No Rhapod :(

Well Rob Glaser did his thing yesterday at Radio City Music Hall here in NYC.

I had an invitation to go and I wanted to but in the end I couldn't make it.

It's just as well, because Rob did not stand up on stage and show off the Rhapod that I am dreaming about.

What Rob did unveil is nice but certainly not the promised "groundbreaking initiative in digital music".

There's a new version of Rhapsody that I will download as soon as I finish listening to Bruce.

And the bigger deal is Rhapsody to Go which is pretty much a knockoff of Napster to Go.  This service lets you synch Rhapsody to a portable music device and take your songs with you.  It doesn't work with iPod of course and in fact it only works with two devices right now, the Iriver H10 and the Creative Zen Micro portable music players.

Since I am already an iPod user and none of these devices comes close to my dream device, I don't think I'll upgrade to Rhapsody to Go.  But maybe the Gotham Gal, who doesn't yet have an iPod, might want to give Rhapsody to Go a whirl.  We'll see about that.

Bottom line, Rhapsody is great, Real is making it better, but they aren't in iPod killer territory yet.

Rafat Ali has extensive coverage of all of this stuff on his blog.  It's certainly the best place to get the skinny on the new Rhapsody.

Comments

[Hank Williams]

I am a rhapsody user too. I downloaded the latest app and its quite nice. It has a toolbar that can be set to be attached to the the top of the screen (kinda like clickradio) which is great for being able to listen and control the music while doing other things.

I had read your old post about rhapod and I was hoping they might be able to do it, but it actually might be impossible. In order for a rhapsody to go model to work, the target device needs a clock. I am not an ipod user so I dont know if it has one, but most mp3 players dont. The clock chip costs extra money.

Even if the clock isnt an issue, the only type of hack that I think would be possible is where you replace the ipod OS and do your own thing. Linux has already been ported. But This blows out apples ipod OS which most people wouldnt be happy about.

I suspect that rob really would have wanted to do rhapod but the engineers said no can do.

[scott partee]

Dang, Dog! You are reliable.

I can't surf any *.blogs.com site from work due to the fact that we have very restrictive proxies in place, so I do my casual Internet reading in the AM before work. I remembered you mentioned the Rhap(sp)od and then I saw mention of it on some news sites.

I've never used Rhapsody, and I have an irrational hatred of Real because of the fact that they have hosed many, many of my Windows machines throughout history. In fact, I won't even install their player anymore due to the fact that it has caused me so many problems in the past. But I trust your opinion and you seem very happy with Rhapsody. In fact, I had an "a-ha" moment with it a few days ago when we were e-mailing about Morning 40 Federation and you said you were checking them out over Rhapsody. These are truly amazing times when I, as a guy sitting on his ass in front of his Mac at home, can recommend a band to you, a guy in NYC, and you can be checking them out legally within minutes.

But, of course, I still won't get Rhapsody because I'm rarely in front of a computer that has streaming capability long enough to make it worth it. Remember, I sit behind the NaziProxy at the office. So I had high hopes that Rhapsody would release something that allowed me to save songs to my iPod, which I listen to almost all day from the office.

So anyway, I saw mention of the Rhapsody thing, but couldn't really understand exactly what it was by reading the rather feeble news coverage of it (the coverage is everywhere, but the details seem lacking), and I thought "Fred will have a review".

I clicked over and, sure enough, I found out what I need to know. No iPod support.

Dang.

[Jayme Maultasch]

Why are you looking for an iPod killer if you love your iPod? I also have an iPod and I'm a big Rhapsody fan - I just want my iPod to work with Rhapsody to Go and I'd gladly pay an extra $5 per month!