Nokia 800, Rhapsody and should I send $10 a month to RNWK ?

So I have been playing with Rhapsody on the N800 for more then a week now. And soon my 30 day trial will be over, and I will have to decide if I want to subscribe. Hmmm. Lets see

User Experience: Well, I think Nokia messed up here. While the application is well packaged a have some very nice concepts (like the three control panels shifting right and left), the basic control over playing music is done on the song level not album. What does it mean? Well, to once you add an album to the play list, you actually add 12 new individual songs. You add another one, 12 more songs go in the middle of the playlist. Which song is from which album? Hmm try to figure that out. (Especially with classical music – where there is not enough information about the tracks) If you want to remove an album – sure – remove the 12 songs. Well – after a few minutes, the experience gets too irritating and confusing. There is no linking back between the tracks to the albums and making users naviugate on the song level makes it too tedious. Surprised that Nokia will make such a mistake. Yes – navigation through music is not an easy user expirience problem to solve. But there are way of making it better – and even more visually compelling. (There is a bigger issue – of finger vs pen navigation on touch devices. That will be a topic of another posting)

Music throughout the home: The second issue is that while the speakers in the N800 are nice, thats not enough. Music is to be played on the stereo system. And I have three of those in different rooms throughout the home. So if I am signing up to Rhapsody, I would like to hear my music on those different devices. And use the N800 to control what is playing where. My dream – get a few D-Link or Netgear Media Players and let me use the N800 to control which one is playing what. Yes – I know Sonos is offering the same – and I LOVE the product (Afterall, its another group of xOpenwavers) but I am not going to spend $1000 on it.

And the third point – which i think they are working on solving- is no offline usage. So I cant access my favorite albums when my WiFi is out. Or when on a flight. So its not a replacement to my iPOD. At least not yet.

So for now, I think I will have to tell my friends @ RNWK and Nokia: Great start, but no cigar.