App Store<\/a>] is darker. Both applications look great, and it really is a tie between the two.<\/p>\nFeatures<\/strong><\/p>\nIn general, both applications have the same amount of usability as their web-based siblings, with the exception of playing in the background which is limited by the iPhone’s SDK. But as with both, there’s methods of bookmarking and “liking” (or disliking) songs and artists.<\/p>\n
For example, in Pandora there’s options for bookmarking songs and\/or artists, but also giving a song a thumbs up or thumbs down to fine-tune your station. But Slacker’s system is different in which the dislike button, represented by a ‘circle cross-out’, gives you the option to ban either the song or the artist. This is a nice feature because, frankly, there’s times I’ll dislike the artist completely but Pandora will keep playing songs from them.<\/p>\n
Honestly, Pandora doesn’t have a lot of features that Slacker doesn’t, except for one major one: bookmarking. In music-discovery services like this, I feel this is almost mandatory. I’m quite surprised it doesn’t have this, and I found myself wanting it in several circumstances. This might be a complete turn-off for some.<\/p>\n
<\/center><\/p>\nHowever, there’s a few features that Slacker has that Pandora doesn’t. Slacker has preset stations from a variety of different genres, and even sub-genres (Rock & Classic Rock, Folk Rock, Soft Rock, etc.). These are sometimes preferred over the custom stations as they’re broader but still stay within your tastes. There’s also one major feature that sets it apart, and that’s the “fine-tune” feature. You can tweak any station, even ones included as presets, to make it play the way you want. For example, if you don’t like that they’re playing music you’ve never heard of, you can set how far off the beaten path you’d like to go, or even to just the most popular hits of today.<\/p>\n
<\/center><\/p>\nMusic<\/strong><\/p>\nBoth services have a vast library of music that it can suggest to you or that you can name as a starting point. Although, in my experience of trying to add a few lesser-known bands, I found Pandora’s library was just a tad bigger. Music played in great quality in both applications over Wi-Fi and 3G, but took an extremely long time connecting to Edge, especially Slacker (ironic?), though it could be also that the area I’m testing in has a slow connection.<\/p>\n
Pandora’s music discovery seemed to be more on the path of “We think<\/em> you’ll like this,” and less “We know<\/em> you’ll like this.” This choice seems obvious if you’re willing to take this risk and reach out to discover more music. But if you’re less willing, Slacker’s selections seem to be more on-par with the band you’ve chosen as a starting point, especially if you use the “fine-tune” feature I mentioned earlier. But both services overall had given me some great songs and bands that I had never heard before but loved.<\/p>\nOther Notes<\/strong><\/p>\nSome other things that should be noted are moderately small, but not unnoticeable in the least. Both apps have advertisements; Pandora’s ads pop-up at the bottom over the album art and can be clicked back off (ie YouTube), and Slacker’s ads come in the form of 30 or 15-second audio commercials (45 seconds total per hour). Also, you can only skip 6 songs at one time in both apps (I believe within an hour) which happens in few situations. A suggestion if this is happening is starting a new station with an artist you like that has a much more specific sound.<\/p>\n
<\/center><\/p>\nBut<\/em> one thing that should also be noted is the option for a paid account on Slacker (Pandora doesn’t have this option) that cuts ads, skip limits, and song request limits. This option is available for $3.99 a month.<\/p>\nConclusion<\/strong><\/p>\nI’ve used both apps online in the web-based player for awhile now, long before I had an iPhone, but keep in mind I’m not in any way biased towards either app. If anything, I’m biased towards Pandora because I’ve been using it for a good deal longer than Slacker. But I have to admit that when Slacker came along, I was wowed with its features but also missed one or two that Pandora offered.<\/p>\n
But overall, I have to say that the Slacker app’s unique interface is preferred over Pandora’s, even without the Apple-based coverflow feature. The preset stations are also a big part of it’s success in winning me over, as they tend to let me discover more music in different parts of a certain genre. Also, like I noted above, its selection of music seems more spot-on and not just music that relates to what I like in strange and distant ways.<\/p>\n
But that doesn’t mean that you might personally like Pandora better. Its way in finding music seems much more advanced and explains to you better the ways that what’s currently playing relates to the music you like. And like I said, if bookmarking artists and\/or songs is a must, and you can let everything else that Slacker offers go, then Pandora is the one for you.<\/p>\n
In general, you can make your own decision as both apps are free and available in the App Store now.<\/p>\n
Enjoy!<\/p>\n
Please note that I’m aware there’s also Last FM, but I was never really ‘wowed’ with their service as it doesn’t seem quite as straight-forward as these two applications.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[ Brought to you by RF Contributor: ChaseO ] Custom radio is a great way to discover music that you could be interested in. Users define what they like and dislike, and the service streams music that suits their tastes. The most popular service by far is Pandora. The web-based application has been around for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,16,17],"tags":[1404,3500,4,134,1406,1403,3501,346,1407,1405,1408],"class_list":["post-6544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-app-store","category-iphone","category-ipod","tag-chasetastic","tag-app-store","tag-apple","tag-applications","tag-battle-of","tag-chase","tag-iphone","tag-ipod-touch","tag-pandora","tag-radio","tag-slacker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6544"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6587,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6544\/revisions\/6587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}