Like Last Favourite Month's Boyband, Desktop Music Stores Are Deemed Past It

Ubuntu’s default music player won’t ship with the Ubuntu One Music Store plugin in 13.04.

With the Ubuntu One Music Store now available via the web, and all Dash music recommendations linking there, the decision has been taken to retire the Rhythmbox plugin ‘in favour‘ of the web store.

But this change will make the store more discoverable.

Plugins, Schmugins

The Ubuntu One Music Store plugin debuted in Ubuntu 10.04, and since that time it’s not changed a great deal. It also limited itself to just two media players: Rhythmbox and Banshee.

But now that a link to the Ubuntu One Music Store is pinned on the launcher of Ubuntu 12.10 by default – and is likely to remain in place in 13.04 – every user of Ubuntu can see and access it without needing to open (or even use) Rhythmbox.

Ubuntu One Features Remain

Despite the store bidding adieu other features of the Ubuntu One Rhythmbox plugin will remain.

This includes the “auto-sync” feature that automatically adds purchased tracks to your library.