Not Dead Yet, Grooveshark Debuts HTML5 Web App for iOS, Android and Everything Else

Grooveshark is not in the best shape it's ever been. It's being sued by all four major music labels and it's been booted out of all the mobile marketplaces. But it's not giving up, having no way of getting into the iTunes App Store or the Android Market, Grooveshark went the other route and debuted a mobile HTML5 web app.

It's labeled as a beta, but it's rather spartan. You can search for music, listen to the pre-built radio stations, or browse popular songs.

There's no way to even log into the service, no way to access your music and it doesn't always work as intended. Still, it's a start.

"In an effort to span over this confounded series of tubes and reach as many mobile music listeners as we can, we’ve done the unthinkable," Grooveshark writes. "iOS? We got there. Android 2.3+? We got there. Playbook? We got there. TouchPad? Yep. There too."

In theory, the app should work on any browser capable of doing basic HTML5 audio playback, which should be any modern browser, mobile or not. In practice, there may be issues.

Windows Phone 7 users found several problems and were unable to use the app, but those have apparently been fixed. That said, there may still be issues, it's still hit or miss.

"As of 10:30pm Friday the 13th, styling issues across all platforms should be resolved and problems on WP7 have been fixed as well.  If you’re having styling issues or running into problems on WP7, clear the cache in your mobile browser settings, then re-enter html5.grooveshark.com in the address bar and load the page again," Grooveshark wrote.

That said, even if it does work, you won't get much. But, judging by the quality of the regular Grooveshark site, also built with standard web technologies, the HTML5 mobile app should evolve fast and has every chance to become a very slick player.