Slacker Radio for BlackBerry released
Slacker created a bit of buzz for their radio application for BlackBerry during CTIA but since then, the relatively popular internet radio provider has been extremely quiet. Now that CES is here however, the company has gone ahead and officially announced the launch of Slacker Radio for BlackBerry. With 100 stations categorized by genre and over 10,000 artist stations, Slacker also allows users to create their own stations which other users can listen to. Album reviews, artist bios and cover art are also tightly integrated into the program. Streaming radio for mobile devices is quickly becoming a crowded field but the major benefit of Slacker is that it allows users to store their favorite stations on a memory card which Slacker claims increases battery performance up to five times (when played back) in comparison to a constant-stream of music. For now BlackBerry users who want to try out Slacker must live in the US (it seems you can bypass this by entering any valid US zip code though) and have a device running OS 4.3 and up. The Storm is currently not supported but will be sometime in the near future when an update is released.
I installed it, and it works. Can’t figure out the caching yet …
seems like a cool idea when i want to hear something not on my memory card
The site must be getting hammered. I’m getting a 404 error when trying to access the site from my Curve 8330. Same thing happened when the myspace app for blackberry came out.
it’s not licensed for use in Canada.
I downloaded it this morning and am very happy with it. I’ve been a slacker user for sometime now so I just put in my email and password and it loaded my custom stations. I went out a bought a larger SD card at lunch (4GB) and it says it can cache 26 stations. I only cached 4 and it took about 20 minutes over USB. The streaming works ok, but is a little slow when skipping songs and pulling down the album art. Caching is the way to go but you have to have a 512MB card or bigger, but since a 4GB is $4.50 at amazon, I doubt that’s much of a problem. Audio quality is really good as well. My biggest complaint at this point is when I get an email it pauses my music for the notification sound to play and doesn’t resume. The BB media player resumes after the notification plays. Hopefully Slacker will change that.
I got it downloaded, and it is rather awesome on my Sprint 8330, but the audio quality is rather abysmal. Is there any way to increase the bitrate? It seemed pretty decent at first, but not it is very grainy. Could it be due to so many people accessing it?
hopefully this will push pandora to finally release for the BB too
I just downloaded this today as well and its AWESOME!! Everyone I work with has an iPhone and Pandora…but I now have this! This is really good IMO. I just stream the songs in but the option to put them on your memory card is really cool too, havent tried that yet.
Check this out for anyone who has a Blackberry and who likes sites like Pandora! Its great
I downloaded it and so far so good I think this may be my new favorite app! Thanks BGR for posting this and Thanks Slacker for making a awesome app!!
Question: what’s the easiest way to update my Curve 8310 OS to 4.5 so that I can use an 8GB memory card with the Slacker app? I’m a Mac user, so I can’t do it through the desktop software I don’t think… Can I do it OTA?
Who ever stated using a US zip code to get the app to work was smoking crack, it locks you out if you have a Canadian device, stupid draconian licensing BS. It checks your device to ensure that. FlyCast still rules over this based on the simple fact it allows canadian users, sure slacker is pimp and better, but until they fix it with the frak’n RIAA it’s useless to anyone outside the US.
@question, no OTA for device upgrades you need a WinBlows PC or a Mac running virtual windows, ie: Parallels, Bootcamp, VM Ware.
It is true, who ever said that it works with a valid US Zip was smoking crack. I installed it the morning and everything went time until when it had to buffer. It just stopped there.
cRACK!
The Storm may not ‘officially’ be supported, but if you search the Slacker forum, you can find how to install it. Works perfectly.
I’ve been using Slacker for a while and already have one of their portable players. But I can honestly say that this is the first app that’s made me somewhat sorry I don’t have a Blackberry anymore.
It got installed on my Blackberry Bold 4.6.215 fine, however when I try to play a station, I get a “Could not get track”. Anyone else experiencing this??
RELEASE A STORM ONE NOWWW!!! lol
@Bla1ze
I was the one who said it looks like you can enter a valid zip code to get Slacker to work outside of the US. And guess what? I live outside of the US and am at this very moment enjoying listening to Slacker on my Bold.
Fancy that.
this joint hot i assumed it wouldnt work with bluetooth headsets and it does sweet
Downloaded last night on my Bold and it works great. commercials between every couple of songs kinda sucks, but it’s free so can’t complain. Love the audio quality, and album art. Awesome app for any bb. Ex Iphone user and honestly I missed Pandora, but not now. Keep it up Slacker.
Anyone using this over EDGE? I’m curious if it’s worth using this on my Curve 8310.
I waz soo looking forward to having this app on my beautiful bold. After freezing my point multiple times and re-installing it again……………IT WORKS!!! I love it!!!!
Sorry for my confusion, but is there a charge for using this? I know the majority of us have unlimited everything for our BB’s…but I guess I’m just confused.
Tried Slacker in Canada using a valid U.S. zip code (nothing to lose) – it didn’t work!