Grooveshark has released an update to its webOS app, adding support for the HP TouchPad. The new app is optimized for the discontinued tablet’s 9.7 inch, 1024 x 768 pixel display and features tools for finding songs, adding them to a playlist, accessing saved lists, and listening to music from your TouchPad.
Like Grooveshark’s mobile apps for Android, Symbian, and iOS, you’ll need to pony up some cash if you want to use the mobile app to listen to music though. Anyone can search for songs for free using the new webOS app — but you need to upgrade to a $9 per month account to stream music through the app.
The good news is that the Grooveshark app is still available from the official HP app catalog. The company’s Android app was pulled form the Android Market a while back, and you need to jailbreak your iOS device to use Grooveshark on an iPhone or iPad. That’s because the company has been embroiled in legal battles for a few years.
You can download the Grooveshark app for webOS from the App Catalog on your device or from the Grooveshark website.
The better news? If you don’t want to use the Grooveshark app, it turns out you can just use your web browser. Grooveshark’s full website loads perfectly in the HP TouchPad browser, and allows you to stream music for free just like you would do on a laptop or desktop computer.
There are still a few reasons to consider using the webOS app though. It will let you queue songs for offline playback, and new users can sign up for a free trial.
Grooveshark lets users stream millions of songs on-demand over the internet. But the company doesn’t have deals in place with all of the major music labels. Instead, Grooveshark’s music collection is uploaded by users. The company then tries to work out deals to license the songs after they’re made available.
The business model is a little unusual, to say the least. It also results in a spotty music library. Sometimes you’ll be able to find all of the songs in an album except one, for instance. Sometimes you’ll find the same song listed a dozen times — and the audio quality will vary from song to song.
But if you don’t want to spend money on Rdio, Rhapsody, Spotify, or one of the other services that’s not tangled up in lawsuits at the moment, Grooveshark is one of the best free services for streaming music over the internet.
via webOS Center
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