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AOL Turns iPhone into Radio
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I like this guy, he makes a good point. I feel like an idiot because I live in the U.S. and didn't even know that the USA PATRIOT act was an acronym, but I'm glad he did.
AOL Radio is powered by XM, and no this isn't AM/FM, it's over TCP/IP (Internet).
They also have a Mac client for anyone interested, I've had it installed for well, since I bought my Mac all the way back in November 2006 (and knew about it well before then).
Sebastian
Sounds like a few people here need to readjust their tin foil hats, because obviously the government is beaming satellite images of them sitting on their computer RIGHT NOW to spy agencies in all across the country!
Get a grip, people.
Get a grip, people.
I haven't listened to AOL Radio in a few months, but the last time I did, I read that the deal between AOL and XM was going to expire — the selection of XM channels available on AOL Radio was going to be no more. AOL Radio was going to offer a selection of terrestrial CBS stations in its place.
And saying that AOL Radio is/was "powered by XM" is inaccurate — the majority of AOL Radio channels is/was proprietary.
I always love using their AOL Radio on my Mac but the thought of putting AOL software on my iPhone worries me
I dunno, I can just see it screwing it up somehow
I dunno, I can just see it screwing it up somehow
Used a similar app on my iPod Touch back when there was a huge boom in webapps. This seems to be cleaner and more syndicated!
Thanks AOL!
Thanks AOL!
This I did not hear about, but then again I haven't listened in a few months myself. This is annoying, I LOVED AOL radio for the Japanese and Hawaiian radio stations... T_T;
And I thought XM provided all the stations, I never looked into it very thoroughly but the marketing said something like that so I was just repeating it.
Edit: After looking into it, apparently the marketing line I was thinking of was "featuring XM" so yeah, not quite the same, and apparently AOL radio uses the Ultravox protocol.
Sebastian
Those channels were AOL Radio's own. I don't know if they're still available; maybe AOL Radio dumped them (it has dumped channels in the past).
I just opened it up, updated to 1.2.1, and they're still there, along with all the others I listened to, thanks though.
Sebastian
I have been waiting for this FOREVER (ever since the SDK announcement). I love AOL Radio on my Mac, but have AOL as a company, although they have some nice ideas or at least the resources to bring them. One of the coolest implementation of the triangulation/GPS I have seen yet giving you local stations. Love every bit of it, but the advertisements.
I just turned on AOL Radio myself (Outlaw Country, yee haw!) and the new player (still in beta) says "powered by CBS Radio" even though, according to something I read somewhere on their blog, AOL Radio's proprietary channels outnumber the CBS Radio stations that they carry ("200+" vs. "150+").
Right now, I prefer the old player, and when I went to that, it briefly flashed "featuring XM."
AOL's licensing agreement with XM Satellite Radio ended earlier this year; their current partnership is with CBS Radio.
By default, the AOL Radio application has historically streamed in 64kbps HE-AAC (a.k.a. "aacPlus"), which is the same data format used by XM Satellite Radio. Now that AOL Radio has begun offering a selectable "Narrowband" and "Broadband" option, and has indicated that automatically allocated bandwidth is scalable dependent on connection (Edge/3G/Wi-Fi), it will be interesting to see whether the same rules apply.
No previous Apple hand-held device has been capable of playing HE-AAC in real time. If the iPhone/Touch is capable of doing so, this also opens up the possibility of extended playback capacity (with an attendant hit in power consumption, given the processor load for decoding the SBR portion of an HE-AAC stream).
- M.
By default, the AOL Radio application has historically streamed in 64kbps HE-AAC (a.k.a. "aacPlus"), which is the same data format used by XM Satellite Radio. Now that AOL Radio has begun offering a selectable "Narrowband" and "Broadband" option, and has indicated that automatically allocated bandwidth is scalable dependent on connection (Edge/3G/Wi-Fi), it will be interesting to see whether the same rules apply.
No previous Apple hand-held device has been capable of playing HE-AAC in real time. If the iPhone/Touch is capable of doing so, this also opens up the possibility of extended playback capacity (with an attendant hit in power consumption, given the processor load for decoding the SBR portion of an HE-AAC stream).
- M.
