XM or Sirius on your Mac without a browser

Rogue Amoeba has just released a public preview of their new desktop player for XM and Sirius called Pulsar. It provides instant access to either service, or both, and since the recent merger of the services they are pretty similar anyway.

The application does not require a browser and can just sit on your desktop pumping out that Sat-Rad love.

There is a free public preview that plays for 20 minutes and then overlays noise on the audio. If you ever bought a product from Rogue Amoeba, they will let you download a fully working app for free. If you haven't, you can get a license key for 15 dollars. The app is not a 1.0 version yet, but seems to work from most reports posted to the web. I tried it myself on both XM and Sirius. At first, it failed with some XML parsing errors, so I shut it down and tried later, and it worked just fine.

It should be noted that there are some other ways to listen besides buying an app or listening through your browser. One promising solution is the donation-ware app called StarLightXM. The software requires a streaming plug-in, so check the documentation. StarLightXM works on both satellite services. I tried a new build which came out yesterday and it worked fine. Beta 6 of the player can be found here.

Of course for any of these solutions to work, you'll need an online subscription to satellite radio. Both services will let you try their online offerings for 3 days for free, and both Sirius and XM have hinted they may be creating their own players, including one for the iPhone, but so far nothing has appeared. The developers who did the StarLightXM desktop app also say they are going to have an XM/Sirius player for the iPhone/iPod touch soon.

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Source: http://www.rogueamoeba.com/pulsar/

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Rogue Amoeba has just released a public preview of their new desktop player for XM and Sirius called Pulsar. It provides instant access to...

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Pay for Sirius XM radio and pay for application again? I would rather go with browser :(

January 05 2009 at 2:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

f00fighter

As a previous Airfoil user I was able to get a complimentary license for Pulsar - so far it works great! I like the ability to define my favorites and limit the display of channels to just those that I frequently listen to. Also - the ability to see what is playing on the other channels is also a nice touch. The RA blog says a "mini mode" is coming if you think the interface is a little big/cluttered.

http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/2009/01/02/say-hello-to-pulsar/

One thing I'd like to see is the ability to turn off the description of the channels. Once I see that "Octane" is the "Hard Alternative" channel, I don't really need to see this info anymore. Perhaps an "info" button or hover over pop up would be better for this?

It would also be nice to configure the size of the text for the currently playing artist/song - I'd like to see it be bigger.

January 05 2009 at 10:54 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

smoke_tetsu

My family would like this as they listen to a lot of sat-radio.

January 05 2009 at 4:07 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jash

Yay Satellite radio

January 05 2009 at 12:50 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

seth

wow, xmas comes late, cool. some last.fm scrobbling capabilities built into one of these things would be awesome(i'll buy the first person a few beers that can successfully set that up). i may be late to sirius and desktop players, but this is better than any presents i got from santa this year...

January 04 2009 at 12:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

tom

The user interface on Pulsar is kind of ugly. It's also a little too big for me. I don't want all of that on my screen. StarLightXM is much better looking and has a tiny footprint that sits neatly in the corner of my screen.

Also, Pulsar doesn't seem to offer anything to make it superior to other programs out there. Why would I spend money on Pulsar when I can get equivalent and better looking programs for free?

January 03 2009 at 9:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

muttmutt

RA is offering Pulsar free for folks who bought one of their other products including Fission or Airfoil 3. You just need to send in your license key through a webform and you'll get a key for Pulsar.

January 03 2009 at 9:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mark

This doesn't seem to work for Canadian subscriptions. Any non-US people using it successfully?

January 03 2009 at 9:05 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Mark's comment

Frankfurter

Ahh, the obligatory " doesn't work in Canada!!!" remark. Thanks.

January 04 2009 at 11:33 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Eddie

This works great, and eliminates my hacky receiver/line-in setup. Pulsar + Audio Hijack means never having to miss Ron and Fez again. Fantastic.

January 03 2009 at 8:58 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Sworntwofun