Trying to listen to .rpm file from NPR archive. Anyone have thoughts about how I can open it on my Mac/iPhone?

that's a mystery to me too, Teresa H. what the heck is an .rpm file? So-some investigation on my part came up with this: It's a RealMedia file, and you can open it up with either the RealMedia Player or VLC. As for downloading and listening to it on your Mac/iPhone, yeah, it's possible, but not for free. At least not in that format. I think you can download some stuff from the NPR website (look for the downward arrow with the line under it). just click on that icon, and it should show up as MP3. As to what is downloadable, how much, or anything like that, I don't know. You can use iTunes for the mp3, or any audio player on your iPhone should do that. As for Real Audio, there doesn't appear to be anything for the iPhone, and not much for the Mac. VLC does offer limited support for streaming .rpm files though

that's all I got

John B

It looks like it's a Real archive format of some sort, but I'm not sure what. I've got RealPlayer for Mac, but my version was last updated in 2012 and Real doesn't currently list any version of RealPlayer for Mac. I tried downloading one of those archive files and opening them in VLC or RealPlayer, and they basically do nothing. I even searched on Google for "Real Player for Mac". It lists the old RealPlayer for Mac URL (www.real.com/realplayer/mac), but when you click it redirects to the main Real website. All they list there is RealPlayer for Windows and RealTimes for PC or Mac.

RealMedia seems to lack support for Macs now. I get a popup saying that there's an update, but then it just directs Safari to the Real website where it does nothing.

If you can't find RealPlayer, you might try VLC (VideoLAN.org). It plays a lot of things.