This isn’t a huge surprise, but Microsoft revealed today that it will retire its Groove app for Android and iOS this year.

Thanks to Neowin for tipping me off to this.

“On December 1, 2018, the Groove Music iOS and Android apps will be retired,” a Microsoft support page notes. “Your personal music files will continue to be available in OneDrive. You can keep listening to those files, and your playlists, with the Windows 10 Groove Music apps on PC, Xbox, or Windows Phone.”

Update: Microsoft provided me with the following statement.

“As we announced last year, we have discontinued the ability to stream, purchase and download music within Groove Music,” a Microsoft representative said. “We’re notifying customers that on December 1, 2018, the Groove Music iOS and Android apps will also be retired and, effective June 1, are no longer available for download. However, customers’ purchased music files will continue to be available and playable on OneDrive. Customers can also play music using other apps or download files to their PC.”

Microsoft’s recommendations for those Groove users who still wish to play their OneDrive-based music on their smartphones is interesting. Some basically amount to “use something else.”

It recommends, for example, “playing your music with Google Play Music or iTunes Match,” which I take to mean “copy your OneDrive-based music to a competitor’s cloud service,” something I just discussed earlier this week. (In fact, I also recommended Google Play Music and iTunes Match as the obvious choices.)

Other options include using “another streaming app,” which links to the Microsoft Store where you can apparently search for yourself, playing your music with the OneDrive app, which can’t be a great experience, and downloading your OneDrive music to your PC, after which you’re on your own. (I guess you could copy it from there to your phone.)

Ah well.