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Google's Music Beta is official (update: details!)

Google's Music Beta is official (update: details!)

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Google has a page up at music.google.com/music for its brand spanking new "Music Beta" service. You can request an invite already, but you'll have to wait until Google announces the service onstage at Google I/O to know exactly what you're signing up for. The quick and dirty version?

Music Beta is a new service from Google that gives you instant access to your personal music collection without the hassle of wires or syncing. Add your music collection and listen on the web or any compatible Android device.

Yeah, sounds like an Amazon Cloud Player clone to us.

Update: Google is showing off the app now. For starters there's a web app, which pulls songs into the cloud from your iTunes library or anywhere else on your computer. You can create playlists and mixes, which can be accessed from your tablet and phone.

The Android app accesses all this cloud goodness, meaning "I'll never have to use a cable to access my music again." To enjoy your music offline, the player caches recently played songs, and it also allows you to manually "pin" music to make it available offline. The app will be available for Honeycomb, Gingerbread, and Froyo, with some UI differentiation for the latter two. Everything is tied to your Google account, so naturally if you get a new phone you'll get access to your music library right away.

The beta service is launching today, invitation only initially. You can add up to 20,000 songs to your cloud storage locker, and the service will be free "at least while it's in beta." Any Android 2.2 or higher device can download the music player app right now and use it for music stored in their device while they're waiting for a Music Beta invitation.