[ddt]

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.

[kevincennis]

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.

[ianhawes]

Absolutely love Rdio too, but you're also completely right about search on their iOS app. Not only does it not take you back to the results, but when searching for a song or artist, for whatever reason it does not prioritize for what's synced to your phone. Overall, amazing service with a great UI, but search needs some improvements.

[philsnow]

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).

[dmourati]

Reported that to rdio. No word back but ya, bug.

[redorb]

Maybe they pay different fees for artist vs Adventure (perhaps not a bug )

[rich90usa]

I highly suspect that is the case. On-demand (picking specific songs) has significantly higher royalties than radio. turntable.fm's model of picking a bunch of songs to be played but playing them with a batch of other user's requests was an interesting way around that.

In this case, however, I don't see the reason for skipping the currently playing song. I'm assuming that they've already had to pay for the current play so they might as well let it play out before skipping to the cheaper rotation.

[hipsters_unite]

Yeah, I've noticed that one as well, wasn't sure if it was intentional or a bug.

[__mp]

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.

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]

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.

[mrcwinn]

I recently switched back to Spotify. Rdio's "web app inside a native app" really kills the experience for me personally, though I'm sure from a dev experience it's a lot less to manage. The app feels slow. Sometimes it refreshes to a blank screen.

But the worst thing - a good part of my collection has gone "unavailable" as they lose music licenses. It's the risk you take when you're subscribing to music, but it seems to not happen as frequently on Spotify - at least for me. On one Rdio mix playlist I had, for example, nearly 40% of the tracks became available. Really a bummer. I liked Rdio's simplicity, but for me personally, the experience was really lousy.

[harlanlewis]

This is valid criticism, and shouldn't be getting downvoted just because people disagree.

I'm a huge Rdio fan and love almost all aspects of its design, but (especially on iOS) I regularly get confused as to where I am and how to get back. A few moment's thought (or just fumbling between panels) gets me where I'm going, but there are simply too many almost-the-same-but-actually-different panels sliding around to be intuitive. It's particularly messy when trying to juggle browsing music with a managing a currently playing playlist.

[buttscicles]

The android app isn't any better. It regularly refuses to skip tracks (instead restarting the current one), displays different tracks to the one it's actually playing and the offline mode is useless for everything beyond playing music (I can't add a track to a playlist, why?)

[FireBeyond]

There’s definitely an iOS 7 bug where when you view an album, you can only see the first few tracks, as the scroller “snaps” back.

But nonetheless, versus Pandora? I’m leaving my Pandora One sub behind.

[slohr]

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.

[amorphid]

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.

[stdgy]

I'd like to add that both their Android and iPhone apps are extremely impressive. Very well designed, and a joy to use.

My only complaint with the service so far is that they haven't made adding gapless playback a priority.

[w1ntermute]

I didn't find the Android app impressive at all. Far too many technical issues with connectivity.

[scotth]

Couldn't agree more. I don't understand why playing music that's been synced to my mobile has to load for as long as it does. What is happening? And why does my synced collection listing sometimes not load while I'm disconnected from the net? It's mind boggling.

I still love the service, but their apps need a bit of love.

[notwedtm]

In my experience I believe that the app has to check in every so often for songs to ensure you still are paying for the license to stream it. It shouldn't be doing this every time though.

[markolschesky]

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.

[enra]

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.

[foogered]

They do: http://www.rdio.com/apps/ (unless you are looking for a Linux desktop client)

[neilkelty]

I believe it just opens up a "web version" within the desktop app, but I could be wrong.

Still love the service, I don't have much use for "Offline" capability on my laptop/desktop - the mobile/tablet apps serve that need just fine.

[gol706]

The big plus of the desktop version is that it works with the media keys on your keyboard.

[FireBeyond]

And exposes an API, too, I believe, that lets things like Alfred Workflows on my Mac also control from the keyboard and hotkeys.

[2mur]

Another satisfied customer here too. Happily paying the family subscription for my wife and I.

[lotso]

Agreed. Rdio is heads and shoulders above Spotify in both interaction and visual design.

[fleetfox]

Sadly stability is subpar. I migrated to Spotify only because Android app was constantly crashing.

[onedev]

I absolutely love Rdio as well. It's a shame more of my friends aren't on it.

[shawnc]

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.

[dominotw]

I was a Rdio customer for over an year and I had to switch to spotify because of how bad the streaming on the iphone app was.

[onedev]

What's wrong with it? I use it daily and haven't had the level of issues that you suggest.

[dominotw]

a)one my major complaints was that the app never recovers from spotty connection. When network goes down music goes down which is expected ( kind of , why doesnt the app buffer music?) but when network comes back music never comes back. b) Non existent buffering: Please take a leaf from pandora's book and look at how fast their music streams under spotty(any) connection. I kept thinking 'hey they are new, they'll figure it out soon', but nothing after 2 years. c) App keeps crashing: i've had several incidents where app crashes and never recovers so i have to completely uninstall and reinstall the app ( and re download al the offline music). unacceptable. The app i have now on my phone crashes every time when it comes up( which was kind of the final straw)