Rdio

4 Prefer Rdio over Spotify

I've used Rdio and Spotify extensively over the last few months, starting with Rdio and switching to Spotify and now back to Rdio. They are both well executed and generally do the same thing. A few things won me over about Rdio:

- Web access. At the time I used it, Spotify couldn't.

- Interface. Rdio has an intra-clean interface--on the web, iPhone, iPad--that feels right to me. Spotify's interface is nice, but it doesn't quite have the polish of Rdio.

- Collection. Spotify relys on playlists to manage music. But Rdio allows you to add songs and albums to your collection in addition to creating playlists. There's something about this that gives you the feeling of "owning" the music, even though you don't. It's like a shelf of music you've checked out from a library. Spotify always felt like you were looking at the entire library, which can be overwhelming.

- Stability. Rdio on the iPhone hasn't crashed on me. Spotify crashed several times.

There are a few things lacking from Rdio, like the ability to Shuffle songs and Pandora-like radio. But I've heard they're working on that.

On a side note, make sure to get rdio from rdio.com and not from inside the iPhone app. It'll save you $5 a month.

Looks great but...

It's worth the price?... A little to expensive when you can do the same with your music library.