By Rhapsody was one of the first online services to offer on-demand streaming music during a time when Napster was rebranding itself as a pay service and iTunes was just beginning its rise to music market domination. Surprisingly, while their service predates many of the others with apps currently in the Android Market, Rhapsody is one of the latest to hit Android handsets, and it is probably for the better. The makers of the Rhapsody app obviously took some time to study the competition and improve on the streaming music interface.
Rhapsody offers its streaming music in two ways, through the creation of hand-crafted playlists or through a selection of pre-made radio stations based on popular artists and genres. The radio stations are pretty good, but if you are using Rhapsody I’m sure most of your listening will come from your custom playlists, and listening to music and creating playlists is quite easy. Search for an artist, album, or song (just be sure to check the correct selection next to the search dialog) and you will be presented with a list of results. Pick the one you want and you will have the option to listen or add music to your queue or playlist. A real convenient aspect of Rhapsody is the ability to add an entire album to your queue at once.
The selection of music was pretty wide, every artist I searched for had at least some music in Rhapsody’s library. However, some artist’s catalogs were outdated or did not feature all of their albums. Can’t be sure if this is due to licensing issues or if the music has just been neglected to be added, but enough new music was available to indicate they update their library quite frequently.
While Rhapsody does offer its own selection of pre-determined radio stations, it lacks the ability to generate intelligent playlists based around any artist or song you choose. This feature is almost a must-have for music streaming apps, so I am sure some will miss this functionality. If you have used the app for a while and built up a good library of music it shouldn’t be as much of an issue, but Rhapsody definitely felt lacking without this capability.
Sound quality is pretty good compared to some of the other streaming music options. Everything sounded clear, though the low-end may be lacking a bit (admittedly, low-end is usually one of the first frequencies to go when compressing audio). The app has many of the features you would come to expect, including artist and song info, the ability to purchase music directly through the app, and options to share songs (or playlists, albums, and artists) via messaging and e-mail. You can control repeat and random playback modes, but a bit of a peeve is the fact that you must navigate to the Settings menu to turn these options on and off.
Where Rhapsody excels is in its excellent interface. The song playback controls (play/pause/skip) are always located at the bottom of the screen when the app is open. This has the benefit of allowing you to start and stop or skip songs while adding music. No need to navigate to a “Now Playing” screen. You can however expand the playback controller to show album art, detailed artist info, and the track listing of the current playlist or queue. Playlist editing and rearranging is simple and accomplished through the use of long presses on a track in the list. Also present is the seemingly-standard for music apps “Now Playing” item in the notification bar.
Rhapsody has always been a subscription service, and with their Android app this hasn’t changed. Users who download the app now will be treated to a 7-day free trial, but after that it will cost you $9.99 a month.
The Pros:
- Excellent user interface with easy access to Now Playing controls
- Large selection of music for completely custom playlists or pre-made radio station listening
- Easy creation and arranging of playlists, including the ability to add entire albums with one press
- Great sound quality
The Cons:
- Some artist’s catalogs were outdated/did not include all of their music
- Available with a subscription only ($9.99/month)
- No custom artist or song-based intelligent playlists
The Bottom Line: Rhapsody does a lot of things right. I can’t say it is hands-down better than the other services available, but it does a good job of competing head to head with the best. The problem is that to get something equal to or only marginally better, you will have to pay $9.99 a month, whereas the standard for most other similar services is right around $4 a month. Rhapsody does a great job if you love creating your playlists song by song, but if you are looking for an app that does intelligent playlist streaming based on one artist or song, you will probably want to look elsewhere.
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This article is part of a series on music streaming apps for Android. Each day I will be reviewing a different streaming app to help separate the must-have music players from the rest.
Other articles in this series: Pandora, Last.fm, UMusic, Slacker Radio, Grooveshark
Follow Kevin on Twitter, or send an e-mail to Kevin(at)Phandroid.com
Question: Will those of us who already have a Rhapsody account on our laptops also have to pay $9.99 a month?
I have pre-ordered my Incredible and this is my first foray into Apps – do companies usually charge double or do existing accounts transfer?
Any word on offline playing like the iphone version? http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/rhapsodys-iphone-app-beats-spotify-mog-to-the-punch/
I wish it was available outside of the US. I would subscribe.
There should be a free version. It’s too expensive so i’ll stick to my Slacker and Pandora.@ Kevin, when are you gonna give us something on Cherry Rplayer. It’s pretty good.
You don’t mention offline access to music. For this you need to be able to download music files and cache them on your local device. Rhapsody has promised this on it’s website as coming, and they apparently just approved an updated iPhone app with this feature, but it seems Android will have to wait on this. What’s the skinny?
@HartfordPaul
The account is transferrable, use the same log-in credentials.
@andy, artinvent
Didn’t see offline playback as an option in the Android version.
@Hartford Paul
You might have to upgrade your Rhapsody subscription to “On The Go”, which is $3 extra I think.
I have Rhapsody simply because their library is so big. They have the album I want to listen to about 90% of the time.
I wish it was available outside of the US. I would subscribe.
I agree with rob’s brother.. the library is awesome on this thing. I love having access to almost any song I can think of at my fingertips 24/7! I signed up for the trial and then immediately subscribed..
Also, please remember that this thing is in BETA. I can’t wait to see what they have in store for updates.. I’m hoping for a widget soon!
@rob’s brother
They changed their subscription pricing and names when they separated from Real Networks. It’s now called Rhapsody Premier which allows you the service on one mobile device (phone, not laptop). You can also install it on up to 3 non mobile devices I think.
Pro’s:
1) sound quality is way better than slacker or pandora
2) never searched for a song and couldn’t find it.
3) love the radio stations as a way to find new music, public playlists are nice too
Con’s:
1) There is no way to shuffle all songs in your library. Soooo angry about that.
2) No smart playlists.
3) I think the interface is kind of clunky, unlike the reviewer.
4) Signal drops when switching between wifi and 3G, and sometimes randomly. Hoping offline playback will help fix this.
The bass sounds boosted too much on my iPad. Also I wish they had a ratings system like Windows media player. Also a random play by star rating.
I hated the interface till I read here that you had to press the selection a long time. Not really obvious and I was about to cancel it till I read it here.