You saw a sneak peek of Slacker on the iPhone last week, and now the Slacker iPhone app is officially available in the App Store. What's even more interesting to see is the user response - already there are dozens of comments singing the praises of the Slacker iPhone app.
So what can you do with the Slacker iPhone app? A lot actually:
One review on iTunes calls the Slacker iPhone app the "first killer radio app... not only does the Slacker app set the bar, but it changes things completely." Another reviewer says that "words cannot express how awesome this app is," while yet another states that "SiriusXM is in trouble."
So how does Slacker make money? Through a mixture of targeted advertising and subscription services. Free users hear about 45 seconds of commercials every hour - or there's Slacker Radio Plus and Slacker Premium where subscribers can pay $3.99 or $7.99/month, respectively, to skip the commercials and unlock additional features.
[Download Slacker iPhone app]
- Free music library featuring millions of songs
- High-quality stereo playback from any wireless connection
- Over 100 professionally programmed genre stations
- Create custom artist stations
- Fine tune stations to play more of the music you like
- View artist biographies and photos
- View album art and reviews
- "Peek Ahead" artist and album preview
- Pause and skip songs
- Rate songs as favorites
- Ban the songs and artists you don't like
One review on iTunes calls the Slacker iPhone app the "first killer radio app... not only does the Slacker app set the bar, but it changes things completely." Another reviewer says that "words cannot express how awesome this app is," while yet another states that "SiriusXM is in trouble."
So how does Slacker make money? Through a mixture of targeted advertising and subscription services. Free users hear about 45 seconds of commercials every hour - or there's Slacker Radio Plus and Slacker Premium where subscribers can pay $3.99 or $7.99/month, respectively, to skip the commercials and unlock additional features.
[Download Slacker iPhone app]
i like Slacker much better than Pandora, works flawlessly on my iphone thus far...... does Pandora keep repeating the same songs for anyone else??? It seems after I use Pandora for a few hours or so and then come back to use it again the next day it repeats alot of the same songs!
A couple of other things it lets you do, not mentioned here...
You can CREATE your own custom stations with the iPhone app, including fine tuning of music selection, add/remove artists, and more.
Also, there's a new subscription level that is significantly cheaper. Slacker now has both Plus and Premium levels of service. The Plus offering is $3.99/mo (billed annually at $47.88), and allows unlimited song skips, unlimited requests on custom stations, no commercials, and the ability to turn off the DJ (for the one channel that currently has a DJ on it). The Premium service has everything that Plus has, as well as the ability to save (many, but not all based on negotiated licensing) songs for anytime listening via the web player and Slacker portable devices. I don't believe either the Blackberry or iPhone apps permit listening to one's saved song library.
SIrusXm dropped the ball on this one. Prior to the merger XM had a iPhone app ready to go, but was killed after the merger. This and Pandora erode the space that SiruisXM needs to be in. While they were doing nothing a few hundred thousand people switched to Pandora, while no sports or news it is free and consistient. For people who do not understand the tech behind it, you are not using minutes. The iPhone requires an unlimited data package so there is not 1 penny of new costs associated with it.
I have XM, however i find that I put Pandora on in the car more and more. I had a party last week and streamed pandora for 4 hours and did not hear the same song twice. While the offerings may be better with a SIRIXM, there delay to the market results in less eyes on the brand and the realization that there are other Free offerings out there.
The solution is simple. Release a a application and offer a selected group of stations for free for a while to get people hooked and bring them into paying customers. My fear is that Mel and his boys do not understand the dynamics of the tech market and the market.
Does the Slacker iPhone app only stream the stations, or does it download the stations, a la the Slacker G2?
I have a Stilleto 2 and love it, but apparently Directed Electronics Suck because after 1 year its freezing and giving me problems. I wanna get an iphone 3G but am wondering why Sirius doesn't have any official Sirius Xm apps for it?
They also have Slacker Radio Plus for $3.99/month which does everything the premium one does, except saving of songs. Much more reasonable. This is pulling Satrad closer to the abyss.
