the workshop tumblog

Why you should try Rdio before giving Spotify your money

The USA launch of Spotify has made a lot of buzz because the service is so popular in Europe and it took what seemed like forever for Spotify to finally reach the United States. I’ve noticed in a lot of the Spotify buzz that Rdio is rarely if ever mentioned as a perfectly good alternative that has been available in the States and Canada for a few years now.

I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t too impressed with Rdio the first time I tried it over a year ago. The music catalogue was small and the desktop application was just an Adobe Air remote for the Flash website… While the desktop app still isn’t as slick as Spotify’s, it’s improved and so has the music selection.

A few months ago after trying Spotify via proxy I wanted access to streaming music on my iPhone too, but didn’t have the means to pay for Spotify Premium from outside Europe… Tired of waiting for Spotify to launch here I signed-up on Rdio to give it another try and I haven’t looked back since. Now I’m thinking Spotify will have to work hard on a handful of features to pull me away from Rdio and get my paid subscription.

Here are a few reasons why you should give Rdio a try too.

1. Rdio has a 7 day free trial, no billing info required

Yes Spotify has always had a free ad supported option, but you don’t have access to mobile streaming or higher audio quality. Both Rdio and Spotify have nearly the same paid services right down to the pricing so it’s hard to pick the “best” of the two.

My main argument is that because Rdio is free to try you’ve got nothing to loose even if you don’t like it.

2. The Rdio mobile app is great

I listen to a lot of music in the car via my iPhone (iPod before that). So the mobile app can make a break the service for me. I can easily say that Rdio’s mobile app is no joke.

Like Spotify’s app it allows you to “sync” or download music to your device’s internal memory to save on 3G bandwidth or allow you to listen on a WiFi device even when you don’t have WiFi access.

The Rdio iOS app looks and feels very native to the platform and is very easy to use. The app features a robust search feature that gives you access to all of Rdio’s catalogue. The music collection section is also setup very similar to the iOS music Library view where you can quickly browse all your music alphabetically by artist.

3. Social networking is well integrated

Similar to Facebook or Twitter you can follow people and see what new music they are adding to their collections on a “wall”. There is also a “heavy rotation” section where you can see what albums you and your friends are listening to the most currently. Both of these features can be viewed on the mobile app too.

Reviews and comments is something Spotify doesn’t really do. In Rdio listeners can comment/review artists, albums, and tracks. You can easily see reviews and comments just by scrolling down below the track list on the desktop app or website.

Last.fm, Facebook and Twitter support are all there also. You can’t Tweet or update your Facebook from your mobile device, but it does “scrobble” to Last.fm via your Rdio account (no in-app Last.fm setup).

Other thoughts and some negatives

My main complaint with Rdio is the desktop app. It’s just a slick wrapper for a web interface so it lacks the snappy native feel of the Spotify app. This can also be a plus because you can login to Rdio on any browser with Flash and listen to music from anyone’s computer without downloading software.

Rdio lacks iTunes style playlists in both the desktop and mobile apps, so browsing your collection, using the search, and heavy use of the “Web Queue” are often the best methods of finding the music you want to listen to. It’s a bit strange to adjust to if you use lots of iTunes playlists.

With that said about Rdio, my main complaint about Spotify is the lack of alphabetical sorting of playlists like in iTunes. Playlists become almost a waisted feature once you have more than a few playlists because you have to manually sort them to find anything… When you have access to unlimited music it’s common to have lots of playlists.

I haven’t tried Spotify Premium yet, but from what I’ve seen/used of the Spotify iOS app, it seems to be less slick than Rdio’s. Granted it does have playlists, but it also suffers from lack of alphabetical sorting and has no “collection” or “library” view (that I’m aware of) to compensate, so you’re stuck with sorting your playlists manually or searching for everything.

So both services and their software have some downsides that keep them on about level ground in my opinion.

I just wanted to give Rdio a shout-out because it’s at least as good as Spotify and you should give it a try.

• See my Rdio screenshot gallery
• My Rdio profile
• My Spotify profile