Friday, May 18, 2012

PSA: ROMers beware! Google Music only allows four ‘device’ deauthorizations per year

Quick warning to the cross section of you that both love your Google Music and frequently flashing new ROMs onto your device(s), which I imagine might be quite a few of you.

Google has recently put a limit on the number of ‘devices’ that a user may deauthorize in a year and at just four that limit could definitely be a problem. If you weren’t already aware, the ceiling for devices that you can have authorized on a single Google Music account at any given time is ten.

I suspect if you are savvy enough to flash a new ROMs you can already see where the problem is, but for those that aren’t aware the phone is given a new ID within Google Music each time you register it after flashing a new ROM. So the same device could potentially eat up your entire quota after just a few new ROMs.

Considering the dedicated and often vocal ROM development community that Android has fostered, it’s possible that we will see some serious backlash over this which could in turn lead to a reversal or at least a softening of the policy by Google.

In the mean time if this sounds like it may be a problem for you I would recommend heading over to the XDA thread listed in the VIA link below as they are already discussing potential workarounds such as restoring accounts via Titanium Backup to avoid a new authorization.

I’m hoping this is one of those situations where the full ramifications of the policy change were not thought through properly and that we will see Google come up with a workable solution, but as the vast majority of users would never run into this problem it’s entirely possible that it will stand.

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