Yeah you can get the Application on your iPhone for free but you are SOL if you do not subscribe to the Sirius Premium Internet Streaming. They do offer a 7 Day free trial and I’m sure a good percentage of users are using that but what about after that 7 days are up?

Do we really see people sticking with the app when there are other Radio/Music app’s out there that are not only 100% free but Honestly a overall better application.

I really think Sirius bombed on this one big time. When they showed this app to investors a few weeks ago there was a screen shot of Stern Playing in the app, so apparently this was a bad decision/mistake or Sirius XM duped investors.

I suggest Sirius figure out a way to add Stern and also an option to offer limited stations for Free, this would be way better then someone downloading the app only to figure out they need to drop another $3 to hear music on a device that plays music 99 different ways.

This is really a rant but it’s true and while the App is listed high on iTunes I only se this lasting a short time once people figure out nothing is ever free when it comes to Sirius XM.

I’m putting together a short survey to gather thoughts about this App, check back here in a few after I post an Update.

Survey Link Here

So far after using it I have not experienced any crashes or stability issues.

When you first start the application you are prompted to sign in to your Sirius/XM account, you must have a Premium Online Subscription to use this Application, if you want a free 7 day trial visit this link.

After signing into the app you will be presented with a loading screen while the app downloads the initial content (stations, images) it says it will take up to one minute to download and it took a little under that to finish.

After that screen you are then taken to the categories section where you can browse for stations by Genre. Nothing much to this screen.

Clicking on a category will bring you to the Channels section where you can browse individual channels. I think this part is much nicer and easier to navigate and really makes the Categories sections useless. I did notice at times that browsing the Channel section was a little slow.

Channel section is above. Clicking on a channel will start playing that station. Clicking on the blue arrow will take you to the station description page.

From here you can click play now to listen to the station.

At any time if you want to add a station as a favorite or purchase a track you hear just press the area I have marked in Red above. The favorites is really cool but the ability to Buy a track in iTunes directly from your phone is a really great feature. Also while in your favorite section all you need to do is click on the station and it starts playing this is great for anyone that only has certain stations they listen to and don’t want to bother messing with searching around.

Clicking on the arrow will bring up the station logo, I assume in the future there will be more things to see here but right now it’s plain. I’m assuming album artwork or other interactive media will be included soon.

Buying a track in the app is really simple. You can buy now or Add the song to your shopping cart. I really like that.

Here is the song in my shopping cart.

So the app has only been out for a few hours and minus a few missing stations I’m liking what I see so far. Hopefully in the future the station info will become more dynamic/interactive. I really like the purchasing features and It’s also probably great for Apple and Sirius since they link directly to iTunes. Another great feature is the fade out of the music when leaving the app. Something really simple but I really enjoyed it.

The stations load pretty fast on my WIFI connection but have not tested on 3G, if anyone can test it out post in the comments below. For right now everything seems good. Hopefully they can figure out something with the missing stations since that seems to be turing off allot of listeners.

I will use the app some more and report if there are any updates. Sirius XM already released an update this morning for 1st Gen Touch users.

No word on if Stern will eventually become available but still looking into it.

Yeah you heard that right, the one thing 90% of the people wanting the App for is not to be seen.

This is taken from the FAQ:

Why don’t certain channels appear on my iPhone / iPod Touch?
SIRIUS & XM offer all of the channels for which we have mobile
performance rights. For that reason, certain channels which may be
available on your satellite radio or online radio service may not be
available on a mobile device like the iPhone.

Some select programming, including MLB® Play-by-Play, NFL Play-by-
Play, SIRIUS NASCAR® Radio, and Howard Stern, will not be available on
the iPhone and iPod touch. Listeners will continue to be able to
access that programming through the platforms they are currently
offered on.

Second issue is that there is no support for 1st Generation iPod Touch users. Seems kinda weird.

Will report on this Tomorrow, until then will just need to wait and see what is up.

According to a source you will need to have the Best of Sirius to get Stern on the App. Can anyone confirm this?

SIRIUSXMPremiumOnline

Will test it out for a while and post updates as I use it.

Go get it everyone, it’s free, even includes a free 7 Day Trial.

Update: App will not work on 1st generation Touch.