Corporate Corner – Sony Makes Music Service Available on Android

In February, Sony introduced a digital music service called Music Unlimited Powered by Qriocity that allowed users to stream millions of songs to Sony’s home entertainment machines, like Internet-connected televisions, Blu-ray players and the PlayStation3. But it lacked one major feature: mobile access.

Now Sony has made Qriocity available on Android phones through an app, making it a competitor to subscription services like Rhapsody and to the new cloud music programs from Amazon, Google and Apple. Sony’s two-tiered pricing plan for Qriocity (pronounced “curiosity”) is unchanged. For $4 a month, users can listen to music through programmed channels and have access to a “scan and match” music locker, which, like Apple’s new iCloud, gives users access to songs without the sometimes laborious process of uploading them.

At Qriocity’s $10 premium level, music is available “on demand,” meaning that any song a listener chooses can be listened to at any time.

One drawback, however, is that unlike many other subscription services, Qriocity can only be used when listener has an Internet connection; it does not store cache, or temporary data, on a device to be listened to offline.