Rhapsody App Reviews

“Loving Rhapsody, wish they had more songs, but they are better than anyone else.”

“Cheapest way to listen to music with/without internet connection.
Not the best sound quality, but believe me. 10 dollars a month for unlimited music is ♫awesome♫!”

“I think that raphsody is pretty damn good for peoplebwith it on their phones but i still have yet to find out more on it”

“Really like the feature where I can listen to the song without steaming it, too bad I has a monthly fee.”

“It was great until Napster released their own app for the iPhone / iPod. With Napster's on the go plan and free downloads every month... Rhapsody went down to a second place for me. If there's any reason why you need to stick with Rhapsody... then it's definitely a good app.”

“If you love music than yes its goood.”

“Temporary till GrooveShark iPhone returns!”

“iTunes is better. Rhapsody doesn't have crap for music.”

“Love it. Every song you could ever want at your fingertips”

“always crashes”

“Very good app for music for a cheap price.”

“Large hassle to setup account, great potential.”

“I like it when it's free dont like to pay monthly”

“Rhapsody users rejoice! Anyone with a Rhapsody account and an iPhone should download Rhapsody for iPhone immediately. It's a deep, well-executed application that adds serious value to anyone paying $14.99 a month for the Rhapsody-To-Go service and it might even attract a new faction of Rhapsody users. The only major drawback is that steady playback depends on having a Wi-Fi or high-quality 3G connection; there is no offline mode to compensate. Buzz up!on Yahoo! For those who aren't familiar with Rhapsody, it's an online music service for which you pay $12.99-$14.99 a month to listen to a catalog of more than eight million streaming songs from major and independent record labels. All in all, we like the service, but think it the price could be a little lower. For this review, I tested the new app on a 32GB iPhone 3GS running iPhone OS 3.1 and alternately connected to Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G. To get the app, just visit the iTunes App Store and search for Rhapsody. Specifications Free Yes More Interface When you load up the app for the first time, you have to input your user name and password. Any regular Rhapsody user will be at home here, because the entire song catalog is at your fingertips. Rhapsody's interface is clean and intuitive. A black bar across the screen bottom helps you navigate. You can choose between Queue, My Library, Browse, Search, and Settings. Queue is where you'll likely spend a lot of time, because it lets you pick what you're listening to and helps you make playlists. My Library lets you play artists, albums, and songs that you pre-selected on your PC. Browse lets you see popular songs, new songs, and songs by genre or artist. While in the Now Playing mode, you can tap and hold on the screen for more options—one of them directing you to the iTunes Store so you can buy the song you're listening to. Competing app Slacker Mobile Radio also sends you to iTunes to find songs, while Pandora does not. Sound Quality Rhapsody said the music streams at 64 kilobits per second. While it isn't as good as Web-based Rhapsody's 128 kbps, I found it to be acceptable. However, in my tests, Slacker and Pandora both sounded slightly sharper and more polished over both 3G and Wi-Fi. A rep from RealNetworks said they plan to improve sound quality in a future release. The app works fine with any pair of standard headphones thanks to the iPhone's 3.5mm headset jack. It also worked well when I paired the iPhone with a set of Altec Lansing BackBeat 903/906 Bluetooth stereo headphones. Problems My biggest qualm with Rhapsody for iPhone is that it's dependent on the quality of your 3G service. There's no offline mode. When AT&T service was unreliable (an all too frequent occurrence in New York City), songs would delay and I'd have to either find Wi-Fi or turn off the app. Wi-Fi, as you might have already guessed, works the best for streaming music. Album artwork downloads quickly and songs start promptly. A way to save some songs for later playback would have been nice here. An offline mode would also help save battery life; for now, Rhapsody runs the radio all the time, so it's a major battery drain. RealNetworks said it plans to add an offline mode to the app in a future release. Slacker and Pandora, the other two top streaming music apps for the iPhone, don't offer an offline mode either. Another thing that bugged me was the low-resolution album artwork on the Now Playing screen. I understand keeping it low-res to take less time for loading, but it's distracting. If every album cover has to look like a blurry bootleg copy, why not just make the album art take up less space on the screen to make it less pixelated? Slacker makes their art smaller to make it look better, but Pandora's artwork is just as grimy. Streaming radio iPhone apps Slacker Mobile Radio and Pandora both have extensive catalogs, but don't allow you to pick specific songs you want to hear. Simplify Media lets you stream your own iTunes catalog to your iPhone at a much lower price than Rhapsody, but you probably don't own eight million songs, and Simplify requires you to keep your PC on all the time. Conclusion There are plenty of streaming music services for the iPhone, but none of them let you pick your playlist from a catalog as deep as Rhapsody's. For musical control freaks, Rhapsody is a godsend, as long as you can stay in signal range and are willing to put up with the battery drain of streaming.”

“It's ok.”

“Awesome”

“Had some issues with this early on. Seems to have gotten a lot better.”

“:P”

“Grooveshark > Rhapsody.”