I can't possibly recommend Rdio enough. The design is simple and intuitive. State transfers nicely between devices.
Even little things are pleasantly surprising. If I have my laptop hooked up to speakers at a party playing through Rdio, I can change the song from my phone.
The only thing it doesn't have that I'd like is Grooveshark-esque queue building. Every music player could just lift Grooveshark's queueing system wholesale and everyone would be much happier.
Agreed. I've been using Rdio for maybe two years now, and there's just something about the experience that's hard to explain, but feels a lot better than Spotify to me. Initially, their big selling point for me was just the fact that they had a web app at a time when Spotify didn't, but now that they both work in the browser, I still think Rdio is a way better experience.
That said, the way that search works on their iOS app does tend to frustrate me. Search for an artist, play one of their songs, go back to search, and your query plus all the results are gone. I kinda just wish that they'd keep them there for me, since I usually wanna find another song by the same artist after that. Maybe that's not actually a common use case though.
I hadn't visited the site in a while, and within 60 seconds I found an irritating UI issue: When you're playing an "artist station" there's a slider thing from "artist only" to "adventurous" (which is awesome because the lack of this is the reason I never listen to Pandora).
However, when you change the slider, it advances the song (whether or not the current song is by the station's artist).
I actually prefer Spotify to Rdio. Mainly because it's really easy to find playlists from other users and because the multimedia buttons work out of box.
I follow ~5 people who have these huge > 1000 song playlists that get updated daily. Practically a constant stream of new music that I like.
Unfortunately Spotify doesn't provide an easy way to manage playlists. Yes, there are folders but once you have 100ish playlists it kind of gets difficult.
If I wanted to migrate I would want to copy these playlists form Spotify to Rdio, which is nearly impossible without a lot of manual labour.
And then there's the audio quality. The songs constantly sound better on Spotify than on Rdio (that's at least my impression).
Ah and for me Spotify is actually cheaper than Rdio (I have Spotify premium for offline mobile support). The mobile playlist sync feature is awesome: I don't have to touch the phone in order for Spotify to update my offline playlists (on Android at least) for all the playlists I have tagged on my phone.
I'm more critical. The quality of the apps has been going down lately.
The UX of the desktop and mobile apps turned into a mess after they introduced a bunch of sliding panes, and the iOS app crashes so much I don't bother with it anymore.
I'm still a subscriber because it's one of the few streaming services available outside US, otherwise I would be looking at alternatives.
I completely agree. Rdio is the first music streaming site that really pulled me in. The clean design is pleasant and the multi-device support is superb. The autoplay functionality has introduced me to a ton of excellent music I didn't even know existed. I suppose other sites do the same thing but they never got me in the door like Rdio did.
I used to be a premium subscriber to Pandora. After growing tired of Pandora's limitations, specifically a hard cap of 100 custom stations, I looked around and for Radio.
I liked Pandora a lot. I LOVE Rdio. It's gorgeous, robust, and flexible. Great product.
I'm always really impressed by the detail put into Rdio. Dragging a song allows me to drag it into a playlist or to share it with friends. In HTML5/Javascript? That's pretty rad.
Spotify feels way too much like iTunes to me. That's not a compliment. My only fear is that I've picked the wrong side in this one and that Rdio will be gone soon enough.
I also switched from Spotify some time ago. I was Spotify user and subscriber since their beta around 2009 but in the recent years the apps seemed were more and more complex, sometimes buggy and the design just worse and worse.
Now I'm a happy Rdio subscriber. I just wish they would have real native desktop client.
Another lover of Rdio - been a paying subscriber for 2.5 years and gave it as a gift to three friends, plus on the family plan for my wife, brother and I. It's awesome.
I doubt it's purely a response. They mentioned that they're going to be inserting advertising into the streams now for free users, which isn't something you build out in a day. I'm sure they've been planning this for a while. Maybe the Spotify announcement forced them to announce and release it sooner than they were planning, though.
