Today, Rhapsody announced a portable extension of the Sonos integration I mentioned here last week: it's called Rhapsody DNA (back story here), and Real hopes it will allow MP3 player manufacturers competing with Apple and Microsoft the sort of end-to-end seamless integration that the iPod already offers, and that the Zune should be offering soon.
Because Rhapsody DNA extends to the devices' firmware, it can extend store functionality onto the device itself.
The Sandisk Sansa e200 will be the first portable MP3 player developed with the Rhapsody DNA API, shipping this fall with a a full 32 hours of pre-loaded Rhapsody subscription tracks on it, hand-picked by Rhapsody's editors.
That's just to get you started. You should eventually be able to tag songs from a large, passively-updating pool for individual acquisition, the way you can with Rhapsody/Sonos or should be able to with the the (Yahoo)/Sirius Stiletto 100.
In fact, the Rhapsody/Sansa combination could end up feeling like an ad-free, perfect-reception version of the music stations on satellite radio – possibly with cheaper prices than the Yahoo/Sirius (I still can't believe it) system will offer, depending on what the RIAA's lawyers insist on. Rhapsody hasn't announced further details about how much of its store will migrate to the Sansa e200, but from what it has already announced, music fans looking to evolve past the a la carte music purchasing model offered by iTunes will soon have another exciting option to consider.
