Rhapsody for the Mac

I wrote a post in May asking when Rhapsody would be available for the Mac.

Well the answer is today.

But it's even more exciting because Rhapsody is now available on the WEB!!!

I hate client software and wish I could live in my browser.  Slowly but surely the word is going that way.

Rhapsody is one of my all time favorte apps.  Music dial tone.  The way music should be served up.

My family are Mac users.  They could never use Rhapsody.  Now they can.  In fact, it's already on one Powerbook in the house and I suspect it will be on all of them before the night is over.

So this is a big deal in our house.

Theoretically, this is going to make it easier to share music via weblinks, but I am not sure about that part yet.  First, you still have to download the Rhapsody Music Engine to listen to Rhapsody music.  For Firefox users, that's just a Firefox extension so that's pretty simple.  For Safari users, its tougher. You have to download a file and install it.  I suspect its the same for IE, but we don't use IE in our house so honestly I don't know. So not everyone will be able to simply click on a link and listen.

And then when you do link to a song or a playlist on Rhapsody, it still takes you to the old "launch Rhapsody" page, so they have to fix that. I am not going to link to Rhapsody music until it takes you directly to rhapsody.com and starts playing a song.

Anyway, this is a big step forward.  For Mac users, this is a really great development.

Comments

[Charlie Crystle]

What about running client apps through a remote connection like Citrix/Goto etc? I continue to find the desktop experience --web-enabled, but local processing -- far superior to the browser experience because of responsiveness and latency issues with browser apps. AJAX approximates a rich client but doesn't quite get there (We use AJAX for a few things and are offering a range of hosted apps in addition, but main apps are client based).

Run web apps on your desktop. No latency, access web services as you need them, etc. Browsers take too much time and resources interpeting code and waiting for some independent machines somewhere to do their things. Interestingly, small orgs don't like their critical data "out there" on the web...

Also, I was thinking about Rhapsody as a name. I can't remember how to spell it. My sister (oh so wise) once said to me about a name we were considering "do you want to be cute, or do you want people to find you?"

Real doesn't have Rapsody.com. Seems they should.

[Jüri Kaljundi]

I thought I would give Rhapsody a go, and the only thing it says is:

U.S. Only
We're sorry. We have detected that you are outside of the United States. This service is currently only available to residents within the United States.

Not sure in how many countries iTunes is available now, lost interest when it launched and was US or selected counries only.

Back to eMule and Kazaa I guess :-)

[Brady Joslin]

This is a nice alternative to downloading the client, and good news about this opening the service to the Mac. One bummer - still no Linux support. The engine isn't yet compatible, apparently.

[Rob Williams]

Fred, We're still working out a few rhapsody link issues since we are launching both rhapsody.com and an upgrade to rhapsody (3.1) this week. The link experience will improve in the next few days although it's a little tricky to guess whether users would prefer to launch Rhapsody or play within Rhapsody.com if they have Rhapsody installed (obviously, for folks who are only using Rhapsody.com the correct behaviour is to play in the browser).

Cheers, Rob Williams, VP Music Software, Real

[Jüri Kaljundi]

Rob, will the service become also non US-only any time soon?

[Matt L]

Won't consider until they can ink a deal with apple allowing use on the Ipod. Doubt that will happen any time soon. Otherwise, I like this model better than either of the satellite radio models. $9.95/mo for unlimited songs and streaming radio channels beats $12.95/mo for 120 stations.

[Rob Williams]

Juri, we haven't announced any international plans yet for Rhapsody on the web although we'd certainly like to serve more than just the US. Unfortunately, each country presents it's own unique challenges for a music service.

Cheers, Rob

[Long time reg., but this time anon AVC reader]

Only b/c it seems that Real has someone reading this post I'm going to blow off some steam since I've had two bad customer service experiences with them before Rhapsody came out:

After trying multiple "legal" digital music sources, I'm still going to be "stealing" my digital music because it's just easier. It shouldn't be, but it is.

I buy at least $30 in concert tickets a month, own more than 2,000 CDs (probably buy three every week, but they're all used and priced at $5.99-$8.99), and run a popular (a step under stereogum.com for sure though) music blog where we try to get people to buy good music so you'd think I'd be your best customer, but the service just doesn't fit any of my needs.

- When I owned a Dell, I tried Yahoo's unlimited service, but it took three hours to install correctly, I couldn't put the music on my mp3 player (creative zen 'xtra 60 gig that's almost full already just from ripping my own CDs) because Yahoo didn't support it, and it took longer to download using Yahoo's network than it did to download from a friend or through bit torrent.

- When I got a Mac a few months ago I was totally pushed out of the market, and I didn't care.

- When Rhapsody finally let the Mac that I just bought the summer use the service, I tried it last night and it also took a few hours to get it running (I'm decently tech-savvy- install my own internal components, work at a dot com, and have successfully "learned" every "illegal" file sharing method out there).

- Running a Dell at work now still took longer to install the Rhapsody software than it does bit torrent, kazaa, limewire, etc. (15 min. v. 5 min. )

- I still can't put any of it on my mp3 player.

I'm going to try to see if I can figure out a way to enjoy this for a month to give it a real shot, but as long as I can't put any of this on my mp3 player and it's taking more time to use than other options, it's not likely I'll stick.

I'd be happy to pay $20/month if it were easy and I could put it on my mp3 player. I'm already spending $21/week for real CDs.