Tag: Rdio »

Rdio invites all to listen to its personalized streaming stations for free. No longer do you need a subscription to get access to all of Rdio's stations, including You FM which is a combination of your favorite songs and related tracks.

The latest Rdio update adds station sharing, which allows you to share your You FM with friends through social media. This allows you to share your superior music tastes with those friends of yours who just can't stop listening to all that nonsense that's out there!

"Station plays are up over 50 percent since our launch in August,” said Drew Larner, Rdio’s chief executive officer, in a press release. “We're excited to make one of our most popular features available to everyone for free, forever."

Rdio blares out a list of new features today in its latest update, including improved stations that are built for the listener. There are now 10 different station types for users to create an endless list of favorite radio stations based on their own taste. There is also a new You FM that lets users personalize their experience based on taste profiling technology that builds off of the user's playlist history, track voting, Facebook likes, Twitter follows, and more.

Time to create my own station to jam out to while at the coffee house!

Hey, there are over a billion apps out there, you know? There are only a few featured each week by the App Store, only a tiny fraction make the top paid and free charts, and fewer still are included in Apple's Essentials collections.

What that means is that there are a ton of great apps and games out there that just don't get discovered. Let's remedy that, at least a little bit, with our choices for ten of the most underrated apps on the App Store.

Bird Zapper - Here's one of the more ridiculous match-three offerings out there, with a solidly pleasant presentations, control set, and game mechanics. If you're up for some wacky bird torture and like the zen-like state of mindful repetition, this one's for you.

Epic Win - You know what's boring? To-Do lists. Even worse? Completing them. Chores suck, but Epic Win turns them into a game, offering you experience points and level ups to keep you interested and motivated. I still rock this app on my iPhone.

Hard Lines - Take two time-honored video game genres, the dual stick arcade shooter and Snake, and mash them up. You'll get something like Hard Lines, one of the stickier games out there, one in which the resulting app is greater than the sum of its parts.

The Blocks Cometh - This retro-flavored platformer/jumper should have made a longer lasting splash, what with its look, sound, and solid controls. Regardless, it's a game that you should grab for your iOS device right now; it's that good.

Match Panic - Originally titled Critter Panic, this match three game has it all: pixelly artwork, retro chiptune soundtrack, and the addictive nature of time-based pattern matching. Get ready to bliss out with your iPhone and a set of headphones when you play this fantastic game.

Mint - Honestly, I don't know how I lived or did taxes before Mint, the mobile app version of the award-winning financial web service. I find it surprising, though, how few people know of the service or the app. I'm here to right that wrong, now, by recommending you give it a try.

CardMunch - This LinkedIn-sponsored business card scanning app is probably the best of the ones I've used, but I doubt you've even heard of it. Eclipsed by apps like Evernote Hello, CardMunch seems to do a better job recognizing funky card designs. It also connects right to LinkedIn, which makes a lot of sense for those of us that rely on that for business contacts.

Camera+ - Maybe it's just me, but I have a hard time replacing Apple's built-in apps with third-party ones. Part of it is the inability to set other apps as default, and part of it is that Apple's apps work well, and simply. Camera+ is one of the exceptions, as it does so much more to take iPhone photography to the next level. Seriously, get this app.

Knights of Pen & Paper - If you're a closet Dungeons & Dragons fan, you'll already warm to the alliterative title of this smart, tongue-in-cheek homage to fantasy role playing of the analog sort. My kids and I pass the iPad back and forth with this game all the time, even to this day.

Rdio - Poor Rdio, it never gets much love. When I see streaming music mentioned in any type of press, it's always Pandora and Spotify that are mentioned. Rdio is a brilliant internet radio platform, organized more by album for us older music lovers. It's got a great catalog of both popular and more indie music, and just gets better each day. Give it a try for free and see if it works for your brain.

Here's a confession: I haven't purchased a song from iTunes or Amazon or Google in a couple of years.

No, I haven't turned to piracy via Bittorrent, and neither have I started to use (shudder) YouTube to listen to new songs.

I've done what millions of other folks are doing these days, namely using streaming radio.

It started with Pandora, but my experience there quickly paled as I realized I could never really get the specific artists I wanted on the stations I created. Plus, I'm an old-school music snob. I believe in the album format, as a collection of songs that makes some sort of collective statement, even when it isn't a thematic album, per se.

