xm radio posts

After all the bad news about the NiceMac StarPlayr application for the iPhone, Sirius Buzz, a web site that tracks the goings on in satellite radio, says they have it on good authority that a free player is coming from Sirius/XM directly.

Without citing specific sources, the author of the post says the player is going to be released 'very shortly'. The article implies that Sirius/XM, knowing their own app was coming, nixed the NiceMac solution.

That will be welcome news for the hordes of people who want an iPhone-based solution to listen to Sirius and XM. In particular, a lot of Howard Stern fans want to listen on the go, and an iPhone solution would be just the ticket.

With new car sales falling off a cliff, and the Sirius/XM merger not the financial panacea it was supposed to be, the nation's only satellite radio service could use a little positive buzz. Thousands of subscribers signing up for streaming could be a good thing for the company and subscribers.

Of course, all this could be a baseless rumor, but keep watching this space for more.

Via Sirius Buzz

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.

Subscribers to Sirius XM satellite radio have reasons to be thankful on Thanksgiving Day next week: it appears that an iPhone app called "StarPlayr" will be coming soon.

There's a thread in the SternFanNetwork forums about receiving Sirius XM on the iPhone, and forum member JJRousseau, who is apparently an employee of developer NiceMac, LLC, pointed everyone to the StarPlayr website. StarPlayr currently makes a Mac player and is hard at work on the iPhone app. JJRousseau noted in the forum that "[t]he iPhone is our first priority, but it has taken longer than expected getting licensing worked out for the iPhone Client. As soon as the business side of iPhone version is worked out, you'll be able to purchase StarPlayr for iPhone at the App Store."

The feature set sounds impressive, with Sirius and/or XM content streams, album art, iTunes WiFi purchase links, lyrics, and favorites lists. No release date or pricing has been set for the app at this time.

Thanks to Rymon for the tip!

[via iPhoneSavior]