By Jeffrey L. Wilson, Wendy Sheehan Donnell Slacker Radio for iPhone has undergone yet another massive redesign in 2013, with the latest coinciding with Apple iOS 7's September release. Gone is the soft blue-and-white, paneled interface; in its place is a darker look. That, however, isn't the only interface change. Slacker Radio for iPhone now has a trending section at the top of the interface that highlights news and spotlighted stations, shortcuts to recently played stations, and a new Songza-like "My Vibe" section that lets you fire up stations based on your current mood. The result is a fresh Slacker Radio, one that easily trumps ho-hum efforts like iTunes Radio.
Magical Sound Shower
"Stations" is where you'll find Slacker's 30+ genre categories. Tapping "Electronic," for example, reveals multiple sub-genres such as "Indie Electronic," "Dub Step," and "Trap." The category king is "Decades/Countdown" which boasts a massive 43 stations at the time of this writing. "Special Events" is where you'll find the highlighted music collections such as "Grammy Awards 2013." "Themes" has interesting and quirky collections such as "55 Nuttiest Pop Stars Ever" and "Great Songs You Forgot." Slacker Radio has something for nearly every musical taste. iTunes Radio, the default music streaming app in iOS 7, lacks such varied station selection.
"My Music" is where personalized content lives. There you can access your created stations, playlists, bookmarked stations, and recently played station (three recently played stations also live on the home screen as shortcuts). "Favorite Songs" is easily my, well, favorite section as it creates a station around songs you've favorited. It's like having a personalized greatest hits station and it's a joy.
Cached stations let you tune in when a wireless signal isn't available.
Radio Days
News/Talk/Sports is exactly what it sounds like—a collection of stations that cater to the news, talk, and sports. Comedy, ABC News, American Public Media, and ESPN programming fall under this category. The most intriguing of these stations is "Live," where you can tune into one of many live, streaming ESPN radio shows. Unfortunately, ESPN is the only channel to serve up live programming, but it's a Slacker Radio stand out feature that sports nuts will appreciate. Men's and Women's lifestyle stations round out the talk options.
Spotify offers no live streaming options, but it counters Slacker with unique features of its own. Spotify has Facebook integration that lets you download and subscribe to the playlists that your buddies created. It's an excellent way to discover new music. Plus, it has gapless playback and crossfade capabilities that Slacker Radio lacks.
Tapping a Slacker Radio channel launches an information page that provides a brief station overview. From there, you can bring a finger to the Play button or tap "Artists" to see a list of featured artists. "Songs" highlights the station's tracks, and grays out the ones that aren't available for on-demand streaming.
Album art is displayed as a song plays with Ban and Favorite icons. You can view lyrics, too, but lyrics aren't available for every song. "Fine Tune" has toggles for turning on/off the Slacker DJ, and ESPN and News updates. It also has a slider that lets you adjust the about of hits vs. discovery within a station. You can easily create playlists on the fly.
Pricing and Sound Quality
Slacker for iPhone is free, but listeners can also subscribe to Slacker Radio Plus for a commercial-free experience with offline listening and unlimited song skips for $3.99 a month. The Slacker Premium service delivers the ultimate experience with on-demand listening, the ability to create custom playlists, and more for $9.99 a month.
Slacker streamed crisp, hiccup-free audio over my home and office network connections. Unless you're an audiophile, Slacker's sound quality will satisfy even when the audio is pumped through an iPhone's speakers or headphones. The bass lines were full and bouncy, and there was a good separation of high and low sounds.
The Final Countdown
If you fancy taking internet radio on the go, you'll be well served by Slacker Radio for iPhone. The redesigned app makes navigation a breeze and the music and talk catalog is top-notch, easily surpassing iTunes Radio's efforts. In short, if you're an iPhone user who likes radio, download Slacker Radio for iPhone.
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