Yet another service not available to Google Hosted domains.
I run my own domain, happily pay for it, for 1TB of storage for Photos, for Google Play Music, for apps, for films.
But yet constantly excluded from some services and features, and never knowing whether some features will even come to my account.
Seemingly all because I wanted to keep the same email I've had since 1997.
They could easily add this capability, default disabled, to the domain management page.
Edit: Has anyone tried it the other way around? What if I associate my credit card to my wife's regular gmail account and get the family plan there, could we add accounts that belong to Google Hosted domains to a family created via gmail? Or is the definition of family purely gmail users?
I shouldn't even be surprised anymore when this happens, yet I still am. Why is what is fundamentally a different billing method restricted by account type? It feels completely arbitrary.
There's a discussion on this going on over at Google's product forums [1]. Tons of people are in the same boat. These are some of the most devoted users of Google's products, yet are continually left frustrated and left out of new products for seemingly no apparent reason.
And no - migrating to a regular @gmail.com address isn't really feasible. I'd have to manually export all of my playlists, library, favorites from Play Music and countless other products.
Project Fi is another service I'd love to sign up for, but my Google Voice number I've been using for years is associated with my Apps account, and I'm not about to start another number and start switching between Google accounts all the time just to use it.
A couple of years ago, I created a plain old GMail account and transferred all of my mail to it, mainly so I could get all of the Google Now features that Apps accounts didn't have yet. I still send as my own email address, but I never log into Google Apps account because Google Apps accounts are terrible.
I highly recommend abandoning your account. Use a real GMail account. There's a one time switching cost, and it's worth it.
It's gotten so that any time I see something new from Google, the first thing I do is check if I can even use it. Often I am disappointed. I still can't use Fi, and Google Now is almost useless because it refuses to use my email to customize itself.
Doesn't use of the Google Apps stuff mean your content is not scanned for ads? Certainly you don't get ads when you're using the mail.
Google is an advertising company. This Apps thing is a side business. They're going to focus on bringing features to the users they are selling ads against. Users who aren't generating ads are going to be an afterthought.
You can argue that they should pay you more attention if you are paying for the Google services but as a practical matter this company is focused on ads, not on satisfying paying customers.
Doesn't work the other way around either. I originally signed up under an old @gmail.com address since that was the first address I used in Android and it held all my purchases. My family shares the account on all our devices. All of our personal email is under a family Google Apps account. I signed up for family and when I try to accept it tells me it's not allowed for Google Apps accounts. Joy.
Google Play Music, YouTube Red and YouTube Music is my favorite service.
I have tried Spotify and Amazon and others. Google has two killer features.
1) I can upload my own music (20,000 songs) for free and stream for free. I have eclectic taste and some of my music isn't in the 35 million songs available.
2) The YouTube (Red (no ads), Music and Gaming) really are great on mobile.
3) The vast amount of content available for offline/background play on Youtube. Almost anything ever recorded is available - including live shows, unofficial remixes and background beats.
I've found YouTube Red to be buggy, in that although the ads are dramatically reduced, they still happen from time to time, particularly when streaming via the chromecast.
They're lazy.
I use Google Apps for personal, family members. Google asked a few times if I'm sure I'm not a business. I said I'm not.
In the end, without asking anymore they stopped billing VAT because I'm a business. Well... OK.
This reason made me to create new gmail account in order to use Project Fi.
I really don't understand why Google releases product for gmail user only. They advertised google apps for work as custom domain at first.
Does anyone have insight into Google's strategy on all these subscription services?
Is it to legitimize previous tech endeavors to make sure they're sustainable in the long term? Does Google forecast subscription services will make up a sizable portion of revenue in the future? Is the experience better at Google than anywhere else due to the vast amount of data and new technology being created everyday?
I'm not sure I totally get it yet because the revenue Google stands to capture in these markets feels incremental compared to their main advertising and marketing businesses.
With ad revenues drying up (Adblock, general lack to interest to ads) Google is forced to look at other avenues to make money and selling stuff to people is a great way for that.
$14.99 for 6 people is a great price. But not really for 2 people. I have spotify and I love it, but I've been wanting to switch to google music for a while because I already store my music there. With spotify I can share my premium account with my spouse. You can't use it at the same time, but that rarely ever happens. It's just 2 of us. And when it does happen I can just download what I want to hear and then go on offline mode. I also like the spotify app. It's easy to use.
