The iPhone already has enough features to make it the music player of choice for many people; through iTunes they have access to the world’s largest collection of music, with each song at an affordable price and tons of content available. With features like iTunes Match being added to the spectrum, it would appear that iTunes is the be-all end-all of getting music legally — but it isn’t.
Instead, today I’d like to look at Rdio, a streaming service that is jam-packed with features and is a worthy alternative to iTunes and other streaming options.
Getting Started
The first thing that you need to know about Rdio is that it isn’t a free service. In order to get access to all of the features, which includes a Mac app, iPhone and iPad apps, as well as unlimited listening, you’ll have to pay around $10/month. It’s also currently open to the United States only, although other countries are expected to get the service soon.
Rdio does offer a free trial, and the time that it gives should be more than enough for the service to earn your dollar. For $10/month you could buy one album from iTunes, or you could have access to a huge library of music. It’s up to you.
Content
In my experience, Rdio has a rather extensive library that is expanding constantly. Despite not listening to most of the popular music on the radio (with a few rare exceptions), I was able to find everything that I wanted to listen to with ease, even songs from the ’90s or earlier. Finding something to listen to is as easy as searching for it from the main page, and the results were always accurate.
The main view of the app, online on the left and offline on the right.
The big draw of the iPhone app is the ability to listen to your music on the go. You can accomplish this in one of two ways: streaming over 3G or Wi-Fi (the common option) or syncing the music straight to your iPhone. Each method has its ups and downs, and it really comes down to personal preference.
If you choose to stream music, be advised that you’ll want to have good cellular reception. The songs all sound high quality, and that means that you’ll need to have an active data connection and will have to sit through some buffering if you have poor service. In most areas, songs played without a hitch (I’m on Verizon’s network, which has excellent coverage where I live) but sometimes songs would take forever to load or not load at all.
Where this app really tries to draw you in is with syncing your songs to your phone directly. This is managed through your Collection, the main library of your Rdio account.
Collecting Songs
The nice thing about Rdio is that it gives you a lot of freedom. You can listen to songs without them being added to your Collection if you want to sample something before you commit, and even once you do add something you’ll have to choose to sync it to your device manually.
While this might seem like a chore, I believe that it’s Rdio’s way of being conservative with two things: the storage on your phone and your cellular data usage.
Some of the songs in my collection; items with a phone next to them have been synced.
If you’re going to sync a ton of songs to your phone, there’s almost no purpose in using Rdio over iTunes due to storage concerns. One of the nice things about paying for the service is the ability to listen to something that isn’t on your phone, and if you want to take up space you might be better off actually purchasing the music.
I prefer to turn that switch to "On," though both are usually flipped off.
The cellular data limitations are probably in place to protect your wallet. You can choose to sync over 3G if you would like, and in my experience it saves songs fairly quickly. I have the unlimited data plan with Verizon though, so I don’t worry about how much data I’m using; if you have a 2GB (or smaller) limit, you might have to consider using Rdio primarily when you’re in range of Wi-Fi, which shouldn’t be hard these days.
Finding New Music
One of the best things about the Internet is finding something new to experience. In many cases, those experiences are directly related to music. I, for one, am constantly searching for something new to listen to. Rdio doesn’t disappoint in this department, offering a few ways to browse through music you may not be familiar with.
To be fair, if I wanted to listen to those top albums I could just listen to the radio.
First is the Top Charts section, where Rdio will show you what songs and albums other people are listening to. This can be handy if your tastes tend to lean towards the radio-friendly music that the majority of people listen to, but for someone like me it’s fairly useless; it all comes down to personal preference.
Now, these are a little more useful.
Where I really find some good stuff is through the built in Recommendations. While they aren’t always spot-on (I’ve listened to some pretty crummy music based on Rdio’s suggestions) they are more useful than the Top Charts. Besides that you can also view the Heavy Rotation from people in your social circles (more on that later) or New Releases.
Social
It seems like social is a big deal these days — If you aren’t sharing it, it didn’t happen. While I’ll leave the debate on whether or not that’s healthy for a later time, it’s important to note that Rdio has built-in support for several services, including their own social section, Facebook and Twitter.
The people in my network and I don't agree on a lot of things.
Adding people as friends through Rdio has several benefits, key among them being the ability to see what they’re listening to. Rdio assumes that you trust these people (as they should) or at least have a passing interest in what they’re listening to. This can be good or bad, depending on how carefully you curate your friends and how seriously you take your music.
I will say this: I’m not a fan of the automatic sharing to Facebook. I thought that I would be fine with it, and I’m still coming to terms, but sometimes you want to listen to a guilty pleasure without anyone knowing. Being able to turn this off would be a god-send, but right now I think that we’re living in a world where everything is going to get reported back to Facebook. It is what it is, and I can’t begrudge Rdio for doing what is quickly becoming the norm.
Is it Worth it?
There’s no doubt that many people can’t afford to pay $10/month, but I think that if you can there’s no reason not to pick Rdio. Its main competitor is Spotify, and while they share many features, I found that Rdio has a much better interface and is continuing to evolve in this space. You can also sign up for Rdio without a Facebook account, which may drive many people to the service without hearing another feature.
With as much content as Rdio has, its impressive suite of applications, and its commitment to growth, I’d say that the service, and this app, are worth your money.