Enter Rdio, Spotify, and Rhapsody. Each streaming music service has its proponents and detractors, and I'm no different. I'm an Rdio fan from the start, but keep trying out Spotify as more and more of the connections on my social networks seem to use it to share playlists. I figured I'd give Rhapsody a shot, too, since it basically does the same thing as the other two.

And there's the rub. Each service does the same thing: offers up unlimited on-demand music from modern recorded music over the internet, via a website, computer app, or iOS app. How then, are we to choose which service is best for us? Here's how I did it.

First of all, I'm sticking to the iOS experience. That means that each service costs about $10 a month to use. I use my iPhone in the car or on my bicycle to play music via LTE on the go. I also use my iPad 3 or iPad mini to send music to bluetooth speakers in my house. These are my default listening environments.

Therefore, I'm judging each service on how well it works as an iOS app, as a music catalogue, and as a sharing platform, because I love sharing and discovering new music via my friends and social network.

Heard it on the Rdio

Rdio has a fantastic collection of music, both old and new, and the universal app makes it super easy to see what new albums are out, what albums are trending within my network, and to search for music I want to hear. I have yet to not be able to find something I'm looking for via search, and I dig pulling up new albums by artists I know as well as by those I don't. Rdio is visually organized around albums, which makes sense to my old music-loving brain.

While many of my music-snob friends use the service, what Rdio doesn't have is a significant amount of the rank and file people on the service to meet my sharing/discovery needs. The playlist support is also rather hidden in the iOS app, at least, making finding new playlists a more difficult task than it should be.

Our Rdio Review :: Download Rdio (App Store)

Spotify The Difference

Here's the current darling of the social network scene, with a broad user base and a fantastic catalog of all sorts of music. The playlist support is second to none, and finding playlists to follow is super easy and surfaced at the top of the interface, at least in the iPad version of the app. The What's New tab has recommended albums, trending playlists, and New Releases all visible and easily accessed. This, plus the fact that many of my friends on Facebook and Twitter seem to share Spotify links more often than Rdio is what keeps me interested in the service.

However, what Spotify also has is a horrible iPhone app. I started using it on iOS via the smaller app, and almost gave up hope. It wasn't until I opened Spotify on my iPad that I saw any use in using the service on the go. Why a universal app can't work the same on both the iPhone and the iPad, I don't know.

Our Spotify Review :: Download Spotify (App Store)

Rhapsody In Blue

Now here's a service that has always seemed more corporate to me, with a big, pretty iOS interface and plenty of new artists and albums to listen to and discover. The main page is set up with New Releases, Popular Artists, and Featured albums. The genre support here is great; I can find classical, jazz, and world music as easily as I can rock or pop.

On the downside, playlists are a decidedly single affair, as I can make them, but I don't see anywhere to find them. There's also no connection to Facebook or Twitter, making sharing my music listening or discovering that of my friends rather difficult. The show stopper here, though, came when I tried to open up the app on my iPhone, originally having set it up on my iPad mini. I got a message saying, essentially, that I had reached my "Device Limit," and that only one device at a time is supported. I could switch devices if I liked, but only one at a time is authorized for the Rhapsody service. Game over, which is too bad because it's a very pretty app.

Download Rhapsody for iPad (App Store) :: Download Rhapsody for iPhone (App Store)

The Winner?

I'm still going to stick with Rdio, because it looks and works the same on my iPhone as it does my iPad. The people I'm connected to on the service are all folks with eclectic, intelligent taste in music, and I really get a lot more out of following them and their playlists on Rdio. I wish it had better ways to discover playlists, and makes browsing by genre a bigger part of the interface, but the service is still my personal favorite.

Spotify is a close second, mainly due to the trending playlist and larger-seeming user base, at least within my social scene. I wish it was less song oriented and more about the albums, but that's more my own bias than anything significant with the service. If sharing songs with other folks is important, Spotify is a great choice.

Rapsody, sadly, while pretty, has the limitation on devices, as well as a more corporate look and feel, plus the lack of modern social network support. If none of those things matter, it's a decent service for the same price as the other two.

Bottom line, whichever service meets the needs of its individual users is the "winner," but I find Rdio to be the best of all worlds, and will probably stick with it for the time being, especially while the Spotify iPhone app is so awful.

