Music on-demand
On-demand music streaming services are becoming increasingly popular these days. Vendors like Spotify, Rdio and iHeatRadio, are some of the best choices among music lovers, including the vast community of music teachers and students.By signing up for their monthly subscription, you can practically enjoy the premium services they offer – from unlimited music streaming to offline audio playback and real-time music access across all your devices. Some of them even offer live broadcasts of featured radio stations across the globe.
However with so many features, it can be confusing to choose a vendor that covers all your music needs.
In this post, we’ll give you an in-depth comparison of Spotify, Rdio and iHeartRadio in terms of features, price, user experience, and device compatibility.
Spotify
Photo courtesy of Titanas via Flickr Creative Commons
Spotify, boasting over 20 million tracks, claims that it has more than 24 million users worldwide, and is now available in 56 countries. Looking for a song in its search box will present you with the most popular and relevant track or album as the top result. It also allows you to filter your searches based on individual artists/bands, playlists, and albums.
An interesting inclusion to its streaming service is the “radio option” that plays the kind of music that is relevant to the genre of your chosen artist. In its browse section, you can search for thousands of tracks based on the following categories: top lists, new releases, mood, pop, party, workout, rock, chill, urban, club and many more.
The streaming services from Spotify can be enjoyed using a Web
player, a dedicated Windows/Mac desktop program, or through its Android,
Windows Phone, BlackBerry and iOS applications. With a bit rate quality
of up to 320kbps, the audio output of Spotify is superb.
Basic subscription is free, if you don’t mind ads in between tracks.
This type of subscription is also limited to playing music on shuffle
mode only. The premium service, which includes the ability to download
up to 10,000 tracks for offline listening, is offered at $9.99 per
month. However, your mobile capacity will still dictate the number of
songs you can store offline.
Rdio
Photo courtesy of Masayoshi Sekimura via Flickr Creative Commons
Rdio is the younger rival of Spotify. It has a slightly smaller music library as compared to the former (20 million tracks). When it comes to user experience, it has a slight edge over its rival – it’s completely ad free.
One of its major selling points is its strong social networking integration with Last.fm, Twitter, and Facebook. As featured by Verizon, Rdio combines the usual music streaming options with a heavy dose of social networking. Within the app, it allows you to “search your Facebook, Twitter, and email contacts to share music your friends and follow their selections.”
It also supports a wide-ranging Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Mac, and Windows PCs. When you use its desktop version, the program also has the ability to match your Windows Media Player and iTunes content to give you relevant track/album suggestions from its catalog.
It also supports a wide-ranging Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Mac, and Windows PCs. When you use its desktop version, the program also has the ability to match your Windows Media Player and iTunes content to give you relevant track/album suggestions from its catalog.
However, Rdio is quite expensive at $9.99 a month, while bit rate
audio playback of the streaming service is only 192kbps. Despite being
ad-free, it still lacks some of the advanced search features included in
Spotify such as ‘search songs by year and genre’.
iHeartRadio
- Photo from iTunes
Since it’s free, it’s expected that the ability to record your favourite songs for offline playing is not available. However, you are still allowed to create your custom radio station and playlist for easier access the next time you log into your account. Skips are also disabled. Upon searching for your choice of song, you’ll be presented with a playlist or custom radio station containing a minimum of five songs, including your preferred track. You’ll still have to wait before you’ll be able to listen to it. But the best thing about this service is that the custom radio stations and playlist are completely advertisement-free.
iHeartRadio is available in all regions of the United States and have extended their coverage to Australia and New Zealand since July 2013. As an extra benefit, the music streaming platform regularly hosts online concerts and music festivals with guest DJs and artists.
Conclusion
These are three of the best and most popular music streaming services on the market.
Based on features, Spotify is still the ideal choice for music
enthusiasts. Apart from its multi-platform support and over 20 million+
songs in its catalogue, you also have an option for offline listening.
Perfect for travellers, this on-demand music service features the widest
coverage among 56 countries. Spotify also gives you to power to search
for your favorite tracks individually, without requiring you to listen
to the entire playlist.
For easier comparison, we have provided a table below.
We’d love to hear the opinions of our fellow teachers. Don’t forget to leave your comments and recommendations.
Source: http://timtopham.com/spotify-vs-rdio-vs-iheartradio-the-best-music-streaming-services-guest-post/
Some footnotes/updates:
-Pandora streams at 64 kbs for their free radio service
-The new Google Play Music radio streams at 320 kbs for their newly announced free radio service.
For easier comparison, we have provided a table below.
Source: http://timtopham.com/spotify-vs-rdio-vs-iheartradio-the-best-music-streaming-services-guest-post/
Some footnotes/updates:
-Pandora streams at 64 kbs for their free radio service
-The new Google Play Music radio streams at 320 kbs for their newly announced free radio service.
