If you've been following the schoolyard brawl that broke out after RealNetworks' announcement of its new Harmony technology, you might be surprised that this latest version of the RealPlayer was released at all. Harmony, which is incorporated in version 10.5 (and will also be in the next version of the RealRhapsody music service), allows the player to manage Digital Rights Management (DRM)-protected tracks and work with various music players, including Apple's iPod. Apple, in a statement, said RealNetworks "adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker." Them's fightin' words.

Fortunately (for RealNetworks), Apple did not follow up with a legal challenge, so RealPlayer 10.5 was released on schedule. With this version, you can house DRM-protected AAC, WMA, and RealMedia tracks all in one library. You can also transfer songs bought from Real's online music store to over 100 devices, including those that use Apple's FairPlay, Microsoft's Windows Media, and RealNetworks' Helix DRMs (songs are converted on the fly to the new format during the transfer). What it doesn't do is let users put protected music meant for one device onto another: For example, you can't put iTunes Music Store tracks on a Samsung Napster player.

For the most part, RealPlayer 10.5 worked well in our testing. The song conversions aren't speedy—it took a few minutes to transfer an album, compared with the typical 15 seconds—but the process works as it should and is simple enough for any user. We transferred songs purchased from Real to an iPod with no problems. (A list of devices currently supported by the RealPlayer can be found at: http://music.guide.real.com/musicstoredevices).

We ran into a snag when trying to delete songs from a Creative MuVo Slim that had been placed there by another application. We could transfer new songs to the device and delete them, but couldn't delete songs that were already there. The company acknowledged that the app wouldn't work with subfolders on a device created by another application and told us to expect a software fix in "several weeks."

To mark the official arrival of RealPlayer 10.5 (and perhaps take another jab at Apple), RealNetworks slashed prices in its RealPlayer Music Store: For a limited time, every song costs just 49 cents (half the cost at Apple's store), and most albums will be available for $4.99.

The other new development in RealPlayer 10.5 is called progressive downloading. This lets users listen to songs or watch movies while downloading. It's handy for Real music purchases, but essential for Real's new Starz! movie service.

The Starz! service was released in mid-June, after RealPlayer 10.0. For $12.95 per month you can view 100 movies from the RealPlayer's Starz area (that could mean watching 100 different movies once or one movie 100 times). Downloaded movies delete themselves from your computer once their license is up and the movie is no longer available on the site. The site rotates titles, with 25 new movies available each week. When we looked there were 80 movies up, of greatly varying quality (Smokey and the Bandit 3?). A subscription requires a 600Kbps broadband Internet connection.

With all the proprietary formats around, we're glad to see someone is making the management of online music easier for the average user. Apple might not like the RealPlayer 10.5, but we bet plenty of music fans will.