In October 2009, billionaires Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, the creators of the Kazaa P2P client as well as Skype, announced that they had developed and financed the unlimited music subscription service Rdio, and the company has now made the service available to all.
Separating the service from others like Rhapsody is the fact that Rdio allows users to listen from anywhere in “the cloud,” including through their phones, instead of needing to download DRM-laced music locally.
Furthermore, Rdio has many social networking features connected to Facebook and Twitter. Rdio uses subscriber’s online social networks to recommend songs, as well. If a bunch of your friends like a certain artist, Rdio will likely recommend it to you.
Rdio has over seven million tracks available from the major labels and thousands of indies.
The service charges $10 per month for unlimited access to music on a computer or your smartphone. For $5, you can get browser-only access.
Rdio is available on BlackBerrys, Android devices and the Apple iPhone.
Result for: music subscription service
In August, RealNetworks submitted their Rhapsody app to Apple’s App Store, and today it has finally been approved, bringing the music subscription service to iPhone and iPod Touch users.
The approval marks the first time Apple has allowed an on-demand streaming service in the United States. Recently, the company approved of Spotify for European users.
Rhapsody subscribers have to pay $14.99 USD a month to get the unlimited streaming service, but the app itself will be free. The service has over 8 million tracks, and users will be able to stream wherever there is cell service or Wi-Fi.
The service will eventually be updated to cache songs for playback when there is no Internet available.
Adds Neil Smith, vice president of business management for Rhapsody America: The new app will “reach the iPod Touch and iPhone audience that was unavailable to us before.”
Notably however, the songs will stream at a lowly 64 kbps, hardly “CD-quality.”
Result for: music subscription service
RealNetworks has submitted their Rhapsody music subscription service to the Apple App Store this week, and is currently waiting on approval.
The app will allow users to stream unlimited music on their iPhone/iPod Touch for $14.99 a month. The app itself will be free as long as you have a Rhapsody To Go account.
The bigger question however is whether Apple will accept the application, being that it will possibly compete against Apple’s iTunes platform.
Rhapsody offers over 8 million songs.
