Fortunately, it was relatively easy to workaround this if you have access to US-based VPN or proxy. You can get easily get a 5GB package for US$5 from AlwaysVPN which is really useful for stuff like this and is probably a much safer option than some dodgy public proxy.

On your computer

1. Connect through a US-based VPN or proxy and sign up for an invite at Google Music.
2. Wait for invite. I signed up after IO and got it just today, making it about a 3-week wait.
3. Sign up for the service through the invite link (no vpn/proxy required).
4. Follow through the sign up instructions and download Music Manager. Launch Music Manager, sign in and select music from your computer for upload.
5. Let Music Manager do its thing, and when it’s done, go to http://music.google.com, and hey presto, start streaming your music (and about 150 complimentary tracks from Google)!

If you have an Android phone, things get better. Install the latest beta version of Music (I have v3.0.1.339) and you will be able to stream music directly on your phone.

On your Android phone

1. Intall Market Enabler (free, search for “market enabler”).
2. Use Market Enabler to change the Market to a US telco (e.g. T-Mobile / AT&T / Verizon)
3. Install Music from the Android Market (free, search for “google music”).
4. The music app automatically picks up the music already in your phone and the music you have in the cloud for streaming. Enjoy!

Impressions

I’ve always hated managing playlists on the phone so I really really welcome the ability to be able to create and edit them in the browser and have them synced transparently to the phone. The beta Music app in the Android is an improvement on the existing version, but it’s still a little fiddly. For example, you cannot “pin” songs for offline listening from the song list view or from the “Now playing” screen. However, if you have a decent connection on the phone, the streaming works pretty darn well.

The Music Manager, in its present incarnation, is really just a glorified sync/upload client. It really doesn’t do much else. While I’m grateful that it is not a bloated beast like iTunes, I wonder if why it’s needed in the first place. Why can’t I just drop my music for upload through the browser, like how attachments are done in Gmail?

Google provides some useful help online, which also gives you a good idea of what the service can do.

1. Music Beta on your computer
2. Music Beta on your Android device

There’s a number of rough edges on the service but overall, a competent start to storing and accessing your music on the cloud. I only hope it doesn’t go the way of Wave before it gets a chance to get better. :p

So thanks to some ingenious folks, I managed to install, what feels like a pre-release version, Froyo onto my Nexus One. The link to the upgrade image on the Google server is gone, but if you search hard enough, you will probably find a mirror somewhere.

There are already too many blog posts, videos out there on the broad improvements in Froyo, but for me, it was a little fix that brought a smile to my face.

Gtalk synch (almost)! I love that Gtalk messages typed on the laptop browser now appears in the mobile version automatically. It’s not a biggie like having Flash or a faster browser but it was rather annoying when it didn’t before. I frequently connect on both the laptop and the mobile at the same time and it’s nice to be able to pick up the mobile and continue the conversation without skipping a beat.

I do wish that the Gtalk messages from the mobile will sync automatically back to the browser chat window but half a loaf is heck-a-lot more than none.

Another cool feature, which incidentally was demo-ed during Google I/O 2010, is the Google Phone to Chrome function. This is supposedly arriving with the next version of Android, 3.0 “Gingerbread”, but an alpha-ish implementation is already available for Froyo with the Chrome to Phone extension. A really handy method to send website links to the phone and the setup instructions are relatively easy to follow.