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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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
motech said 8:33PM on 1-03-2009
until they have an iphone app that lets you control pulsar and airfoil, then this application will be limited.
if i had pulsar and airfoil installed on my mac,
and i had an app made by them as well that interfaced with both of them from one app,
i can walk around my home,
view and choose what was playing on sirius,
and choose what airtunes zones were active,
and adjust the volume of each zone from ipod touch or iphone.
that will make this product complete.
till then,
its just doing the same as the other sat radio apps for the mac,
but better looking and easier to use.
still same functionality as the others though.
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Matthew Hart said 8:39PM on 1-03-2009
Starlight is free and works great.
http://starplayr.com/ourproducts.html
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Mars said 8:42PM on 1-03-2009
You can also check out http://www.siriusmac.com/SiriusMac.html which is free and built on top of mplayer
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neeil said 9:05PM on 1-03-2009
Why is this news?
Like the poster above me, StarPlayer has been out for years, lets you capture for later listening on your iPod and even select different bandwidth.
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Sworntwofun said 8:58PM on 1-03-2009
I tried it and I cant believe how now I can Have all that great music, sports and entertainment..its the GREATEST......
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Eddie said 8:58PM on 1-03-2009
This works great, and eliminates my hacky receiver/line-in setup. Pulsar + Audio Hijack means never having to miss Ron and Fez again. Fantastic.
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Mark said 9:06PM on 1-03-2009
This doesn't seem to work for Canadian subscriptions. Any non-US people using it successfully?
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Frankfurter said 11:33AM on 1-04-2009
Ahh, the obligatory " doesn't work in Canada!!!" remark. Thanks.
muttmutt said 9:23PM on 1-03-2009
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.
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tom said 9:37PM on 1-03-2009
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?
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seth said 12:39PM on 1-04-2009
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...
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Jash said 12:50AM on 1-05-2009
Yay Satellite radio
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smoke_tetsu said 4:07AM on 1-05-2009
My family would like this as they listen to a lot of sat-radio.
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f00fighter said 10:56AM on 1-05-2009
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.
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rH said 2:15PM on 1-05-2009
Pay for Sirius XM radio and pay for application again? I would rather go with browser :(
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