Top Image: CNN Money

The creators of Rdio have announced Vdio, a new way of purchasing, renting and sharing videos. You'll be able to watch from the iPad or use AirPlay to stream content to your TV. Currently, Vdio is only available to US and UK Rdio Unlimted subscribers. However, for current subscribers, including those who sign up in the next 60 days, you'll receive a $25 dollar credit to use on Vdio.

Rdio, one of my favorite streaming music services, has just updated its iOS app with a new interface, the ability to sync music across devices and apps, and--excitingly--a second screen feature that lets you control other Rdio apps (like the one on your computer, for example) from your iOS device. So cool!

Discover your next favorite song with Rdio, a service for streaming unlimited music—on-demand and ad-free—on your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. With over 18 million songs available and more added every week, you can immediately listen to popular hits, new releases and old favorites. When you’re in the mood to hear something new, follow friends, artists and tastemakers and let their favorites find their way to your ears. Build a playlist—solo or in collaboration with friends—then sync everything to your device for offline listening.

Popular music subscription service, Rdio, has just partnered with Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco to create its new Mixtape Series that features playlists curated from Conan O’Brien, regulars on his show like Andy Richter and Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band, and celebrity guests on CONAN, his show on TBS.

Conan and his team have displayed their interest in music by the musical acts that frequently appear on the show. The new Rdio Mixtape Series is their new way of taking their musical knowledge and suggestions out of the show and interact with their fans in a new way.

Team Coco is now featured in the “People to Follow” section of Rdio. Other featured people influencing Rdio’s listeners are artists Of Montreal and Jake Shears, music outlets like SPIN, and record labels like Sub Pop.

Check out a complete list of playlists from Team Coco here. Conan himself already has his “Workout Mix” published and Andy Richter has released his “Mixed Bag.”

How much time have you spent culling your music library before a party in order to create the perfect playlist? Even worse, what about when that embarrassing Ace of Bass song slips past your defenses and your friends all snicker as you fumble with your iPhone while "I Saw the Sign" blasts through the speakers? Anthm wants to eliminate such problems by being your official mobile jukebox, using the power of Rdio to supply your party with a nearly limitless supply of tunes.

Anthm taps into Rdio's library of over 15 million songs and allows party attendees to control the playlist by voting songs up or down on the fly. You can also make requests by punching in specific songs and artists in order to hear that track that's been stuck in your head for days.Anthm is free to download, but whoever signs in as the party's host must have an Rdio account in order to use the app. No more subjecting your personal music collection to scrutiny, let Anthm supply the tunes for you.

Rdio Unlimited Family, announced today, is a new discounted way to have more than one account for your family and friends. Calling it "the industry's first digital music family plan," Rdio hopes to allow folks who know each other group their accounts in bundles of up to three at a time. Each account acts as it's own individual account, with the ability to listen to an individual mix of the over 10 million songs on the Rdio service. Users can also follow other Rdio listeners, and share songs and playlists with other users, Facebook, and Twitter. The accounts are fully functional Rdio accounts, able to access their unique settings on a variety of devices and platforms, including the iPad, iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile 7, as well as home devices like Sonos and Roku.

"When we first introduced Rdio, everyone in the industry offered the same rates and service plans for on-demand music: five dollars per month for Web-only access and ten dollars per month for Web and mobile," said Drew Larner, CEO of Rdio. "Now with whole families using Rdio, we've had a tremendous number of requests from our users for a family plan. We're really proud to be the first digital music service to bring this type of plan to market."

The new Rdio Unlimited Family Plan, users can save 10% with a two-account plan, at $17.99/month. If there are three accounts purchased in the bundle, there is a 23% savings, coming in at $22.99/month, while additional accounts above and beyond the three are charged at the standard $.9.99 per month. So, while a family of six will save some on the first three accounts, it might behoove them to purchase two family accounts, with up to three accounts each.

We hope to see more services adopt this "buy more, save more" approach with time, and Rdio is leading the way. I look forward to the time when the discounted savings includes more than three at a time, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Touted by AOL, Inc as "the premier music application of 2011," PLAY plans on being a, pardon the pun, player in the current streaming music war for the hearts and ears of iOS and other mobile device users across the planet, hitting 250,000 downloads in the first three weeks on Android OS alone.