The problem with google music (or google in general) is that they can't just be happy with an UI, and so their UI changes constantly which make it for a poor user experience. Plus, I can't just give my spouse my account because that means I am giving all of my google services accounts.
Yet the UI for Google Play Music is atrocious. People I give it to that aren't familiar take forever. Myself, despite using it all the time (earphones, casting, car BT) find it frustrating. Hit back a few times no woops too many, OK now I can swipe out the menu and select my library and deal with the ridiculous amounts of scrolling. Sigh.
The hilarious thing is their Wikipedia scraping. Every time I select an artist I'm treated to some lame-style photo, and half the screen gets to tell me "Nirvana was a grunge band from Aberdeen with Kurt.....". Gee thanks Google, that was worth complicating the UI.
Playlist management is also worse than Windows Media Player. Like, how do you get that wrong?
This deal is sweet and I'd buy today, but Google is psycho when it comes to regions. Since it randomly thinks I'm in France or Hungary when in Denver, plus I travel between Canada and Guatemala, my guess is that features will randomly stop working or switch language. Otherwise, cool.
Google Music has 3 features that make music playing / discovery light years better than my experience with Apple Music and better than Spotify (I'm a paying Apple Music customer now):
1. Songza playlists - the playlists for mood and activity are far more detailed for categories outside of pop and hip-hop.
2. Easily start a radio station from any song or artist.
3. Catalog. With Youtube Red included nearly every background beat, live show, demo, etc. recorded is now available to listen to with excellent search capabilities. Hopefully eventually mixing and matching GPM and Youtube playlists will happen - but its not a huge problem.
Apple Music has better artist descriptions and artwork - and I like that they and Spotify display the full album cover when playing on mobile. Apple's focus on hip-hop and pop though really hurts discovery and UX for those without those focuses.
in the google music app, not play, go to the hamburger menu -> settings. Should be at the top under the account section, you may need to hit the refresh button under the same the section.
Do we know what the deal is with uploading music? Can I upload music for just me or does my family have to share the 20k song limit? I'm not even sure which version of this I would prefer. I know between us we have more than 20k songs we'd upload, but we also could probably get by with being more selective about uploads because I've certainly uploaded some dupes.
Thanks to the customer unfriendly terms and conditions, a family plan is not always an option, even if a family subscription is available in your country. In my case, I have cell phone plan with a Spotify Premium subscription included, and because of that, I can't get or upgrade to a family plan.
So it may be true that Spotify has a family plan, it's not available to all their subscribers. The situation is a bit similar to Google Hosted Domains customers who can't get a Google Play Music Family Plan: unnecessary complicated terms and conditions and exclusions.
And finally a 'deal' that existing premium members can take advantage of. Since I'm forking over £10 a month anyway I might as well pretend to have a family too.
Although I do enjoy signing up to the 3-month 99p deals and moving over my playlists each time.
[+] [-] buro9|10 years ago|reply
Yet another service not available to Google Hosted domains.
I run my own domain, happily pay for it, for 1TB of storage for Photos, for Google Play Music, for apps, for films.
But yet constantly excluded from some services and features, and never knowing whether some features will even come to my account.
Seemingly all because I wanted to keep the same email I've had since 1997.
They could easily add this capability, default disabled, to the domain management page.
Edit: Has anyone tried it the other way around? What if I associate my credit card to my wife's regular gmail account and get the family plan there, could we add accounts that belong to Google Hosted domains to a family created via gmail? Or is the definition of family purely gmail users?
[+] [-] chambo622|10 years ago|reply
There's a discussion on this going on over at Google's product forums [1]. Tons of people are in the same boat. These are some of the most devoted users of Google's products, yet are continually left frustrated and left out of new products for seemingly no apparent reason.
And no - migrating to a regular @gmail.com address isn't really feasible. I'd have to manually export all of my playlists, library, favorites from Play Music and countless other products.
[1] https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/play/86WVa8b_3i...
Project Fi is another service I'd love to sign up for, but my Google Voice number I've been using for years is associated with my Apps account, and I'm not about to start another number and start switching between Google accounts all the time just to use it.
