Slacker Radio Takes on Pandora and Last.fm iPhone Apps
For us, the iPhone has already replaced our radio while driving. Thanks to a steady stream of podcasts and the Last.fm and Pandora applications, annoying DJs and endless commercials have become a thing of the past. Now, another streaming music app, Slacker Radio, which was already available for the Blackberry, has arrived in the App Store (iTunes link), and we think it is a worthy competitor to the popular Last.fm and Pandora apps.
In most respects, Slacker is similar to both Pandora and Last.fm. You can create your own stations by seeding it with the name of an artist or song. Just like the latest versions of the Pandora app, Slacker, too, puts a lot of emphasis on its genre stations, though Slacker features a larger variety of stations than Pandora.
Overall, Slacker feels a lot like satellite radio, which is probably no surprise, given that XM Radio's co-founder Lon Levin is Slacker's Senior Advisor.
With regards to its user interface, every Pandora and Last.fm user will feel right at home. One nice addition to Slacker, though, is the ability to see which songs will play next.
Customization
One advantage of Slacker over its competitors is that it gives you more options to directly customize your stations. You can direct it to play songs from different decades, and decide if you want it to mostly play hits or also more obscure songs.
Competition
Slacker's reviews and biographies can't quite compete with the depth of information offered by the Last.fm app, which can also display tour dates. Slacker also doesn't feature any of the social networking functions that have made Last.fm so popular.
Just like its competitors, Slacker only allows you to skip six songs per station every hour. Unlike Pandora and Last.fm, however, Slacker does play 30 second radio ads after every fifth song. For $3.99 a month, however, you can buy a premium membership that lets you skip songs as often as you want and which removes the advertising from your stream.
Like all the other streaming music apps on the iPhone, Slacker can't play in the background while you surf the web or read your email. This, of course, is a limitation that Apple has put on its developers, even though Apple's own music player on the iPhone does this without causing any problems.
Verdict
Even though Slacker Radio is very similar to the Last.fm and Pandora app, we think it is definitely worth a try. Whether you prefer one over the other will depend on how happy you are with the music recommendations it gives and how important the social features of Last.fm are to you.
Comments
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But why? Pandora is so much better IMHO.
Posted by: Alex Wilhelm
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January 13, 2009 7:36 PM
I just spent a few minutes trying this out and already I'm way happier with it than with Pandora. My problem with Pandora was that I never felt like it was giving me recommendations of new or indie artists; just recycling a few major artists and "finding" live tracks or other mainstream artists I already knew. I am loving that Slacker is letting me customize how adventurous I want it to be in its choices - already I'm seeing much more diversity in the music selection I'm getting.
@alex - Pandora is great, but Slacker is doing things differently. For one, their recommendation algorithm is very different (Pandora uses humans to listen to the music and categorize it). Slacker also has a more 'commercial' feel. Which one is better depends on the individual taste.
Posted by: Frederic
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January 13, 2009 9:40 PM
I like that if you put at least 15 or so artists into your station, you can set it to play ONLY those artists. Sometimes I like discovery, but sometimes I just like to listen to stuff I know.
Posted by: Jandy Stone
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January 13, 2009 9:42 PM
Jandy is that something that Slacker does or Pandora?
Posted by: Corvida
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January 13, 2009 9:46 PM
Sorry, Slacker does that. I don't think Pandora does - it modifies the station based on what you tell it, but I don't think you can ever limit it to specific artists. (In fact, I think adding artists to the station broadens rather than narrows the breadth.)
Posted by: Jandy Stone
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January 13, 2009 9:50 PM
Agree that slacker has a more "commercial" feel than Pandora; I think Pandora's better for music discovery while Slacker's better for cataloguing what you already have.
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