Google’s streaming music service doesn’t come as a free, ad-supported version

To no-one’s great surprise, Google has launched a subscription streaming music service, Google Play Music All Access at its I/O developer conference in San Francisco.

It enables users to create a radio station from any song or artist they prefer, browse recommendations from Google, or explore by genre. Users may also add as much as 20,000 in their own songs, that are stored at no cost within the cloud. The service costs  $9.99 (£6.50) a month ($7.99 a month before 30 June), with a free month’s trial. There’s, however, no free, ad-supported version and no details as yet of pricing and availability outside the united states.

Google also revealed on the conference that there were 900m activations of the Android OS, and that the Google Play app store has seen greater than 48bn downloads. It also unveiled a cross-platform messaging app, Google Hangouts, which permits Android users to speak via text or video, and exchange texts and pictures, with other Android, in addition to iOS, users.

Finally, Google revealed that from next month, this may sell its own, unlocked variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4 on Google Play, running Android, but without Samsung’s own TouchWiz user interface. It will become available from 26 June within the US, with out contract, for $649, supporting both T-Mobile and AT&T, with LTE.

Stay tuned over a higher couple of days for more news from the Google I/O event.