I'm not going to complain too much, RDIO is the only streaming service available to me in canada. I'm grateful to them just for existing, if they can't be free that's okay.
Should I be worried about Rdio? I am happy to pay Rdio a relative pittance for continued access to music. I'm less happy if they're in a tailspin that is going to destroy the quality of their catalog.
Rdio, please release your streaming quality figures. I'll return as a customer, I promise - please just be more transparent about this sort of thing.
The reason I say this is because the quality is noticeably worse than Spotify, and I feel they won't release the numbers because they know they can't compete.
I just want some transparency. The UI and experience is beautiful, but the quality is lacking.
Just signed up. A couple of weird issues, I was presented with people to follow. I had no idea who these people were, and wondered what it meant to follow them. I managed to skip that step. Then I couldn't find a search box to find any artists or songs to play. It was buried down the bottom left of the page. I then typed in an artist, then clicked on an album, and got some music. Then the UI flipped, with a nice big search on top.
Took me a while to find out what a free, unsubscribed account was.
The design is really washed out. Very lightweight grey fonts that are very difficult to read. It's all a bit white and bright. Stylbot for Chrome helps a little there as there aren't any user settings to change the colour scheme.
Oh some mystery meat navigation, click on the bottom bar to bring up the current playlist. Actually you have to do quite a bit of click experimentation, to find out what the icons do. Would be nice to have some hover tips.
Oh and you can scroll the playlist, it's not at all obvious!
Gripes aside, quite nice. Will see how I get on with it.
I am also on the $4.99/month plan. From what I can see is that for people already on the plan it stays the same. The article reads that if you are subscriped to a plan you will not be moved. I assume they will keep the $5 because the only difference is no ads vs the free version.
I'm wondering the same -- I had just switched from the $9.99 plan to the $4.99, because I only listen to Rdio on my computers (at home or work). Maybe I'll start streaming vinyl over MPD, or some fool thing.
I switched from Spotify 8 months ago and at first it was a breathe of fresh air but I soon started noticing issues with the desktop client. It's just a UIWebView that loads the web app. Album artwork loads slowly if you've got a large collection, UI interactions are unresponsive and will often time out.
The other major issue is having albums in your collection become unplayable due to what looks like licensing issues, only to reappear months later as the same album, except not in your collection. Spotify doesn't seem to have this issue.
Like the TV then. Weirdly the ITV player in the UK has completely pathetic sound on the adverts that you can hardly hear, which makes them a little more bearable.
Having the ability to listen to music from one source is important to many and Rdio has no "Local File" support. This is necessary for artists/albums Rdio doesn't have in it's library and it's a reason myself and many others won't ever make the jump from Spotify.
I switched mostly from Rdio to Spotify. I used rdio since it started, but spotify's radio based off a playlist is great. I get more discovery songs this way. I also have non-english songs that aren't on rdio, but I can add them in Spotify. I do love rdio's new album page better.
I love rdio, but what is up with the lack of gapless playback? I love continuous albums, and even for the lack of being able to play these without the annoying silences between tracks I still prefer rdio, but this is the biggest issue I have right now with the service.
[+] [-] ddt|12 years ago|reply
Even little things are pleasantly surprising. If I have my laptop hooked up to speakers at a party playing through Rdio, I can change the song from my phone.
The only thing it doesn't have that I'd like is Grooveshark-esque queue building. Every music player could just lift Grooveshark's queueing system wholesale and everyone would be much happier.
[+] [-] kevincennis|12 years ago|reply
That said, the way that search works on their iOS app does tend to frustrate me. Search for an artist, play one of their songs, go back to search, and your query plus all the results are gone. I kinda just wish that they'd keep them there for me, since I usually wanna find another song by the same artist after that. Maybe that's not actually a common use case though.
[+] [-] philsnow|12 years ago|reply
However, when you change the slider, it advances the song (whether or not the current song is by the station's artist).
[+] [-] __mp|12 years ago|reply
https://play.spotify.com/user/rmeijerink/playlist/0owSCmXQJw... https://play.spotify.com/user/xbrett82/playlist/2eheCERq82SL... https://play.spotify.com/user/pbrown148/playlist/3r46U16o2yl...
