Comments on: Slacker for BlackBerry updated to version 2, iPhone to follow

By: dk

dk — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:07:31 +0000

According to Slacker, the Radio Plus is the subscription service for any device. The Premium service is for their music player only. As such, all music is streamed to a mobile device unless it is Slacker’s.

I received no information about bitrates and bandwidth consumption.

And, unfortunately no replies here.

Anyone?

By: dk

dk — Sun, 31 May 2009 20:33:50 +0000

Additionally, having spent about 30 minutes on the Slacker site, I see nothing in the FAQs about bitrate, no matrix to differentiate the free radio / radio plus / premium options.

I’ve opened a ticket with their customer support regarding transportability across laptop(s) and BB Storm offerings.

when I get a reply (”within 2 business days…”) I’ll post it here.

Thanks.

By: dk

dk — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:46:19 +0000

***Quick question for Big Red gurus… After the last review of Slacker, I chatted with a VZW manager buddy and asked him about Slacker and the ‘unlimited’ to the handset data. He told me that anything that used the web browser was included in the ‘unlimited’ but that if the application created it’s own connection to the EVDO, it would count against your 5GB limit. That’s why, he told me, the Sling App was so easy to get upset about. It didn’t use the browser.

Any take on that? A monthly potential for data consumption? How thin or not-so-thin is a slacker stream? 32kbps? 64kbps? Something else?
Is someone inside Big Red Corp telling their managers just enough to make people shy away from these potential data hungry apps or is there truth to this story? He told me that’s what he has been told and hasn’t pushed the issue.

With a little rounding… A typical MP3 at 128kbps is ~4MB for a ~4 min song. As such, 15 songs per hr at 4MB, would be 60MB her hour. If you listened to Slacker audio content for just 2 hrs a day during the week (ie commute) and a good portion of the weekend days, you could quickly (if you used Slacker like my teenage step daughter uses her iPod) find yourself consuming ~5GB of data just for your fav music app.

Hence my concern.

Your take?

Taking my streaming self and a cup of java to some morning sunshine with the printed paper until my favorite is on a reader…

Thanks.

By: Erica J

Erica J — Sun, 31 May 2009 03:38:06 +0000

Works great over WiFi but sadly no real improvement over EDGE at least in my area.

Constantly cuts in and out over EDGE which can be annoying.

I’m willing to sacrifice a slight reduction in fidelity for a service that works better and smoother over 2.5G.

By: alen

alen — Sun, 31 May 2009 02:00:21 +0000

will the iphone version support caching? i take the subway and love slacker on my work issued BB 8330

and you can run it in the background. just press that last screen button to the right of the wheel and left of the hang up button. whatever it’s called.

and the old version was pretty flaky

By: ryaninc

ryaninc — Sun, 31 May 2009 01:18:15 +0000

How about an Android version? Seriously, any day now would be perfect.

By: Colin

Colin — Sat, 30 May 2009 23:53:43 +0000

Very slick. I just downloaded it and 30 minutes later, I have slacker replacing pandora as my go to music app

By: jeeverz

jeeverz — Sat, 30 May 2009 23:49:49 +0000

still doesn’t work in Canada ? go away

By: Astromanaught

Astromanaught — Sat, 30 May 2009 22:59:44 +0000

Can we PLEASE get a windows mobile app? is it really that hard? i know that it can be made? and i know it can look good! look at yahoo go! its beautiful. Please dont leave us in the rain!

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 30 May 2009 22:17:55 +0000

I think this is the first time an app like this has been made available for the BlackBerry before becoming available for the iPhone. At least it feels that way.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 30 May 2009 21:51:31 +0000

Check that, you can send Slacker to the background when signing in. Thank you!

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 30 May 2009 21:25:02 +0000

Seems just as slow navigating on my 8330 as before. Also, wish they’d let u send slacker to the background when signing in. It closes it.

By: Moe

Moe — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:21:13 +0000

Gotta love slacker with their 4 million songs and regular updates, go slacker, fuck pandora.