Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
Sirius-XM to begin iPhone streaming this spring
It won't be a major surprise to people who have been following the ups and downs of this story, but on an earnings conference call this morning satellite radio provider Sirius/XM confirmed that it will provide streaming to iPhones and iPod touch devices.CEO Mel Kamarzin said "by streaming its music, sports and talk channels to users of the iPhone and iPod Touch, Sirius can give its existing subscribers another way to access content and let new customers sign up without buying new radios"
The announcement today makes it clear what happened to the much awaited StarPlayr application that was about to be released and then was killed by the developers, likely on advice from Sirius/XM that the player would not be allowed.
Sirius now has 19 million subscribers, which is 10 percent higher than a year ago. Nevertheless, Sirius took a 4th quarter loss of $245.5 million dollars.
Sirius almost went bankrupt, until Liberty Media bailed them out last month with a $530 million investment.
Thanks to Justin and others who tipped us to this story
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
aaron said 3:18PM on 3-12-2009
Good. Finally. I hate what Apple did to Nicemac, but let's get this thing available ASAP.
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Jason said 3:29PM on 3-12-2009
You mean Liberty Media bought $2 billion in tax loss carry forwards for $530 million...
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utterer said 3:48PM on 3-12-2009
Has anything been said about what is happening with Rogue Amoeba's satellite radio desktop app Pulsar (http://www.rogueamoeba.com/pulsar/)? They have been profiting off of Sirius and XM's streams for a lot longer than NiceMac and StarPlayr have (being that this is 15 bucks shareware up front and not reliant on ad clickthroughs), yet it seems to be still for sale and functional.
You would think that if Sirius told NiceMac they weren't allowed to use their streams as the reason that ALL of their applications were cancelled Pulsar would meet the same fate.
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Ralph Daily said 3:56PM on 3-12-2009
Utterer, that's a good point. I care much more about a desktop app than the iPhone. Actually Sirius was a partner with NiceMac on their desktop player which was much better than the Sirius branded one. I tried Pulsar and found it clunky, although I have enjoyed Airfoil and other apps by Rogue Amoeba. The best desktop app by far has been the long standing Nicemac Starplayr but I assume Nicemac will stop supporting it now. That's too bad, if all we are left with for the desktop is the Sirius app and Pulsar, we have lost ground.
neil said 8:02PM on 3-12-2009
Pardon my language, but it better as shit be free. The recent price increase as well as an elimination of free online listening for xm subscribers has me looking for alternatives.
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Rudy said 4:28PM on 3-12-2009
that app better be fucking flawless and cheap!
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Alex said 5:17PM on 3-12-2009
No, the app better be free (we know it will be far from flawless)
The real question is will they charge an Iphone fee on top of the monthly streaming fee (in ADDITION to the standard fee)?
i.e. $12.95/month for Sirius + $2.99/month Internet streaming fee + monthly iphone fee?
They started charging regular customers for Internet streaming, ludicrous just for the fact that their streams are buggy and often get stuck "Buffering..."
John Laur said 4:44PM on 3-12-2009
I cannot possibly imagine the logic of Sirius/XM not simply buying the application from Nicemac and releasing it.
Or maybe they did? Who knows what "This spring" means anyway.
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louisraffio said 5:41PM on 3-12-2009
I am in no means a brilliant business tycoon here, but is it just too obvious SiriusXM needs this app immediately....... Nicemac has it (as all reviews, comments so far have been rated excellent) WHY not just fly with Nicemac and reap the profits........ I must be missing something
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Nick said 7:55PM on 3-12-2009
All this so it can compete with Pandora?
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Cabbage said 10:07AM on 3-13-2009
>>All this so it can compete with Pandora?
Maybe if you only listen to music but 95% of my time is spent listening to Opie & Anthony and the comedy channels.
Tom said 1:52AM on 3-13-2009
I hope this includes XM subscribers as well. But really they should just merge the two products...
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freediverdude said 9:43AM on 3-13-2009
Too little, too late Sirius. I have a built-in Sirius player in the car, and I still cancelled the service. There's too many other choices now that are free if you have a smartphone. Especially on the iphone, like there's Pandora, streaming podcasts (including recent news, which has replaced talk radio for me), iPod, even streaming things from different websites. There's no way I'm going to pay $15/month or whatever on top of all that for Sirius.
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Ken said 2:16PM on 3-13-2009
I have been waiting for this for a long time. I'm really pissed that StarPlayer went away this week because it was a far superior client for listening to XM online than their own website.
Any idea what "Spring" translates to? Spring starts next week.
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Jindo Fox said 5:14PM on 3-16-2009
This is WAY too little, WAY too late in my opinion. Like #13 above, I have XM built into my car, but ever since the XM/Sirius merger, the channel options have been lame (very fun XM Fred became the boring/lousy First Wave, for example), the price has gone up, existing streaming options have been turned off, and we've heard empty promises like this software announcement. I had a hard time canceling my XM account but I'm not turning it back on now that I have an iPhone.
There are too many other superior alternatives on the iPhone to bother with anything from SiriusXM. Off the top of my head: Pandora, Slacker Radio (there's a great XM Fred knockoff on there), Last.fm, Stitcher, and other internet radio tuners -- not to mention the podcasts and albums you carry on your iPod/iPhone.
SiriusXM can't afford to give away anything for free, but they'll be laughed off the App Store if they try to charge a subscription fee for this.
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Jennifer Dajo said 1:33PM on 4-30-2009
Great point! The SIRIUS story is part of a new movie (stockshockmovie.com). FYI: I used coupon code: FREESHIP for free shipping of the DVD.
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