Grooveshark: The App Store's Loss and Cydia's Gain

[Michael Essany]

Grooveshark, the namesake of an online music streaming service, has finally faced the music: indeed, it will never be openly embraced by Apple or the App Store.

Despite not feeling the love from Cupertino, Grooveshark made the logical transition to the repository of other wayward applications that we still love and can't seem to get enough of. This weekend Grooveshark released their app on Cydia.

Instead of relying solely on its recently re-tooled and updated web application, existing customers can finally get the long-awaited Grooveshark App for the iPhone - a jailbroken iPhone, that is.

Like Rhapsody or Spotify (but better), VIP users of Grooveshark are privy to tracks from gargantuan catalogs of music that are easily accessible and searchable. Best of all, once you've discovered the track you're looking for, you can promptly stream the tune right from your handset.

The advantages of Grooveshark in comparison to competing services are pretty clear. In a nutshell, Grooveshark's users upload music content straight to Grooveshark's servers. This makes Grooveshark's content base not only huge, but also more free-spirited" in a social networking kind of aspect. Naturally, some legal snafus have proven problematic for the company, but, overall, Grooveshark has worked well with major labels and other copyright owners. And, as it now stands, Grooveshark is making notable progress in ironing out licensing-related issues.

For obvious reasons, one can see the concerns Apple would have with such an app. Nonetheless, expect Grooveshark to be a huge and welcome addition to the Cydia family.

[Cody Overcash]

I'm still waiting for them to add AAC support

[equazian]

yay so gonna download this!

[Zeal]

This website is soo awesome! And its not blocked in my school

[battlecrushr]

nice haha appstore lost

[extremzocker]

This website is soo awesome! And its not blocked in my school

ur lucky. my school blocks pretty much everything thats not google or wikipedia. grooveshark.com is blocked "Reason: Streaming Media sites are blocked" FFS.

[StealthBravo]

Looks pretty cool. I just created an account.

[reeko]

How is this better than Spotify? Because it's actually available to Americans whereas Spotify isn't?

Give me 3 reasons why this thing is better than spotify and I'll give this article some credit.....

[battlecrushr]

u have to be vip to do on iphone

[Brinky]

I found this on cydia earlier today and downloaded it straight away. It could be better, but I am just glad it finally made it to the iPhone.

[knguyen]

Wait $3 a month for the app or the VIP account? Can I dl it and use it without the VIP account?

[rhekt]

nah. seems too much of a hassle in my opinion

[pyromcr]

i can see why apple would no like this app...

[ninaignaczak]

OK so Apple bought lala and we have not heard anything about the lala app since 2009. And other streaming services are not making it into the app store.

Why is no one reporting about what the heck Apple is doing with lala and what is the future of the lala app???

[blkcadi]

I'm all in, account created and so diggin' this. Very cool.

[StealthBravo]

I'm uploading my library atm

[battlecrushr]

already a new update

[StealthBravo]

1.1

[Channan]

Wow I'm not paying $3 a month for it. I'll just use YouTube like I've been doing if I don't have a song on my phone and can't get it right away.

[StealthBravo]

$3 is pretty cheap for the amount of music you gain access to