Didn’t they have Milk Music, my Samsung phones did. Sorry didn’t get to the bottom before I replied. I liked Milk. It was also included on their TVs. 
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Jriver already has Cloudplay. They beat roon to the market. They are poised to overtake spotify, apple, amazon and tidal with their solution.
/s
I worked at Samsung and was an Android software engineer on Milk Music, about 10 years ago. It was well received and had millions of users but Samsung shut it down because they didn’t see any path to profitability.
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Interesting. That must have been a lousy time for the people involved. Hopefully you landed somewhere better.
Sad because I liked it tremendously.
How could that possibly be better than already existing Qobuz?
One way would be the ability to identify albums that are retracted for licensing reasons and slotting in their replacements seamlessly.
Not saying that the whole idea should be done, but this would be one way it could be better in Roon.
Edit: The current situation of being beholden to two uncontrollable third parties that are not in the most economically safe state themselves is not ideal, either.
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Why would it be limited to one ecosystem? Seems like an odd assumption to make. Tidal isn’t, Spotify is often limited to their connect service.
For me, if Samsung launched a streaming service and Roon came as part of the package I’d ditch my current service or happily pay for both.
To clarify, I mean a full content music streaming service such as Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon MusicHD, Deezer etc.
Not an internet radio service like Sonos’s offering. Although if they included one 1/2 as good as Radio Paradise (which is still sorely missing from Roon in its full form), that would be nice, but I digress.
They could offer Lossless and HiRes downloads for additional monetisation which could slot nicely into a Roon users own library. It would be great for music discovery and integration with personal collections.
Some will say this is already available through Tidal or Qobuz.
However, neither of those services would have an offering as compelling as a fully integrated Roon music streaming service!
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Great, so we can debate over which albums cause memory leak and why the server has to be rebooted before playing any Reggae.
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OK, sort of a joke, and don’t mean to poke at Roon, and I also understand these ideas are just enthusiastic Roon fans sharing fun thoughts.
But if this were to be analyzed seriously:
—To my recollection, Roon hasn’t released any significant “fix,” much less functional enhancement, to the GIU or engine since well before ARC was released. A lot of stuff has crept up in my observation, or just never been addressed. IMHO (stress on the “H”) if Roon were to allocate new resources to anything, it would be to make the GUI/engine functions really hum, and then just finish the stuff that takes Roon from best in class to actually polished. Building such a service would be a massive distraction, since it will also require development work in the form of integration.
—Part of Roon’s value is the flexibility with different streaming services at various price points and foci. I suggest that if Roon were to launch a Roon-branded full streaming service, for it to survive and grow, at some point it’s going to be favored, and eventually exclusive, over the other services. The investment in creating it will require it. Much better to let others do that and benefit from the variety.
—If there is some desire for this (not mine), Roon could instead draw closer partnerships with some of the streaming providers - they could make it nearly cost neutral with some package deal, for example, and share back and forth more information and metadata. Maybe someday they merge, after finding the right balance, and I think that would be more of a natural marriage than a Roon-branded service eventually pushing down or out the others.
OK, I do have to poke a little fun at the idea of a Roon streaming music service. Keep in mind this is the software that doesn’t provide folder access: Roon will make some decision like not carrying any titles from 1964 to 1977 or no bands that start with “R.” They’ll have a good rationale for it, and every so often some new user will post “how come I can’t find the Rolling Stones?”
Just a tad of humor, not meant to offend…
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Hmmm. All observations and criticisms levelled at a small but dedicated and talented development team with a limited budget and resources. Not unfairly though, IMHO!
Samsung are not Roon, they own Roon and have unlimited resources. A music streaming service could be developed separately by a different division (and also marketed separately and/or jointly) but integrated with Roon, much like Tidal is now, but tighter, better etc. Or they could aquire Tidal or Spotify. Anything is possible.
I think this is more than just a pipe dream, or it could be. I am just pointing out that there is potential for a Roon without the need for Tidal/Qobuz.
