iHeartRadio steps into on-demand streaming with latest app updates
Adding more competition to an already tough marketplace, iHeartRadio on Thursday released iOS and Android app updates allowing listeners to stream music on-demand with a paid subscription, thanks to a partnership with Napster.
Two new plans -- Plus and All Access -- offer unlimited song skips and repeats on supporting stations, and the ability to save tracks to a playlist. Only All Access customers, however, have "unlimited access to millions of songs," an unlimited number of playlists, and the ability to cache music offline.
Plus costs $4.99 per month. All Access is $9.99, the same price as core plans for Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, and other services. Both tiers have a free 30-day trial period.
The iHeartRadio iOS app is a free download, and runs on any device with iOS 9 or later.
Yet more competition in on-demand streaming is expected in the near future, as Pandora is officially set to enter the arena. The company recently promised a launch by the end of 2016, but with December already here, it could end up waiting until next year.
It has at least launched Pandora Plus, which iHeartRadio Plus appears to be targeting directly.
Two new plans -- Plus and All Access -- offer unlimited song skips and repeats on supporting stations, and the ability to save tracks to a playlist. Only All Access customers, however, have "unlimited access to millions of songs," an unlimited number of playlists, and the ability to cache music offline.
Plus costs $4.99 per month. All Access is $9.99, the same price as core plans for Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, and other services. Both tiers have a free 30-day trial period.
The iHeartRadio iOS app is a free download, and runs on any device with iOS 9 or later.
Yet more competition in on-demand streaming is expected in the near future, as Pandora is officially set to enter the arena. The company recently promised a launch by the end of 2016, but with December already here, it could end up waiting until next year.
It has at least launched Pandora Plus, which iHeartRadio Plus appears to be targeting directly.
Comments
Napster isn't really "Napster" - rather a rebrand of Rhapsody using the name - and Rhapsody isn't really quite the direct descendant of RealNetworks and RealPlayer, although the publicly traded Real Networks Inc owns part of it. And (I just found out, looking up all the twists and turns below - and many more omitted for space reasons) that Rob Glaser, the founder of RealPlayer is back in the mix and the CEO of RealNetworks. Amazing given his checkered, but colorful history.
Glaser's RealPlayer (as sleazy as it was and the source of several persistent bits of adware and/or spyware I got on my machine) was my first music ripping service on a Win 95 computer, at a full (wait for it) 64 k bit rate - although you could also record at 32 and maybe even 16 to save space and download/upload time. And, having long since jettisoned the discs before my first Mac and iTunes, I still have some of those cuts in my library - which, oddly enough, still sound pretty damn good.
(and when uploaded to Google Play Music [sorry, Apple, it just works and it's free] sound even better, because GPM uses its own 256 kbs server files to play back to me).
Glaser's been a most resilient, if ocntroversial player in the tech media biz from the beginning and has had chafed elbows with most of the giants - Gates and Jobs among them, and surprisingly to me is still standing after lots of reversals, adverse judgements and always, comebacks.
Here's some of the story - with very little about Napster, as I had no dealings with it or ever used it, but covering how it's now the name of the latest incarnation of the Rhapsody service, but without (I think) any of the infamous technology:
At some point after this, Rhapsody made a deal with T-Mobile to include a semi-premium version of Rhapsody with some T-Mobile plans (I have this – unlimited skips, I can store a playlist of 25 cuts, etc.)
And then in either later 2015 or early 2016 Rhapsody rebranded the service with the Napster name and logo they’d acquired around 2011.
And there you have (some of) it…