Slacker Radio is out

[spyker3292]

I haven't tried it yet, but Slacker radio was released today.

http://appshopper.com/music/slacker-radio

[jalpert]

This app is the real deal. If you've ever opened Pandora or Last.FM give this a shot. Go to the website, create your custom station and enjoy having a ton of control over your music. Pandora does a great job selecting songs for you, but this puts more control in your hands.

Audio quality and buffer times are fantastic over 3G and edge. Just a great App all around!

[Dorfdad]

while Im impressed at the speed of the connections the problem is your only allowed 6 skips per hour and they force commercials every few songs.

I hate that if I setup a channel and they play the wrong songs I can only skip 6...

[jalpert]

Originally Posted by Dorfdad

while Im impressed at the speed of the connections the problem is your only allowed 6 skips per hour and they force commercials every few songs.

I hate that if I setup a channel and they play the wrong songs I can only skip 6...

I agree, nobody likes commercials and nobody likes limitations. Your first option would be to pay the $4 and go premium, but nobody likes to pay money either :-)

In a short amount of time your problem will take care of itself. You setup your custom station and I'm assuming you turned off discovery, it's only playing songs from the bands you told it to. All bands have bad songs, some bands have bad albums, that's why you can ban a track. For a little bit it might suck, every time you ban you get charged a skip. But, after a short while, you'll get all those horrible songs banned and you'll be left with nothing but good ones. It does take a little patience though.

In terms of commercials, right now it's about 45 seconds per hour. Not too much you can do about that, except pay the $4 which is WELL worth it.

[iSaga]

No service outside the US, very disappointing.

[KRAPPS]

Originally Posted by jalpert

Audio quality and buffer times are fantastic over 3G and edge. Just a great App all around!

Been waiting for this one ... geez, took them long enough

Great to hear sound quality and buffer times are good over 3G and Edge ... in my experience, this has been the #1 problem - long buffers, freezes, dropouts, etc ... can't wait to try it out tonight.

[nagromme]

I have room for more than one radio app on my iPhone--but it will be hard to get me away from Pandora as the main one! (FYI, Pandora's are tiny banner graphics which you can hide for free. No audio ads. Same 6-skips-per-hour limit, but you can freely change--or create--stations, so even after 6 skips you're not stuck. And I find Pandora can create such good stations that I don't skip much anyway.)

[SFStateStudent]

Nice app, but Pandora is preferable...

[matasar]

Is there any possible reason to use this over Pandora? I'm interested in neither listening to adds nor to paying a (small, admittedly) monthly fee if I don't need to. Thoughts?

[earthsick]

figures...i just got a slacker g2 portable for christmas
eh, i think i would still prefer the g2 over an iphone app any way...dont feel like draining my battery all day at work

and to all those asking why use this over pandora...from my own personal experience, i have discovered FAR more great new artists from slacker than i ever did with pandora. slacker is a far more complete experience that gives you more control and more of a radio experience. its everything satellite radio was meant to be but isnt

[hexonxonx]

Commercials are what is stopping me from installing this. I hate commercials and this is the reason I am looking forward to the XM/Sirius app.

[earthsick]

Originally Posted by hexonxonx

Commercials are what is stopping me from installing this. I hate commercials and this is the reason I am looking forward to the XM/Sirius app.

the commercials are not really very frequent or obtrusive, just do yourself a favor and give it a shot

and as a long time XM subscriber, let me tell you that this is infinitely better programming, with or without commercials. besides, i would not hold my breath on a sirius xm app

[websyndicate]

I have using this app since I saw this post late morning and I really like it. The music is good and I did sign up the the 7 day free premium trial. So far I cant tell if its repetitive as Pandora.

[exhibit.b]

Originally Posted by earthsick

the commercials are not really very frequent or obtrusive, just do yourself a favor and give it a shot

and as a long time XM subscriber, let me tell you that this is infinitely better programming, with or without commercials. besides, i would not hold my breath on a sirius xm app

http://starplayr.com/

[jalpert]

Originally Posted by hexonxonx

Commercials are what is stopping me from installing this. I hate commercials and this is the reason I am looking forward to the XM/Sirius app.

Give the premium a shot. At $4 a month is a bargain compared to XM. Not only do you not have to listen to idiotic DJ's but you can choose the artists you want to listen to and skip songs on demand.

[Rayfire]

What exactly are the differences between this app compared to the other apps out there, mainly Pandora? I ran both, so far I only noticed/heard commercials on Slacker (except when you buy the full version)

EDIT:
Tried the 7 day free trial, it works nice.

[jalpert]

Originally Posted by Rayfire

What exactly are the differences between this app compared to the other apps out there, mainly Pandora? I ran both, so far I only noticed/heard commercials on Slacker (except when you buy the full version)

EDIT:
Tried the 7 day free trial, it works nice.

Things you CANNOT do with Pandora:
1.) Create a station with 15 or more artists then hear music ONLY from those artists
2.) I think the screenshot below will speak for itself:


As you can see it's all about control. Give Pandora a song (or a few) and it'll play things you like. With slacker, you tell it exactly what you like and it gives you exactly that.

Because you can do so much customization, 6 song skips go a LOT further than Pandora because odds are greater you want to hear the song.

