Real has announced their Rhapsody application for the iPhone. It will allow iPhone owners with a Rhapsody subscription to stream Rhapsody’s entire music library (over 8 million songs) to their iPhone or iPod touch over Wi-Fi or 3G.

This week Real submitted their Rhapsody application to the App Store and with Apple’s approval, will be available soon. As long as there are no technical problems with the application I have a feeling Apple will approve it.

Real says that current Rhapsody subscribers will simply need to log in to their account using the application while non-subscribers will have the opportunity to try the service during a free-trial period.

The application sounds great and I’m eager to try it out. But, I’m a little bugged by the fact that I can’t download tracks for listening offline.

Image credit to gdgt.com

Update 8/27/09: paidContent is reporting that Apple has approved Spotify for the iPhone. Spotify is a service very similar to Rhapsody and is a good indication of how Apple will treat Real with their application submission. Spotify has also published a demo of their application on YouTube.

Update 9/1/09: Here’s an interesting bit regarding music streaming apps that I found on All Things Digital:

Napster has created an iPhone application that allows subscribers to stream music on-demand to their iPhone—including personal playlists, albums and radio stations. You can imagine the company is also looking at streaming applications for several other mobile platforms as well (Blackberry, Android). However, due to the high licensing fees for streaming to a mobile phone, Napster has not yet submitted the iPhone app to Apple for approval or attempted to bring the application to market.

Update 9/10/09: Staci D. Kramer of paidContent reports that Real’s Rhapsody application has been approved for the App Store. I’m eager to test it out but I’ve searched the App Store and, as of right now, it is no where to be found.

Update 9/10/09: The Rhapsody application can be found in the App Store now. I’ve just downloaded it and will be trying it out first thing in the morning.

Update 9/12/09: I’ve spent a couple of days with Real’s Rhapsody application for the iPhone. I had a little bit of trouble getting it set up correctly (it seemed to have some trouble with my username and password) but after reinstalling it everything worked fine. The application does exactly what it says it does, streams music from the Rhapsody library to your iPhone. It works over both Wi-Fi and the cellular network and was very responsive using either.

I do enjoy the application but it’s not worth $14.99 per month, for me that is. If you spend over $15 per month on music then Rhapsody might be a good option, but I know I don’t spend that much.

Update 9/14/09: Updated the image above and added a gallery below.

Update 10/14/09: A user experience designer for Rhapsody for iPhone has announced in a forum posting that Real’s priorities for the Rhapsody app are “stability, audio quality and offline playback.”

I have quit using the Rhapsody application because of its $14.99/month charge but adding offline playback to the mix might convince me to jump back on board.