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Also, such a music streaming service wouldn’t have to be Roon branded or exclusive. Just Samsung owned and available under a single Roon subscription. Lovely!
I totally acknowledge the dedication and the magnitude of what has been accomplished. But in imagining a music streaming service to match Roon I also imagine the issues that Roon has and so I took a stab at reflecting that humorously.
Besides, small team or not, folder browsing could be implemented easily - it’s been a deliberate decision, not a team size issue, and so a music service to match Roon would make a similar maverick decision.
Are there major gaps in what the currently integrated streaming services offer? To me filling those gaps would be the only reason for Roon to consider launching its own service. From my taste standpoint, I don’t see those gaps. But I don’t use Spotify so I have nothing to compare it to.
Sorry if I appeared to suggest you were criticising the development team. I didn’t mean to do that. Just trying to highlight the resources Roon now has access to.
I’m not sure what you mean by folder browsing and how that suggests poor implementation of streaming, but I suppose I am coming from the angle of resource and financial strength.
Slightly off topic but out of interest, what is folder browsing and why would it benefit the Roon GUI and functionality?
I think there is a lot of potential for innovation and additional benefits that are currently missing with the incumbent 3rd party streaming integration.
Not unless you want to see Roon die…I don’t….streaming content services are about to go bang (might be a couple of years off, but the business model doesn’t make sense)…happy for Roon to stay the best home stream manager….
But that would mean losing integrated streaming altogether! For me, it’s one of the benefits of Roon. Discovering music inspired by listening to your existing library.
Also, the fact the other business models are breaking is a good thing. They don’t benefit artists (or music fans IMO). The sector needs innovation and having a fully integrated service as part of Roon could help drive the innovation needed.
For example, music (library) ownership is a large aspect of Roon. A streaming and music discovery service which encourages purchasing downloads could be good for artists and music lovers. Perhaps after 10 listens to an album or song, you are encouraged to purchase from within the Roon GUI knowing the artist will benefit from the download.
I agree. I use qobuz and think it’s great. I will miss it if/when it goes. I jus think it would be a bad call for Roon to get into content streaming because I think change is coming. And I agree re: artists remuneration- it’s awful…theft really. Your idea (or similar) might be the change to come…interesting times…Steve
I feel Studios in their greed may switch to their own services focusing on their own catalogues as has happened in Film. I predicted this would happen with film early on in Netflixes rise and it didn’t take long for it to happen and now it’s so fragmented. If any money can be made why let any 3rd party take it. This however could perhaps lead back to piracy running rampage but then streaming is almost as bad for the artists as piracy. I hope it doesn’t fragment but you never know.
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This is my fear exactly. Ideally, I want one reliable streaming service that can supply any and all music that I want in the quality that I want. I might entertain the idea of two such services for redundancy purposes.
The current Tidal and Qobuz options in Roon get me pretty near there (I currently have both - Qobuz as an individual subscription used exclusively with Roon and Tidal HiFi as part of a family subscription so it is only costing a fraction of an individual sub). Both offer a good, but not complete, selection of music. I would drop the Tidal subscription if the Qobuz subscription was reliable (it’s had its moments of late 
).
Contrast this to Film/TV where there are myriad services each trying to leverage their own platform by making exclusive content.
This means that:
- To be sure of being able to see a film/program that I want I have to subscribe to all of the services - which would be a considerable expense - much more than Tidal, Qobuz and Roon monthly put together.
- If I decide I want to watch a program, I would often have google (other search engines are available) to find which service it was presented on or possibly, to look at each service in turn until I find a service that offered that program (No Roon equivalent for Film and TV that can bring all these different services together and present them as one virtual library exists as yet). This does not make for a good experience.
Exactly. My approach is to dip in and out as required, though Netflix is somewhat permanent, as is Prime (but I’m still trying to decide if I’m going to pay to go ad-free next month).
The same can’t be said for the likes of Premier League football (soccer) in the UK where the anti-monopoly rules to break up the number of a games shown by a single service just led to the customer paying more (or the same for fewer games).
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