Unfortunately Spotify doesn't provide an easy way to manage playlists. Yes, there are folders but once you have 100ish playlists it kind of gets difficult.
If I wanted to migrate I would want to copy these playlists form Spotify to Rdio, which is nearly impossible without a lot of manual labour.
And then there's the audio quality. The songs constantly sound better on Spotify than on Rdio (that's at least my impression).
Ah and for me Spotify is actually cheaper than Rdio (I have Spotify premium for offline mobile support). The mobile playlist sync feature is awesome: I don't have to touch the phone in order for Spotify to update my offline playlists (on Android at least) for all the playlists I have tagged on my phone.
[+] [-] hcarvalhoalves|12 years ago|reply
The UX of the desktop and mobile apps turned into a mess after they introduced a bunch of sliding panes, and the iOS app crashes so much I don't bother with it anymore.
I'm still a subscriber because it's one of the few streaming services available outside US, otherwise I would be looking at alternatives.
[+] [-] slohr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amorphid|12 years ago|reply
I liked Pandora a lot. I LOVE Rdio. It's gorgeous, robust, and flexible. Great product.
[+] [-] stdgy|12 years ago|reply
My only complaint with the service so far is that they haven't made adding gapless playback a priority.
[+] [-] markolschesky|12 years ago|reply
Spotify feels way too much like iTunes to me. That's not a compliment. My only fear is that I've picked the wrong side in this one and that Rdio will be gone soon enough.
[+] [-] enra|12 years ago|reply
Now I'm a happy Rdio subscriber. I just wish they would have real native desktop client.
[+] [-] 2mur|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lotso|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onedev|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shawnc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dominotw|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlas|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevincennis|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TarpitCarnivore|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jemeshsu|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glennos|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelmior|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notatoad|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Grue3|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glennos|12 years ago|reply
In their defence, I notice that the blog is name spaced as "US". Still, boo.
[+] [-] tptacek|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prezjordan|12 years ago|reply
The reason I say this is because the quality is noticeably worse than Spotify, and I feel they won't release the numbers because they know they can't compete.
I just want some transparency. The UI and experience is beautiful, but the quality is lacking.
[+] [-] FireBeyond|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dan1234|12 years ago|reply
With my UK account, I get "You're out of free music. Subscribe now for unlimited music."
[+] [-] nettletea|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xordon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Void_|12 years ago|reply
In the US.
[+] [-] e12e|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nettletea|12 years ago|reply
Took me a while to find out what a free, unsubscribed account was.
The design is really washed out. Very lightweight grey fonts that are very difficult to read. It's all a bit white and bright. Stylbot for Chrome helps a little there as there aren't any user settings to change the colour scheme.
Oh some mystery meat navigation, click on the bottom bar to bring up the current playlist. Actually you have to do quite a bit of click experimentation, to find out what the icons do. Would be nice to have some hover tips.
Oh and you can scroll the playlist, it's not at all obvious!
Gripes aside, quite nice. Will see how I get on with it.
[+] [-] MattBearman|12 years ago|reply
I've been wishing Spotify had this functionality for as long as I've been using it. Time to call it a day and go else where for my music.
Also the spotify iPhone app is shit, but I haven't used Rdio's enough yet to compare.
[+] [-] dorkrawk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] computerbob|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aye|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perryh2|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesmoss|12 years ago|reply
I switched from Spotify 8 months ago and at first it was a breathe of fresh air but I soon started noticing issues with the desktop client. It's just a UIWebView that loads the web app. Album artwork loads slowly if you've got a large collection, UI interactions are unresponsive and will often time out.
The other major issue is having albums in your collection become unplayable due to what looks like licensing issues, only to reappear months later as the same album, except not in your collection. Spotify doesn't seem to have this issue.
[+] [-] FireBeyond|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jonheller|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] nettletea|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] collinvandyck76|12 years ago|reply