Storm clouds ahead
There seem to be some odd things going on with the Android Market these days, one consequence of which was the leak of the Android Test Market to the Tech from 10 blog, and picked up on by Business Insider.
Among the things apparently being tested by is an update to the Android Music app that appears similar to the one found in Honeycomb, but designed for handsets. But the big new feature is the ability to access music from the cloud, stream it, and even cache it to be listened-to later.
Talk of this feature has been circulating for a while and, as you'd expect, the major hurdle to be overcome is making the necessary arrangements with music rights-holders. This leak implies the full launch of the service may be imminent and thus, we assume, the labels are on-board.
Streaming music for mobile devices looks set to be a highly competitive market. Apple has a big head start in terms of digital music stores with iTunes, of course, but Microsoft has been developing Zune for a long time, which is now part of WP7. And then there are the third party stores, including the specialist Spotify and Amazon's ever-growing efforts in both music retailing and Android apps.
The image below is courtesy of Tech from 10, where you can download the files it acquired while having access to the Android Test Market.
Maybe the leak of the Test Market is linked to broader issues that appear to be occurring in the back-end of the Android Market. Android Community has reported that many developers have been locked out of the Market since the start of the month.
