RealNetworks Seeks Rhapsody iPhone App Approval

Written by Ryan Lawler

Monday, August 24. 2009 at 01:10 PM EDT Post a comment

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RealNetworks Inc. (Nasdaq: RNWK) is hoping to make its Rhapsody subscription music service available on the iPhone, with a new application it hopes will soon appear on Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL)'s App Store.

The new application will allow subscribers to the company's $14.99 per month "Rhapsody To Go" service to search for and listen to any title from the company's 8 million-song library directly from the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Like other streaming music applications -- Pandora and Last.fm come to mind -- the Rhapsody App is designed to stream music over WiFi and wireless data connections. So users won't be able to use the app when they aren't online or when they don't have access to an Internet connection.

According to The New York Times, the initial version of the app will hook into Apple's iTunes to allow users to purchase a copy of the song they're listening to if they want to own it. That could provide Apple with a small amount of incremental revenue, but there are questions about how future versions of the app will work with iTunes.

Gdgt reports that in its next go-around RealNetworks is hoping to build a version of the app that will allow subscribers to download a copy of the song for later listening. The caveat is that Apple could see that practice as competitive to iTunes, which could lead to difficulties in the approval process.

The announcement of the Rhapsody app, which appeared in an entry on the company's blog today, comes at a time when Apple is facing increased scrutiny for its app approval process. The company is part of an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) surrounding its apparent rejection of an application that would add Google Voice functionality to the iPhone.

Even if it is approved, there's still a question of how long it will be before Rhapsody users could actually download the app. RealNetworks blogger Lacy Kemp writes that the company would submit the application to Apple for review this week, so it could be weeks or months before the app actually hits the App Store.