Streams nicely over the EDGE network in suburban DC,I'm excited. I really like Slacker
Ryan, Its interesting how all audio entertainment is moving to the iPhone. You were right about its power as a device. It reminds me of the 80s revolution of the Walkman with CDs, tapes, and radio involved. Sony's Walkman sold over 100 million units before the iPod arrived. Now the iPhone is taking over the iPod's climb.
This is very good for the whole audio entertainment business. Who wouldn't want to listen to music on their cellphone?
SIRIUS/XM are doomed
for failure now
I was with Ryan when he was shown the new iPhone client at the Showstoppers event last week in Las Vegas. I was excited to see it but sort of disapointed it wouldn't cache audio like the G1 / G2 and Blackberry devices do.
However with that said after downloading this application yesterday and playing with it all night long (the Slacker app you perverts) I am very happy with the application and now see no real reason for me to us the G1 unit I picked up a few weeks ago from Woot!
I even became a Slacker Premium member last night. :)
After an hour and half so far, I am loving it! The 80s alternative channel is already much better than 1st Wave. Closer to Fred in my opinion. Might be able to dump my $17 xm + BOS sub very soon...
@Scott: It was great to see you at ShowStoppers. I actually think that's you in the red shirt in the photos here.
@Mike V: Thanks for pointing those out. I forgot to mention the Plus offering. Note the timestamp on this post... I was a little tired. :)
I have the slacker g2, and it has taken me two months to fine tune the song and artist selections so that I hear the music that I want to hear. Slacker is very weak when it comes to:
1) Classical music (nothing but no name orchestras and budget label recordings). No opera.
2) Any music create before 1940. Request early jazz and pop music all you want, you'll get very little of it. Bing Crosby before WW II? Forget it.
3) The Beatles. You can forget about ever hearing anything from Sgt. Pepper or Abbey Road. You'll get a few songs that were number one and little else.
4) Deep playlists. Request a band and you'll hear the same "a" sides and hits forever. Few album cuts.
5) Sets that make sense rather than songs that follow one another without any regard for beat, style, or mood. At least Xm knows how to program.
Slacker is ok but still has a long way to go. I use it but am not about to give up my xm.
6) Intuitive song selection. It's about as bad and good as Netflix's movie selection formulas. I "favorited" one dance song from the eighties. Now I have a dozen Adam and the Ants songs filling my slacker. I favorited one folk song. Now I have to ban dozens of Peter, Paul, and Mary songs.
7) A lot of bands are missing. I'm into German electronica. I can't believe how many major artists are missing from Slacker.
8) Ambient? Hope you like listening to the same 20 Steve Roach pieces over and over because that is about all you will get.
StarPlayr Rocks.. it will blow slacker out of the water.
Just wait and see.
Don't be a slacker man. Be a StarPlayr!
Slacker is WAY better than SiriusXM...all that matters to me is the audio quality. Listening to SiriusXM is completely unacceptable to me...it sounds like an AOL online stream circa 1999.
Ryan - yes thats my fat gut in your photos. :) Sorry about that.
I am so impressed with this new Slacker iPhone software that I actually wrote about it in MultiChannel News. :)
http://www.multichannel.com/blog/350000435/post/500039250.html
I am proud to be a Slacker. :)
I have held on long enough too. I turned others on to XM over the past several years. I can't stand it anymore. Slacker did it for me. My G2 is on the way and I am paying my $4/month and am thrilled.
I will be saying so long to XM early next month when my commitment runs out.
Yes, Pandora no matter how hard I've worked by adding more artist to the seed list, I still get a crap load of repeats. I do not have this issue with Slacker.
I love that I can ban either the artist from my stations or just the song. You can't even do that on the Slacker portables.
I am very happy with Slacker on the iPod Touch. It has worked perfectly with no crashes or issues whatsoever.
The Slacker Development team did a good job!
It worked great all day yesterday. I'm on the EDGE network and it streamed well all day even without WiFi. The only problem I had was the 10-12 second wait in between songs for it to buffer. The audio quality was better than what I get on my Inno. If it weren't for the talk and the sports, this would be the end of my XM subscription
it really is great. I streamed it on my commute (1 hour) from my phone to my aux input and it sounded great. I was actually really surprised that it sounded so much better than Sirius. Flipping between Slacker and Sirius the sound quality was remarkably better.
trying to get it on itunes via the link but itunes says this app is no longer available
With thousands downloading the slacker app. and using the site, the site is now chronically slow. The server can't handle the new traffic. Glad I refreshed two days ago as I cannot refresh today.
