Ed Hewitt Yet another Tech & Gaming Blog!

First look at Ubuntu One Music Store

The long awaited Ubuntu One Music Store has final gone into public beta. This post is just going to be my short initial reaction to the store.

For starters, the store is very well integrated into Ubuntu, by using a plugin in the default music player, Rhythmbox. The plugin acts as a web portal to the music store. Once you have purchased the music, the plugin is used to download and move your music into your Ubuntu One folder to be backed up to the cloud and send to the rest of your computers. This is a excellent way to secure your downloads after purchase, my only complainant is that Ubuntu One gives most users 2GB of space, which is not enough for music. To me it seems a way to encourage users to pay money to get 50Gb of space, but that is not enough for some.

I would use this service, because of the integration of the music store and to support Canonical, but I'm not going to use the service for one simple reason. Store is run by 7Digital, which is fine, because it offers high quality DRM free MP3 music. Exactly what I want. However, Amazon MP3 offers DRM free music as well, but at a much lower price. For example, I purchased the Florence + The Machine album yesterday off Amazon MP3 for £6, on 7Digital it is £8. I will carry on using Amazon MP3 for the sole reason of pricing.