Okay, that's not fair. I think I write halfway decent for a personal blog that will be viewed by very, very few people. It was never meant to be about quality writing, anyway. Nevertheless, the subscription music service situation since I last posted has been interesting (at least to me) and something I am up for writing about.
(Actually I have written two or three scraps of poetry that I don't think are too bad. They can be found at Bipolar Confessional, a clearinghouse for all of my poetic inspiration.)
So, when last we met I had cancelled my SiriusXM Satellite Radio, a service which had served me fairly well during the last 8 years. I did it to save $5 a month by switching to Spotify for my streaming music needs. However, when I got fed up with the loathsome Spotify iPhone app and a few connection drop-outs I decided to switch to Rhapsody. There was a 2-week free trial on it, and as far as I knew I was on a month-long freebie with Spotify (which didn't turn out to be the case when they renewed my membership after I cancelled...at least I thought I cancelled, I only let it slide because I wasn't sure I'd done it right). I knew that Spotify used higher bitrate files than Rhapsody and yes, I was concerned that the sound quality would be an issue. Still, the music database of Rhapsody is incredibly huge...whether it's bigger than Spotify's, I don't know, but they do have stuff that Spotify doesn't...I also really liked Rhapsody's music/song organization capabilities. They definitely beat Spotify hands down on that front. To top it all off in Rhapsody's favor, I never had any problems with their iPhone app. It was easy to use, though I couldn't say if it was easier than Spotify's because theirs kept crashing on me before I had the chance to notice.
Well, here's how it all turned out. I found that Rhapsody's sound quality was a much bigger issue than I though it would be. I didn't think I'd notice it what with my crappy hearing, but it was very noticeable. I decided to ditch it before they got the chance to charge me and re-upped with Spotify. I screwed that up, too, because I clicked on "renew subscription" with a almost 2 weeks left on the month I hadn't wanted anyway. I know, I'm a wimp for not sticking up for myself. But it was just so much easier to take the loss without going through the bs that would surely accompany fixing it up.
The iPhone app situation still bugs me. I've tried everything I know of to do...deleting and re-installing from the phone itself, deleting and installing from iTunes, nothing works. All I can do is hope and wait for an update that addresses the issue. I like the service, and use it enough to justify paying $10 a month to use on my PC alone. Hopefully they'll will come out with an Android version I can use on my Kindle Fire and even more hopefully it will be free. Not that this will atone for the worthless iPhone app. They're a growing company, more users everyday, they've got Mark Zuckerberg offering rave blurbs for crying out loud. SURELY it's only a matter of time before they get all of this ironed out.
That's where I'm at now. Definitely noticing the better sound quality on Spotify. Sometimes I still get connection drop-outs and they are very, very annoying (especially when listening to a classical piece). For now I'm content to bite the bullet. The XM is hooked up in the bedroom, where it always was. I listen to it every night before falling asleep. So glad to be able to "channel surf" again. Sound quality is disappointing but I'm almost convinced that the problem there is with the stereo system I've got it running through. A new one should be at the top of my wishlist.
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