Well, the 'free' 25 songs helps offset the time and labor of removing the spyware and adware from my machine after I install Real. I'd also have to go back into to alot of programs and change the defaults back to other programs I use.

(yeah, I know, you can resolve some of this through the 'custom install'. The novice, 12 year old girl user isn't going to do this. Then mom and dad are going to wonder why their machine is acting like crap.)

Wasn't their announcement supposed to earth shattering or something? This is it????

grasp

grasp

grasp

Meanwhile, HP is tightening their relationship to Apple's iPod.

http://news.com.com/HP+seeks+larger+role+in+iPod+mania/2100-1041_3-5647614.html

Can you clarify?

Under Rhapsody 25, do I own these 25 tracks per month? Or do I just get to listen to 25 tracks (i.e., 25 tracks one time or one track 25 times, or some combination in between) before it is disabled?

And can these tracks be moved to a compatible-portable player (not iPod)?

Has someone tried this yet?

What is stopping somebody from just downloading 20 Gigabytes of music to a Creative Zen Music Player then disconnecting and discontinuing the service? What if you then never reconnected your Zen to your Computer? Do you have to connect your MP3 player to your computer once a month?

once files are transfered onto the portable device, they will expire after a set time period if the device is not reconnected. They will not disappear, but they will be unplayable.

What will stop you is you need to have an active subcription for that music to continue to play. If you don't connect at least once a month to your subscription account the music stops working. That's why I think getting a subcription is a dumb idea. You pay and pay for that music but you never own it and would lose it all if you stopped subcribing.

With my luck, I'd leave town and my Time-to-reconnect would be 3 days after I left. And so for the rest of my trip, I'd have nothing to listen to. It would all be there - mind you - but inaccessible since I couldn't interact with my pc.

Subscription has big limitations, and hassles. I'd rather own the music.

So not only does Real lock out the iPod and Macs from their service, but they're even trying to lock out Safari from viewing the main Rhapsody site. Yeah, they sure have an open system, don't they?

1) This seems to be more of a competition ti Napster and the WMA-based sites than to iTunes.
2) The site effectively blocks Macs, therefore locking Mac-users into iPod use.
3) Question: won't the PC equivalent apps to Audio Hijack/WireTap be able to break the DRM ? And how about the Janus-induced de-activation of the music ?
4) REAL is actually pretty unreal (sorry, easy pun, but THEY chose the name …). They've managed to alienate a lot of computer users on every platform. How realistic is their ambition to gather a wide audience ?
5) All the arguments against Napster-to-go still apply here …
6) the premium subscription service, the only one that lets you download to your MP3 player, might be economically superior to iTunes … all you have to do is download 16 ALBUMS per month. This way you save $16 bucks, $1.00 more than you paid for your subscription … but how many people spend $154/mth on music alone ? Well, 151 individual tracks would bring a 10¢ monthly savings for a $134.39 monthly expense, still far out of MY reach …
Not really a grand announcement …

Mac Zombies once again pull out the "feel-good" John Gruber arguments of the "battle" between a la carte and subscription-based services.

Too bad "iCon" Steve doesn't care with being compatible with the rest of the world. It's the Mac users who locked themselves out from other choices.

Now the rest of the world gets to choose 25 songs free each month from Rhapsody's library. iTMS users have to wait each Tuesday to see the next lame free song (that has been pre-chosen by Apple).

"Too bad "iCon" Steve doesn't care with being compatible with the rest of the world. It's the Mac users who locked themselves out from other choices."

Whoops. It looks like you forgot that the iTMS is compatible with Macs AND Windows, while Real's Rhapsody service is ONLY compatible with Windows, which makes it the more closed system. If you want to talk about music stores that lock people out, then Rhapsody's a much better example than the iTMS. If you weren't too buisy worshipping at the altar of Bill Gates then maybe you wouldn't have missed that.

"Now the rest of the world gets to choose 25 songs free each month from Rhapsody's library. iTMS users have to wait each Tuesday to see what free song (that has been pre-chosen by Apple) they don't want."

The rest of the world that uses online music stores other than the iTMS doesn't add up to much, comparitively speaking. It's a proven fact that the vast majority prefers Apple's pay-per-song model, and I don't think 25 free songs per month is going to be swaying many people. Certainly not Mac users, considering Real locks them out of Rhapsody.

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Anonymous wrote:
It's a proven fact that the vast majority prefers Apple's pay-per-song model, and I don't think 25 free songs per month is going to be swaying many people. Certainly not Mac users, considering Real locks them out of Rhapsody.

Certainly the subscription services are a big flop in Mac Land, seeing as you guys don't have any!!

Real blew it a long time ago.

Why rent the cow continuously?

I bought it instead.

1,500 songs and growing.

Mine, mine, mine. I can burn them. I can take them with me (I LOVE MY SHUFFLE). I can stream them to my stereo throughout the house (wirelessly thank you for more than 3 years thanks to KIMA and $50 of my hard earned cash).

And anybody thinks I'm going to go back to renting music?????

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Guest wrote:

Wasn't their announcement supposed to earth shattering or something?

Hell, no...Rhapsody 3.0 is rapidly becoming a disaster, with many, many users unable to install, those that do have trouble connecting, those that connect are experiencing crap playback quality and on and on. Real's move to offshore their Tech Support is biting them on the butt - unless they fix this very fast people are going to quit in droves.