PLAY by AOL Music is positioned by the company to be a social music portal though which users can listen to music and share with friends. It's powered by partner Rdio, and interfaces both directly with users' own iPod/iTunes files on their device as well as with SHOUTcast radio and other AOL Music properties, like CD Listening Party and MP3 of the day. Non-Rdio members will be able to hear previews of tracks shared with them via the PLAY app, while those with an applicable Rdio membership will be able to listen to the whole song. All users will of course be able to buy songs shared with them on iTunes. While other apps help music lovers share what they are already playing, PLAY helps fans find music and THEN share it, a subtle difference in approach that may help this app become the more successful of similar app offerings.

Other features include adding custom album art to shared music, Facebook and Twitter integration for both discovery and sharing modes, and the ability to both tag and comment on shared music.

Whether this will become the definitive social music sharing app or service for consumers remains to be seen. Apple's own Ping service hasn't taken off, which could be attributed to a lack of interest in sharing music or just a limited Apple-only service. PLAY is cross platform and also powered by two of the larger brands in the space, AOL Music, and Rdio, one of our favorite streaming music services, facts which may, in part, help us all answer this little conundrum of the music sharing world.

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It's not everyday that we write about hardware on 148Apps. So when we do, you know it's about something awesome.

Today, Sonos, one our favorite iOS friendly audio hardware makers have released a new, smaller device, the Play3. It's the little brother to the fantastic S5, now called the Play5 that we reviewed last year. This smaller version has 3 speakers instead of the 5 found in the Play5. It still maintains the features of the Play5 in that it connects with your home network to stream music from iTunes and a huge variety of online services like Spotify, Rdio, Pandora, etc.

I had a chance to test out the new Play3 for a few minutes earlier this week. And I'm impressed. It does a great job, in a smaller package, of still sounding great. You can use this in addition to a Play5, on it's own, or create a stereo pair between two like devices. The Play5 is a great machine that I've grown to love. The Play3 will be a great first device for new Sonos users considering it's retail price of $299. It will also make a good second device to extend your Sonos range into another room.

We hope to be able to bring you a full review of the Play3 in the next couple weeks.

On-demand social music app Rdio has added a new form of payment for their subscription service - you can now pay using your Amazon Payments account. Hurrah!

For those who haven't tried it yet, Rdio is a social music service from the founders of Skype that allows you to listen to as much music as you want through your iOS device as well as the web and your PC or Mac. You can build your online music collection from a catalogue of over 8 million songs while also checking out other people's collections and playlists, as well as see what's popular at the moment. Chris reviewed it favorably upon launch last year and a recent update has looked promising.

The app costs from $4.99 a month, which was previously only payable by Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. Now you can let Amazon Payments handle it all, thus saving you from entering your card details on another source -something that's bound to be reassuring to many.

If you've not tried Rdio before, there's a 7 day trial available on the website for US and Canada based residents.

Rdio, from the founders of Skype and haters of the letter A (we presume), have announced that their iOS app has gotten a huge update, revamping a bunch of the app's features. If you're not familiar with Rdio, it's a subscription service that lets you search for an and stream music on their service (which includes most if not all major popular releases) to devices that support their service, including iOS and Android apps. It's a subscription-based service, costing $9.99 per month for unlimited streaming and the ability to sync songs straight to your device for when listening when you're offline. They also offer a $4.99 per month subscription, for access via the web only.

The app features a bunch of new features. First, the homescreen has been redesigned in a more Springboard-esque design (similar to the Facebook app's home screen), with the ability to customize and rearrange the icons on the homescreen itself. As well, they've added access to see top charts and new releases, so if you need to stay hip on what's new, you can look at it, be befuddled as to who these people are and why they all sound like robots, before going back to your music with distorted guitars and incomprehensible screaming. That may just be me, though. Thankfully for people like me, personalized recommendations based on what you listen to are offered as well, so you can further envelop yourself in your bubble of specific taste. There's a fairly solid social aspect to the whole system as well, where the recommendations can be pulled from friends and taste leaders whom you "follow," a la Twitter.

As far as actually listening to music goes with the Rdio app, there's now a bar at the bottom of the app that lets you easily call up your currently playing song list and controls, so you can easily play/pause and skip tracks without losing your place in the app. You can also set your specific syncing options, so if you want songs to sync to your device only on wifi and never on 3G, or if you want to never actually download anything to your device, you can do so. Rdio is a neat service for legally listening to music on demand, and the app comes with a free 7-day trial so you can check out the service risk free, without entering any kind of payment information. If you've been looking for a streaming music service for your iOS device, Rdio is worth a look.