Samsung Launches US Music Hub With Cloud Storage, Streaming, Radio, Store

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Samsung launched its Music Hub service within the U.S. on Tuesday. It’s an effort to capture among the buzz around Spotify with a feature that mixes a cloud music locker, unlimited song streaming, a radio player and a music store.

All that costs $10 a month, although song purchases are charged separately. The catch: you would like a Samsung Galaxy S III phone to make use of it.

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The U.S. launch comes with a 30-day free trial period. Music Hub was introduced in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Britain in May.

The service covers a number of services not available now from a single provider.

Apple Inc. sells songs on iTunes for as much as $1.29 each and copies or matches songs in your computer in a virtual locker on distant computer servers for $25 a year.

Sweden’s Spotify offers on-demand access to millions of tracks for $10 a month from mobile devices, and give a free radio service that streams songs in certain genres.

Music Hub does all of that during a single app.

“We purposely are attempting to blur the road, whether it’s music from radio or catalog or your music,” said Daren Tsui, chief executive of mSpot, a digital music company that Samsung acquired in May to create Music Hub. “Honestly, where it comes from is less relevant especially if it is a single plan. What you’d like is a holistic music experience on the end of the day.”

Having the power to shop music and store it in a cloud music locker for mobile playback may appear redundant in case you can access millions of tracks from mobile devices for a monthly fee. But some artists keep their material off of subscription music plans. As an example, The Beatles’ music is sold in digital form only on iTunes, and also you won’t find classics like “Here Comes the Sun” on subscription services.

So folks that have collected the Fab Four’s music through the years would need to save the digital files to their hard disk, download a Music Hub application that uploads them to the cloud after which stream or download them to the Galaxy S III phone. The files is also transferred from computer to phone with a USB cable.

T.J. Kang, senior vice chairman of Samsung’s media services, said that while matching Music Hub’s features may cost a little more through a patchwork of different services, Samsung won’t be losing money as a result of its arrangement with cellphone carriers and music companies.

“We basically are doing it to make our device more competitive by providing the most efficient valuable experience,” Kang said.

Samsung wouldn’t say what number of people have signed up for Music Hub.

The company is embroiled in a legal battle with Apple Inc., which accuses Samsung of copying the design of the iPhone in its Galaxy line of phones. an ordeal involving the world’s two largest makers of cellphones began Tuesday in San Jose, Calif.

Last week research firm IDC said Samsung Electronics Co. extended its lead over Apple in cellphones, shipping 50.2 million units worldwide within the April-June quarter, in comparison to 26 million for Apple.