Google has updated the Music Manager for its cloud-based music service. While you could previously use the manager to upload as many as 20,000 songs to Google Music or to download tracks you’d purchased from the service — now you can use it to download the songs you’ve uploaded.

In other words, you can use Google Music to backup your music library, stream it to any computer with a web browser or to your Android phone or tablet, and download your music to a PC.

So you can create a backup of your music collection using Google Music and re-download it if your hard drive crashes, you laptop is stolen, or you buy a new PC.

Unfortunately there’s no easy way to download just a few songs at a time using the music manager. What happens when you click the “Download my library” button is that Google asks you what folder you’d like to store your music in, and then is starts to download all of your songs.

But you can download individual tracks or albums from the Google Music website.

Apple and Google may have kicked the official Grooveshark apps out of their respective app stores, but Grooveshark has found another way onto your mobile device. The company has launched an HTML5 app which runs in a web browser but which feels a lot like a native app.

All you have to do is visit html5.grooveshark.com in nearly any web browser (desktop or mobile) to access a new version of the web-based streaming music service optimized for mobile devices.

Grooveshark’s HTML5 app is free to use while in beta, but it doesn’t have all the features you might expect. There’s no opportunity to login with your username and password to access playlists or favorite tracks, for instance

The reason Apple and Google booted the Grooveshark is because it’s not at all clear that the service acquires its music in a legal fashion. Grooveshark has a sort of post music first, acquire the streaming rights later approach and the company has been sued by pretty much every major music label.

While Grooveshark’s future remains unclear, the present is also a little funky. Because the company’s music catalog comes from user subscriptions, Grooveshark often has multiple listings for the same song while many songs that you might expect to find are simply not available. For instance, it’s no uncommon to find just 3 or 4 tracks from an album that has 10 or 12 songs.

Grooveshark’s desktop browser-based service is typically free, but the company charges to use its mobile apps. For the complete experience you can still download the mobile apps — but iOS users will need to have jailbroken devices and Android users will need to be able to install apps from unkown sources, since the app isn’t available from the Android Market

Developer Android Neal has been working on a new default music player for CyanogenMod 9. While CM9 isn’t ready for public consumption yet, the music player is ready to go and you can download and install it on any device running Android 4.0 or up. That includes devices running alpha or beta versions of CM9.

CyanogenMod is a custom version of Android based on the the open source code available for Google’s operating system.

The new music player adds a number of options that you won’t get from the music player Google ships with Android, including:

• Support for themes
• Gesture support
• Motion-based controls
• Search the Android Market for a currently playing song
• Share track info with social networks
• Set songs as ring tones
• Control music playback from the lock screen

While the app currently requires Android 4.0 and up to run, Neal plans to develop a version that will run on earlier versions of Android as well, although it may lose some of the features such as lock screen controls and notification controls.

Google is expanding the Android Market to include music. You can now purchase songs and albums in 320kbps MP3 format from the Android Market on the web. An updated Android Market app for Android 2.2 and up is also starting to roll out.

This means you can now purchase music, movies, books, and apps from the Android Market. But while Google says there are 8 million songs available today and another 5 million on the way, the company still hasn’t signed a deal with Warner Music Group, which means that only 3 out of the 4 major US labels are on board. That means you might not find all the music you want from Google.

The good news is that Google will be offering a free song every day, curated music picks, and exclusive content through partnerships with artists including ColdPlay and The Rolling Stones.

Users will also be able to share songs with their friends on Google+. Your friends won’t just get a link to purchase the song or a 90 second snippet. Instead they can listen to the full track one time.

Google has been beta testing Google Music for the past few months, allowing users to upload as many as 20,000 songs for free. Today the company announced that Google Music is open to everyone in the US and no longer requires an invite. The online storage locker is still free for anyone to use, whether you buy music from Google or not.

Amazon also offers an online music service that lets you store your music in the cloud, purchase tracks, and access them across multiple devices. And Amazon’s service offers music from all four major labels in the US.

But Google is banking on Android Market integration, a curated experience with top music picks, and social sharing to stand out from the competition.

Research in Motion is launching its new social music service, BBM Music for BlackBerry. Like competing services from Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, or MOG, BBM Music charges customers a monthly fee for the ability to stream music on demand.

But there’s a huge twist with RIM’s model. First, the service costs just $5 per month, which is about half the price of competing services.

Second — you only get to choose 50 songs initially. That’s about four of five albums worth of music. But remember how I said BBM Music was social? If you want to listen to more than 50 songs, all you have to do is add friends. Then you can listen to their music collections at no additional cost.

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Apple’s GarageBand app for iOS lets users create and edit music on a mobile device. When the app launched last year it was an iPad exclusive. But now Apple has released a major update which allows GarageBand to run on an iPhone or iPod touch as well.

You can use the app to tap out tunes on a virtual keyboard, strum a virtual guitar, tap beats on a virtual drum kit, or use dozens of other virtual instruments. You can also mix songs using up to 8 tracks, create loops, trim audio, or apply other effects. You can either save your song as a digital music file or send a project to a Mac to continue editing in the desktop version of GarageBand.

GarageBand 1.1 for iOS is a universal app that runs most recent iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad models running iOS 4.3 and up. The update also adds new features such as 3/4 or 6/8 time signatures, custom chords for Smart Instruments, and new export quality settings for AAC and AIFF files.

GarageBand for iOS is available from the App Store for $4.99. It weighs in at a hefty 501MB.

Winamp has rolled out three major updates to its music player for Android. First, the free app has been upgraded to version 1.2. Second, there’s a new Pro version with additional features. And third, there’s now a utility that lets Mac users sync their music Winamp and iTunes on their computers.

Winamp 1.2

In order to use the new Mac synchronization features you’ll need to upgrade to version 1.2. The update also brings more free music, better audio quality, and optimizations for use with headsets.

There’s also an option to purchase and unlock the premium features available in Winamp Pro for $4.99.

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VLC is a popular open source audio and video player for Linux, Windows, and Mac computers. There’s also a version for Android in the works, and earlier this month the developers launched a private beta. But if you didn’t get in on the beta, you can still test out an early alpha build of VLC.

The folks at VideoLan have offered instructions for compiling the app from source for a while, but one developer has been kind enough to do the heavy lifting so that you can just download and install an APK file directly on your phone or tablet. There are two different builds available (NEON and NONEON) as well as instructions for figuring out which version you want.

While VLC for Android is still clearly a work in progress, the app looks pretty good and does an excellent job with video playback. That alone isn’t all that exciting, as there are more than a dozen excellent video players available for Android. But VLC is also a music player, which means it may eventually be the only multimedia app you’ll need on your phone or tablet.

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