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.

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?

Thank you for contacting SIRIUS regarding whether or not there is a
SIRIUS iPhone application available. We are here to help! We
appreciate the time you have taken to contact us in regards to this
matter! We are happy to inform you that beginning June 18th a SIRIUS
Internet Radio application will be available at the Apple iTunes App-
Store for the iPhone and the iPod Touch! All Premium SIRIUS Internet
Radio subscribers will be able to download the application fromthe
Apple iTunes App-Store for free on their device and access the service
at no additional cost! Subscribers who are listening to the Basic
Online Service for free must first upgrade to the Premium Online
Service for $2.99 per month to access the application on the iPhone or
iPod Touch.

Guess we will see if this is true come Thursday. Until then let’s just hope it’s not a hoax.

Edit: According to http://twitter.com/gabespears this rumor is true. Although not 100% sure about the source.

Not sure if it will be released that day but there might be a good chance.

That is all for now. If I find out more I will post it up.

PS: Right now this is a rumor, I will confirm when I can.

Here is the App you will need: Pocket Tunes Radio $9.99

And here is how you do it:

http://www.normsoft.com/kb/idx/55/292/article/

Please note this is not the official Sirius XM Radio app. First this App costs $9.99 while the Sirius XM App will be free. Second it takes about 5-6 Steps to get to a station. Since we know nothing about the Sirius XM App this might not be a big deal.

For those of you that just can’t wait you may as well try this out if you really want Sirius on your iPhone.

Also since this is not an official App from Sirius there is no telling how long this will work or be available so you might be taking a chance on this one.

If you try it out leave a comment below to let others know what you think.

Nicemac also posted that they have a new Mac server installed and that private testing has begun on their internet radio station with coding started last week on StarPlayr 3.0 for Mac.

The above screen shot shows the new player with Howard 100 as a channel option. Since Howard 100 is a Sirius XM only channel Seeking Alpha believes that Sirius XM and Nicemac have begun a new Internet Radio venture to compete with free Internet sites such as Pandora.

More on this later, as of right now I still believe this to be a rumor.