Yes, there are 45 seconds of commercials per hour, just something to deal with for 59 minutes and 15 seconds worth of exactly what you want to hear. I hate commercials too, but Last.FM is CBS and sounds like crap, Pandora has been hanging on by the skin of their teeth for some time now, these guys gotta do something to stick around. 45 seconds is so little, and $4/mo is so little.

[earthsick]

Originally Posted by exhibit.b

http://starplayr.com/

I should have been more clear. i dont expect Sirius XM to license such an app and make it available on the app store. The iPhone is considered as competition to them. jailbreaking is another story and i believe there has been a player available for a while now.

[KRAPPS]

Originally Posted by jalpert

Things you CANNOT do with Pandora:
1.)Create a station 15 or more artists then hear music ONLY from those artists
2.) I think the screenshot below will speak for itself:


As you can see it's all about control. Give Pandora a song (or a few) and it'll play things you like. With slacker, you tell it exactly what you like and it gives you exactly that.

Because you can do so much customization, 6 song skips go a LOT further than Pandora because odds are greater you want to hear the song.

Yes, there are 45 seconds of commercials per hour, just something to deal with for 59 minutes and 15 seconds worth of exactly what you want to hear. I hate commercials too, but Last.FM is CBS and sounds like crap, Pandora has been hanging on by the skin of their teeth for some time now, these guys gotta do something to stick around. 45 seconds is so little, and $4/mo is so little.

Great info as this question comes up a lot ... the screen shot really helps - nicely done!

[sishaw]

Originally Posted by earthsick

i dont expect Sirius XM to license such an app and make it available on the app store. The iPhone is considered as competition to them. jailbreaking is another story and i believe there has been a player available for a while now.

Huh. If iPhone's their competition, it must suck to be them.

I've been listening to Slacker for at least an hour--a little more, I think--and not only am I enjoying their playlists (alternative and jazz), I've only had one commercial.

[aandf1978]

This app is awesome!!! Now if we can only get our Sirius/XM app out the iPhone would become complete!!

[earthsick]

Originally Posted by sishaw

Huh. If iPhone's their competition, it must suck to be them.

If the iPhone was their ONLY competition they would be fine, but every digital media player is their competition. And yes, it does suck to be them when Sirius XM stock is currently trading at about 13 cents a share.

[Rayfire]

Originally Posted by jalpert

Things you CANNOT do with Pandora:
1.) Create a station with 15 or more artists then hear music ONLY from those artists
2.) I think the screenshot below will speak for itself:


As you can see it's all about control. Give Pandora a song (or a few) and it'll play things you like. With slacker, you tell it exactly what you like and it gives you exactly that.

Because you can do so much customization, 6 song skips go a LOT further than Pandora because odds are greater you want to hear the song.

Yes, there are 45 seconds of commercials per hour, just something to deal with for 59 minutes and 15 seconds worth of exactly what you want to hear. I hate commercials too, but Last.FM is CBS and sounds like crap, Pandora has been hanging on by the skin of their teeth for some time now, these guys gotta do something to stick around. 45 seconds is so little, and $4/mo is so little.

Thanks for explaining that. I had to fiddle with Slacker more to find that the Fine Tune can be located by pressing the arrow beside the station name. Impressive.

[jalpert]

Originally Posted by Rayfire

Thanks for explaining that. I had to fiddle with Slacker more to find that the Fine Tune can be located by pressing the arrow beside the station name. Impressive.

No problem. Just keep in mind that even though Slacker has millions of songs, if your artists are obscure and you fine tune too much you might hear repeats and have shallow play lists. Play around with everything, it's a lot of fun, but it might take some patience to get that perfect station. Once you get 1 perfect station, it's entirely worth it and it makes programming subsequent stations much easier once you figure out how the service reacts to the tuning.

Also, keep in mind that there is no limit to the amount of custom stations you can have.

One more point. You can always load one of their stations that you like, then save it as a custom. You can delete but not add artists to pre programmed stations. Save it as a custom, use their stations as an outline so to speak and customize your a** off.

[uva25]

Originally Posted by jalpert

No problem. Just keep in mind that even though Slacker has millions of songs, if your artists are obscure and you fine tune too much you might hear repeats and have shallow play lists. Play around with everything, it's a lot of fun, but it might take some patience to get that perfect station. Once you get 1 perfect station, it's entirely worth it and it makes programming subsequent stations much easier once you figure out how the service reacts to the tuning.

Also, keep in mind that there is no limit to the amount of custom stations you can have.

One more point. You can always load one of their stations that you like, then save it as a custom. You can delete but not add artists to pre programmed stations. Save it as a custom, use their stations as an outline so to speak and customize your a** off.

I LOVE this app but have a few questions. I see that you can fine tune on the app but don't see where you can add artists to a station that you just created...or add favorite songs to the new station like you can on the web site. I assume I am not missing something on the app? Also, what does the heart do. Does it tag the artist as a favorite or the song or both. Also, when I type in an artist to start a channel, I don't see the fine tune options coming up. Previously created stations show all the fine tune options so I think it has to do with saving and naming a new artist which I don't see on the app. Sorry for the long list of questions but Slacker seems to have the most potential of all and I want to make sure I am not missing something. Thanks.