Real’s finally extending the Rhapsody music service to the iPhone and intend to submit their new app to Apple for approval this week. However, unlike other Rhapsody to Go mobile devices, gdgt reports local storage ain’t in the cards. Meaning we won’t be listening to any of Rhapsody’s 8 million song library on a plane.
Unlike a (free to inexpensive) Slacker or Pandora, Rhapsody essentially lets you stream any artist, song, album in addition to custom playlists. At $15/mo, I’m not sure they’ll pick up many new customers. But iPhone owners who enjoy Rhapsody on multiple platforms, like Sonos and TiVo, will likely welcome this app (despite its $3/mo mobile surcharge, similar to Sirius XM) to the fold.
Click to enlarge gdgt’s screengrabs:
Confusing.
I wish someone could explain, provide an in-depth opinion as to why there is this new rush for music portals to have iPhone apps knowing they will be rejected by Apple’s anti-competitive practice protecting iTunes.
Does Rhapsody know something we don’t about pending government intervention?
After Napster lowered their prices Rhapsody matched — $15.00 every three months. Love that price point especially with a clearanced Sonos ZP 100. I’ll probably test out the iPhone app for the car and jogs.
Marte – Huh, I hadn’t heard that. $15 a quarter is a decent deal. But how does the ‘To Go’ subsidy work? An additional $3/mo on top of that?
Todd- Apple approved Slacker and Pandora for music streaming. Doubt Rhapsody in this initial form will have any problems. To save songs like other Rhapsody mobile solutions (or Spotify) is where they will run into problems.
@Dave Zatz
“Amazon’s iPhone app is one of those ideas that seems so obvious in retrospect but hadn’t really crossed my mind until it appeared in the app store….I did a search for a few music titles. Amazon will let you buy the CD, but they won’t let you download a MP3 file to iTunes. You can actually save the music into your wish list and look at reviews and album art but you won’t be able to actually make the purchase until you get back to your desktop/laptop.
…Movies work the same way. You can even buy a VHS copy but you can’t get the instant gratification of watching a movie directly from Amazon unbox on the iPhone. Amazon would have to reformat their movie library anyway.”
http://blogs.computerworld.com/amazon_app_for_iphone_is_hit_picture_search_and_miss_mp3s
Not allowing a purchase is the same as a rejection, in the context of a ( possibly illegal ) anti-competitive practice. The the US government and the EU charged Microsoft with it for how they make IE the default browser, why is Apple getting a free pass?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices
Never inquired about the “to go” plan so not sure. I only got the $15.00 offer when I called to quit to switch to Napster.
Prices are listed clearly on their website:
Rhapsody: $12.99/mo
Rhapsody To Go: $14.99/mo (includes everything from basic Rhapsody, plus an extra $2/mo for caching feature)
http://learn.rhapsody.com/plans/togo
It doesn’t look like there is any additional fee for accessing Rhapsody on your iPhone. Probably just plug in your Rhapsody login and away you go.
Eh, I didn’t get it quite right. iPhone access will only be granted to Rhapsody To Go customers ($14.99/mo).
Rhapsody app with offline listening has now been sent to Apple for approval!!!! Yay!!!