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As a senior user of Google's goods and services, I have rethought how I deal with my digital life in the past few months. Of all the things I can do with my smartphone, music and photos rank first. I have my own work system, but some recent changes in Google have forced me to re-examine my choices.
Requiem for Google Music Player
In 2013, Google launched Google PlayMusic, a music streaming service that already had a huge music media resource library when it was released. Another unique feature of this player is the cloud music cabinet. Ordinary users like me can store and transfer all MP3 files for free. The conditions are undoubtedly very attractive, I agreed to accept this service without even thinking about it.
I like the service Google Music has provided over the years. The music recommendation system is very reliable (at least until my kids are old enough to play their favorite JoJo Siwa tracks freely and disturb my list). The music playlist will affect the selected playlist. This idea is easy to understand. It is also the feature I want most when I hesitate and don’t know what song I want to listen to. The mid-term redesign has injected new vitality into the Android application that I am very familiar with, which makes me excited about the direction of Google's development.
However, the most important question is how Google Music Player can seamlessly integrate the uploaded media resources and other content in the service library into the search results. Since 2006, I no longer have to search for little-known live pirated records of Radiohead performing at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, California. After a simple search based on the artist category in the app, it will appear with other Radiohead albums.
However, in 2018, Google went back to the old path and became boring. To be honest, I’m not sure what it did, I can only say that I’ve seen Google repeat it many times.
Google announced that they will suspend the Google Music Player service and allow all users to switch to YouTube Music, an inferior product far inferior to Google. The bad omen has appeared, and I know which music streaming service I will pay for one day. Not only that, I also have to figure out how to deal with the damn cloud music that I uploaded years ago.
After Google forced me to switch to Youtube Music, I had to face many drawbacks of Youtube Music. YouTube Music is so obsessed with smart playlists and recommendations that it becomes difficult to simply tune out and listen to a favorite album.
The uploaded music is moved to an inconspicuous folder in the app. The browsing function of this app really challenges people's patience. You can load 10 artists at a time while scrolling. Not to mention that my “favorites” playlist on Youtube (and my children’s favorite playlist mentioned earlier) continues to taint the recommendation engine of my YouTube music app. This change is just as people like it. Weird.
I tried many times, and finally, I accepted the fact that YouTube Music was not made for me.
Google Photos or create it yourself?
I take a lot of photos, especially my two young daughters. Parents like me don't want to miss any "perfect shots". I'm always exploring how to take pictures better. Google realized that there are too many amateur smartphone photographers and developed a killer application service called Google Photos in 2015.
It was really amazing when it was first released. All users can store photos in unlimited clouds for free. Of course, there are still some conditions. The image quality is limited to 16MP and the video quality is limited to 1080p, but this is free and unlimited, so what can I complain about?
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The function of Google Photos is also a manifestation of Google's powerful artificial intelligence capabilities. Users can skip manually marking images and search for pictures based on the actual content in the image.
The first time I searched for a guitar in a picture, I was stunned—the photos of the live concerts I have attended over the years, the photos of the punk rock parties that I have forgotten, the photos of my little daughter playing ukulele, all Appeared before my eyes.
What makes the app more intimate is that Google Pixel owners like me received original quality free photo and video storage at the end of 2020, which is unimaginable for me who got Pixel 2 XL in 2017. From that day on, I never considered the number of photos and videos, and directly stuffed them into Google Cloud
Recently, I used Google's data retrieval service Google Takeout to obtain the entire Google photo library, and 19 separate 50GB compressed files were generated, containing all the content I uploaded. In the past three years, there was approximately 1tb of free storage space, which should not be underestimated.
Google just announced that from June 1, 2021, it will stop providing free unlimited storage of high-quality images and videos to all users. Pixel owners do not ban unlimited storage rights (currently), but the newly released Pixel will not have the same unlimited storage promise.
The Internet is full of resentment about the sudden shift in Google photos and free storage, but to be fair, I have enjoyed the 1TB of free information and data storage provided by Google for many years. Of course, they will use my images to improve their artificial intelligence systems, but I am happy to exchange data with the services I have already enjoyed.
Now I am facing a decision. To be honest, this decision has been delayed for a long time. Will I continue to rely on these cloud services for my living, or will I take things into my own hands once and for all?
Finally, I finally started to create my own cloud. This is not to say that I don't need Google for many things, but at least, I will know that music and photos are stored in an easily accessible cloud, which belongs to me and is subject to personal terms of service.
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After calling up the photo library and music library from Google Takeout, I converted all the media into a Plex-friendly format. With the help of Nvidia Shield TV and an external hard drive, I can easily store all music files for access with Plexamp. Coupled with a simple switch in the Plex program settings, the smartphone photos will be automatically uploaded to the Plex drive.
I can even go a step further and assemble a network-connected storage system to store redundant content and achieve flexible operation. I want to protect them in the event of a problem, in this way to ensure the importance of these digital files to life. Of course, this will be a little inconvenient, but then again, in order to keep those memories, isn't all this worth it?
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