Rhapsody throws gauntlet at iTunes works on iPods
By Leslie Poston
We recently reported that Rhapsody had targeted the iTunes customer market by removing DRM from its songs. Now the music sales company has upped the ante even further, targeting the iPod itself. Will Apple answer the challenge?
By removing DRM, Rhapsody followed in the footsteps of Amazon Unboxed, eMusic and others who are bringing portability to music. that is a must in gaining traction with the iTunes market share, as the one thing many Apple iTunes users are tired of is having to pay extra for DRM free music labeled iTunes Plus. It’s nice that they started making it available, but it should be the same 99 cents as the rest of the catalog.
Rhapsody has been touting this new MP3 store as compatible with the iPod. It is compatible with the iPod, but their Rhapsody-To-Go service is not, a fact they neglected to mention at first, until many angry users demanded their money back from switching to the Rhapsody-To-Go service.
Rhapsody-To-Go can be forced to work on an iPod, according to anecdotal stories from some users, but since there is no definitive guide on how to do this it is safe to assume it requires a hack most iPod users won’t be interested in applying. Meanwhile, if an iPod owner wants songs from the new MP3 store they will play on their device now - a positive, DRM free development that should make iPod owners happy. With iPods hanging on to around 83% of the MP3 player market share, Rhapsody definitely wants to make iPod owners happy.
The new improved Rhapsody MP3 Store should do a lot to bridge the customer relations gap the company has experienced in recent years. It has been derided for a variety of issues with its Real Player service (namely buffering issues and dropped plays mid stream, as well as a tendency to get viruses and other problems), and its products have been panned across the board by music streaming connoisseurs for years.
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Stumble It!
July 3rd, 2008
It is about time. I do like iTunes but I just think they dominate the market to much and I am all for rhapsody giving iTunes some competition
July 5th, 2008
who’s the moron that wrote this story. Actually it just 2 things she wrote about that are not up to par.
When will apple be up to the challenge? Well when the labels stop denying apple the right to sell more DRM free music. Its not apple that can just say to the labels give us your DRM free tunes. The labels refuse to let apple have what they are giving to all other competing music stores.
But the biggest error is saying you have to pay more for DRM free songs on iTunes. There is no higher price for DRM free on iTunes. They all all the same price. They got rid of the premium for DRM free tracks over a year ago.
Do some research
January 30th, 2009
I love my iPod touch, but I can’t stand iTunes… it’s super slow and clunky and after owning a mp3 player for the last 4 years that shows up as a mass storage drive I was disapointed the sync process and the fact you have to tether your iPod to 1 computer. If WinAmp could write a clean a quick interface in 1997 then Apple would be able to do the same in 2008 unless they just don’t want to for Windows.