Rhapsody

MetroPCS Communications announced today that subscribers of the company's $60-per-month Android phone rate plan can receive access to the Rhapsody Unlimited Music service, and some 12 million songs.

Only the service isn't unlimited, at least with regard to the music, due to the absence of one of the four major record labels. Warner Music Group, which has a reputation for being a tough negotiator with digital services, is the only major that didn't sign on to the MetroPCS deal. It's the third-largest of the record companies.

In the past, Warner pulled its music off YouTube during a contract dispute and reportedly was slow to license Spotify's U.S. service. Warner Music and Rhapsody representatives declined to comment about the negotiations.

The idea of bundling music into phone services has been around awhile. The top labels have looked for ways to achieve this but some of the earliest attempts, such as Nokia's "Comes With Music," were a bust.

In that case, consumers were asked to purchase phones that came preloaded with music. With MetroPCS, the music and the charges are tucked into the service and monthly bills.

MetroPCS, a wireless carrier, is known for offering prepaid phones, and a music deal like this should be attractive to the labels. It could help them reach an audience that includes people who aren't participating in the digital economy. It is believed that many MetroPCS subscribers don't own credit cards. … Read more

Cloud-music services have received a lot of attention over the past year and are supposed to represent the next phase in music retail. But looking at music sales from the past five years, it may be hard to understand why.

Supporters have said that cloud music services will generate a big chunk of revenue through subscription fees. The problem is that subscription-music services have been a problem for a while and the public still hasn't shown any indication that it's willing to pay to store and access music.

Last week, Nielsen SoundScan reported that overall music sales rose … Read more

If you think music-streaming services are big now, just wait five years.

According to data compiled by ABI Research, music-streaming services are set for rapid expansion in the coming half-decade, and they have mobile phones to thank for it. By the end of this year, ABI said, subscribers to paid music services who access them from a mobile phone will number about 5.9 million worldwide, and by 2016, that figure will grow to more than 161 million subscribers. That amounts to an annual growth rate of about 95 percent, the research firm said.

The growth of streaming services comes … Read more

In the news today, Apple's subscription rules raise hackles among developers, us, and possibly the Justice Department; meanwhile, Verizon iPhone sales appear to disappoint. Is Apple having a bad day? It's probably just solar flares. Also, the Motorola Xoom price is announced: not that bad. Nokia delays its Windows-based phones to sometime after October: very bad. Worse, even. And we're getting pretty worried about Anonymous, the Internet's own unstoppable secret police. Maybe Watson can save us. --Molly

With Apple officially sharing the details of its new App Store subscription plan, which lays the groundwork for Apple to take a 30-percent cut from publishers who sell content within their apps, we were waiting for some reaction from content providers. Well, one, Rhapsody, has finally braved Apple's wrath and issued a statement saying Apple's new arrangement was "economically untenable." And while it didn't threaten legal action, it certainly hinted at it.

Here's the full statement from Rhapsody's President, Jon Irwin:

If you were looking for something besides Chrome news last week, you probably had to do a bit of digging. The popular Google browser dominated the Windows software space with a bevy of announcements. For one, version 8 will offer PDF file viewing directly within the browser window. That's right: that means no separate launching of Adobe's Reader app. Pretty nice, if you ask us.

Chrome also saw the arrival of a fast-encryption feature. The feature, dubbed False Start, is available in the latest version of the browser and serves to speed up secure communications. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these … Read more

As the first major music service to offer caching on the iPhone, Rhapsody has managed to stay quite competitive in the mobile space. And although the company lagged a bit on getting its Android app out of beta, the final product is sufficiently impressive for us to forgive its trespasses in the timing department. While it may not be as pretty as some other mobile music offerings, Rhapsody's features and performance on the Android OS should make it a top consideration for anyone interested in subscribing to an all-you-can-eat service (or all-you-can-listen-to, as the case may be).

As with … Read more

As the first major music service to offer caching on the iPhone, Rhapsody has managed to stay quite competitive in the mobile space. And although the company lagged a bit on getting its Android app out of beta, the final product is sufficiently impressive for us to forgive its trespasses in the timing department. Though it may not be as pretty as some other mobile music offerings, Rhapsody's features and performance on the Android OS should make it a top consideration for anyone interested in subscribing to an all-you-can-eat service (or all-you-can-listen-to, as the case may be).

Rhapsody for … Read more

In this economy, it's always nice to hear some good news. Mozilla brought that in the form of its 2009 financial reports. The company saw its 2009 revenue increase 34 percent to $104 million, up from $78 million the year before. This is at least partially thanks to a mutually beneficial search-ad partnership with Google.

All is not sunshine and roses in the browser world, however. Microsoft's latest iteration of IE 9 has triggered some speed-test squabbles between developers. The seventh IE version beats rivals on the SunSpider benchmark. But Microsoft doesn't like the test, and Mozilla … Read more