The much-anticipated Sirius XM Premium application for the iPhone is here and I had a chance to put it through its paces. The application is well designed, conforming to traditional design standards of an iPhone application. When you launch the program you are greeted with a variety of genres (called categories) from pop to showcase and upon choosing one you are greeted with a list of stations.
If you click on a station, it begins to play. If you click on the small arrow on the right portion of the station you are greeted with more information on the station and the name of the current song as well as the artist.
There is a pause button which I found surprising as the Sirius PC-based app only has a stop button. When using the pause button on a number of stations it seems it is actually a stop button masquerading as a pause button. The settings allow you to show blocked channels and add on-screen volume control.
This app is joins a crowded field of competitors from Slacker to last.FM and Pandora. Unlike Pandora and Slacker, this application works outside the US. So far I had a chance to test it in France.
The app is free and if you have a Sirius or XM account you can listen without having to pay anything. It is worth a download. You can get it here.
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There is a pretty big incorrect statement in your review. The app itself is free, but the service is a paid service ($2.99/month) on both XM and Sirius. The app has a great design and is pretty fast, however (and this is a HUGE however), they left out the biggest channels that they company offers. They chose to not include the channels that over 60% of their listeners listen to, Howard Stern, MLB and NFL channels.
I believe this will be the reason that the app will not be successful because they're asking their listeners to pay an additional $2.99 for channels that are pretty much just music public talk shows that you can get elsewhere. Do yourself a favor and download Pandora and listen to the same music. This seems like the executives at SiriusXM just didn't want this app to be successful.
The reason Howard and the others are not on there is, they don't have rights to do so YET!
If it is not that popular then why is it number 2 on the overall free app and number 1 for free music downloads?
I can't wait to get my I-phone and listen to 120 channels of entertainment!