Android music aficionados will be glad to learn that Google has finally added SD card storage support to its popular Google Music app.
The latest version of the app (ver. 5.2.1316) has been released with the addition of a number of interesting and useful features.
The main changes in the latest version of Google Music include support for storing cached music on an external microSD card, a few user interface tweaks, as well as the ability to share music right from the app itself.
Most recent smartphones come with around 16GB of internal memory or less and having the ability to save music files on external cards will be very helpful for many. The big caveat, however, is that this specific feature is currently only available for devices running Kitkat, the latest version of Android. However, older versions of Android will get "experimental support," according to the release notes included in the update.
The new SD card feature can be activated via the Settings menu. Users can simply select the SD card from the Storage Location option and the feature will be up and running. Another minor update includes a few changes to the app's slide out menu where the grey background has been replaced with bold letters.
The new update will also allow users who have purchased the $9.99 All-Access service to shuffle songs from their favorite artists while streaming. Google's music service has been around since May this year and is steadily gaining ground. The service allows people to store a maximum of 20,000 songs in their accounts. While users can simply stream the songs they have purchased online, people with smaller data plans often download the songs for offline listening.
In a slight twist of irony, Nexus 5 smartphone and 2013 Nexus 7 tablet owners won't be able to take advantage of the new SD card storage feature due to the fact that these devices do not have microSD slots. This is compounded by the fact that most devices that are currently running Kitkat are either Nexus 5 phones of Nexus 7 tablets.