With thousands downloading the slacker app. and using the site, the site is now chronically slow. The server can't handle the new traffic. Glad I refreshed two days ago as I cannot refresh today.
This works because it's about the music. Hundreds of artists are at your fingertips pretty much.
I wonder if all of the praise being written here for Slacker will become more tepid when people actually use it for a awhile. I've had it for months and the problems with Slacker aren't immediately obvious but, with time, they sour the experience. I was so disgusted with Slacker that I put it away for the next few weeks and am carrying around my Inno once again. The biggest pain in the butt is the need to find a Wi-Fi spot if you are a mac user. You cannot refresh with a mac computer. I have no intention of paying to set up Wi-Fi in my home simply to get one more music source. Yes, there are plenty of Wi-Fi spots around but this thing takes a very long time to refresh - even after only a few hours of use. I tried to cut down the refresh time by eliminating several channels - 25 to 18 - but I am tired of hanging around a coffee shop much longer than I would normally because I am trying to get new music. The supposed "intuitive" logarithms that select music for you are as bad as Apple's "genius" program on Itunes. I hate Siouxsie and the Banshees. Slacker has decided to give me dozens of their songs. I ban them all - lots of clicking while I am driving. I try to ban the group but it doesn't appear on the website fine tuning list. A lot of aggravation that should not exist. Battery life is exaggerated. I'm tired of listening to so much crap. I'm tired of wasting my time fine tuning the stations only to have the stations sound worse than they did before. And I am so tired of needing to refresh every few days. Pay for this? No way. I am going back to the free basic service. And I am happy to pay my 12.95 for XM. All I have to do is turn XM on and I have at least six channels that I consistently enjoy. Let's see if the initial heated enthusiasm for slacker becomes more tepid as others face these problems.
Yeah cause you never get ANY repeats on SiriusXM and you have complete control of your listening experience. I love listening to Lithium 24 and every hour hearing at least 1 Pearl Jam, Sound Garden, Janes Addiction and Alice and Chains song. Good luck with Satrad and let us know when they cancel your favorite channels what you plan on doing.
@jmarkzat - I've had XM since 2001, and Slacker since November 2008. I'm a Mac user and have wifi in my home. If you have a mac and an internet connection, I believe you can activate your wifi card in your Mac to share with others, so the Slacker should be able to refresh at home.
I've hardly listened to XM since I got my Slacker. Better sound quality (not even close), customization (the Sirius takeover has been very disappointing, and a regression towards FM, sans commercials). You are correct that XM and Sirius offer a much easier system....I have to plug the Slacker into the car, no real mount, etc. However, I really enjoy this service and have only grown more fond of it over the past 2 months. I haven't given up on XM, but I am saddened how it is not what it once was....it is now Sirius, with shallow playlists and horrible DJ blather. The worst for me is Dusty Street on what used to be Top Tracks. Can't she just listen to herself talk OFF mic? Horrible...
jmark have fun listening to something you have no control over who they play. How many stations that people loved are left at this point 2? Slacker can be infinitely deep as far playlists go, it's all up to you. Much more than what can be said for Sirius XM these days.
Just got the app, and picked up the new iPhone yesterday. Slacker works fantastically on the iPhone, it's almost as if it was standard issue with the phone itself instead of an add on application. My custom stations are there as well as ALL the stations listed on the slacker website. Had a listen to 80's Rock today and it sounded great, sounded like it was streaming at 128k but I can't be sure.
I have about a half a dozen radio apps on the thing and Slacker is leading them all when it comes to music. I have a few for talk and news that I'll keep. Pandora is next in line, it works nicely too. The only real disappointment is the Flycast service which is slower than usual when it comes to switching stations, and sometimes not even getting the station to come up. Flycast may be the first one dumped.
I have been using XM for 4 years and recently decided to cancel my subscription. I now stream Slacker and Pandora to my car stereo and the sound quality is AWESOME, much better than XM. The sound quality on XM seemed to depend on which station you chose to listen to. Plus - I never listened to any of the talk shows or sports on XM.