[+] [-] natrius|10 years ago|reply
I highly recommend abandoning your account. Use a real GMail account. There's a one time switching cost, and it's worth it.
[+] [-] jakebasile|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] massysett|10 years ago|reply
Google is an advertising company. This Apps thing is a side business. They're going to focus on bringing features to the users they are selling ads against. Users who aren't generating ads are going to be an afterthought.
You can argue that they should pay you more attention if you are paying for the Google services but as a practical matter this company is focused on ads, not on satisfying paying customers.
[+] [-] kbatten|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lsaferite|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baldfat|10 years ago|reply
I have tried Spotify and Amazon and others. Google has two killer features.
1) I can upload my own music (20,000 songs) for free and stream for free. I have eclectic taste and some of my music isn't in the 35 million songs available.
2) The YouTube (Red (no ads), Music and Gaming) really are great on mobile.
[+] [-] kuboa|10 years ago|reply
That has been upped to 50,000 songs early this year, FYI. As an Enka and J-Pop listener, it's the defining feature for me too.
[+] [-] Artistry121|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m52go|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vox_mollis|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] refriedbeans3|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] semenko|10 years ago|reply
"You can only set up a family group with a personal Google Account, not a Google for Work or Google for Education account"
[+] [-] tho9Ohx1eo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codebook|10 years ago|reply
This reason made me to create new gmail account in order to use Project Fi. I really don't understand why Google releases product for gmail user only. They advertised google apps for work as custom domain at first.
[+] [-] SeanAnderson|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msoad|10 years ago|reply
I'm using Google Apps actually but I don't expect Google allow me to share my account with my family.
[+] [-] Dwolb|10 years ago|reply
Is it to legitimize previous tech endeavors to make sure they're sustainable in the long term? Does Google forecast subscription services will make up a sizable portion of revenue in the future? Is the experience better at Google than anywhere else due to the vast amount of data and new technology being created everyday?
I'm not sure I totally get it yet because the revenue Google stands to capture in these markets feels incremental compared to their main advertising and marketing businesses.
[+] [-] jeffjose|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dpweb|10 years ago|reply
Note, 1B users today in 2015. Still growing at 40% according to their stats page. Pretty decent math.
[+] [-] dfar1|10 years ago|reply
The problem with google music (or google in general) is that they can't just be happy with an UI, and so their UI changes constantly which make it for a poor user experience. Plus, I can't just give my spouse my account because that means I am giving all of my google services accounts.
[+] [-] untog|10 years ago|reply
It's better than the price for Spotify, at least.
[+] [-] chipperyman573|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] millstone|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MichaelGG|10 years ago|reply
The hilarious thing is their Wikipedia scraping. Every time I select an artist I'm treated to some lame-style photo, and half the screen gets to tell me "Nirvana was a grunge band from Aberdeen with Kurt.....". Gee thanks Google, that was worth complicating the UI.
Playlist management is also worse than Windows Media Player. Like, how do you get that wrong?
This deal is sweet and I'd buy today, but Google is psycho when it comes to regions. Since it randomly thinks I'm in France or Hungary when in Denver, plus I travel between Canada and Guatemala, my guess is that features will randomly stop working or switch language. Otherwise, cool.
[+] [-] Artistry121|10 years ago|reply
Apple Music has better artist descriptions and artwork - and I like that they and Spotify display the full album cover when playing on mobile. Apple's focus on hip-hop and pop though really hurts discovery and UX for those without those focuses.
[+] [-] jdeibele|10 years ago|reply
Maybe I haven't had enough coffee this morning?
[+] [-] bweitzman|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mayneack|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] IshKebab|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] turing|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hkmix|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hohenheim|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnthomas14|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mitkok|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kuschku|10 years ago|reply
That’s most definitely "contributing to discussion".
[+] [-] yabatopia|10 years ago|reply
So it may be true that Spotify has a family plan, it's not available to all their subscribers. The situation is a bit similar to Google Hosted Domains customers who can't get a Google Play Music Family Plan: unnecessary complicated terms and conditions and exclusions.
[+] [-] kingosticks|10 years ago|reply
Although I do enjoy signing up to the 3-month 99p deals and moving over my playlists each time.
[+] [-] shmerl|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] izzydata|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bweitzman|10 years ago|reply