wishlist for future versions on Reddit here .
    Thanks for posting a feedback page. I'll try to post the things I've noticed.
    Anyway, keep up the great work. You'll be getting my cash money very soon!
  • You're fans of Last.fm? IMO they should call it Last.resort. I have never heard a music service repeat the same songs over and over as much as Last.fm.
  • You're doing it wrong. If you haven't taken the time to build up a variety of artists, that will happen when you play "your library radio"
  • Yes!! Finallyyyy!! :D
  • but what about the google music streaming. I haven't uploaded or bought any music for google music. I only use the google music streamng....