MOG radio

Bandit 5160

Member
Oct 31, 2008
323
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MOG radio is pretty neat. It lets you listen to exactly the songs you want to listen to (provided they are in their library). They have a pretty nice selection, though there are some omissions. And you can use MOG with a Roku as well.
 

MikeJW

Member
Oct 27, 2008
92
18
8
i agree. im in a 2 week trial with MOG right now and i like it better than spotify. the audio quality of MOG is very good (better than rhapsody, napster, and even spotify) and i also like that even if you only subscribe to the computer only plan, you get the high quality audio. in spotify, you have to subscribe to the more expensive plan to get the better audio. i'm one of those people who does like having a desktop application and right now MOG doesn't have one, but I heard it's in the works, so we'll see.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
9,434
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I would not hold my breath about any time tables MOG gives. I've been a MOG subscriber for almost a year and they have never made any of the targeted dates. I did try Spotify and found it to work very well, great iOS app and they have desktop support for both Windows and Mac. However, there iOS app was not without issues and it was the deciding factor for me to cancel within 30 days.

Personally I've tried all these services and it all really depends on how you use them as to which is really the best. In terms of using an App on a smart phone especially iOS Rhapsody is the clear winner because there app is pretty mature. MOG by far is the absolute worse, as you can't create playlist, you can't edit playlist and in fact there isn't much you can do with there iOS app. However, there new beta web player is pretty nice, but again no context menu when you start typing artist names. You have to spell everything out full. Drives me nuts! There list of like artist is very poor when building playlist as well. In fact in building playlist the amount of work necessary is horrible in comparison to even Slacker, which does offer context menus, check marks on the artist you've already added to prevent duplication of artist.

I'd say MOG sound quality is probably the best, but boy if you are downloading those huge files to a device for caching you better be ready to spend a day. If all you are doing is streaming then it is fine.

So, again which service is best all depends on how you use it. Desktop streaming... MOG Is great. iOS App the worst of all the rest of the services, from Slacker, Napster, Rhapsody and Spotify.

Oh one other thing, hand down Rhapsody has the best library around, MOG still needs some work, but there library is certainly decent and better than Slacker's on-demand library. I will say that Lauren with MOG handles there music library, is pretty good about getting music if you request it. Though it sometimes takes her months. One that she has worked on for me is Liquid Mind. Every other service has Liquid Mind, but MOG can't seem to get this artist. Liquid Mind is one of my favorite New Age artist.

Anyway... that is my take.
 

MikeJW

Member
Oct 27, 2008
92
18
8
MOG is now my music on demand service of choice. they just released an app for squeezebox radio this week and it's fantastic. easy to use and great audio quality. also, the ipod app was updated recently, with another big update getting set to release in the next month. so with the best audio quality of any service, new app for squeezebox, updated ipod app, and the artist only channel feature, MOG has been declared the winner for me. if you haven't checked it out or haven't used it lately, give it a shot.

edit: also, forgot to mention, the MOG desktop app for windows is being finished and will also release before the end of 2011. the app for mac is already out. :)
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
9,434
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Can you create and edit playlist on the fly with MOG yet via their iOS App? Do they have an iPad App yet? Last I tried after canceling (they send me a 30 day trial) this was still not available and there is also no library management built into the app. They do have great sound quality! I never used the artist only channel feature generally turned that off because if you want to create a radio like experience you just can't be Slacker.

I have used all these services and in fact doing another free trial of Spotify now and they have improved greatly in terms of there iOS app. Rdio though is still my favorite on-demand and while the SQ might not be as good, all the other features make it worth it. iPad option, creating playlist and editing playlist on the fly via the iOS app, along with collections that create a library of downloaded music that you don't really want in a playlist, but they are sorted in the library by artist, songs or album. This is so nice and a feature I'd find hard to give up. They also work with Squeezebox from what I understand! There windows and mac software works great, but they also have a web based app that works well too. One thing I will say is that Rdio has one of the easiest and best playlist creation setup of any of these services HANDS DOWN! They also have Facebook and Twitter connectivity for those interested in social networking. Sharing playlist etc.

If SQ is a main issue then clearly MOG is best though Spotify has a good many songs that are encoded at higher bitrate too.

Glad you are happy with MOG, they are a good service, I am not knocking them. They just doesn't meet my needs in the way that Rdio has in the last few months.

By the way Rdio is not Radio.com two different services!
 

MikeJW

Member
Oct 27, 2008
92
18
8
i can tell you, that yes, the update coming to the ipod app in the next month is including the ability to create/edit playlists, so im looking forward to that.

i havent tried rdio. glad you like the service. it's cool that these things keep improving.

i'm a former napster subscriber and have used spotify, rhapsody, slacker, and now MOG. MOG is my definite favorite and i think i'll be staying with them.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
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Mike, MOG just sent me a 30 day trial email! hehehe :) I am such a junkie when it comes to these music service.
 

MikeJW

Member
Oct 27, 2008
92
18
8
haha, nice. it would be great if the ipod app update is released during your 30 days. enjoy your trial and let me know what you think.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
9,434
149
63
Louisiana
haha, nice. it would be great if the ipod app update is released during your 30 days. enjoy your trial and let me know what you think.

I used MOG a great deal this weekend! The app is certainly more stable than it use to be by far. I still have some issues though with the lay-out. It is way to busy (nothing I can't live with), but when you click on a playlist, instead of it clearing the previous playlist it just adds more stuff to it. This is the only Music App that does that out of all the music services. I don't get the reason for it. If I am selecting another playlist, I want to hear that playlist now, not just add on to the existing one. You can hold your finger down on the playlist though had then select to replace the current playlist. So it would just take a bit of getting use too. Also there is a limit of 200 songs on playlist when syncing, so if you have more than 200 songs, it will cache the first 200 only and just leave the rest off the list. They claim they do this for stabilization reasons. Also the now playing is hard to come by, with this busy interface they seem to have overlooked this except for on one screen, so you have to like go through screens to get back to now playing.

I see you can download albums now too and make use of there library this is a big advantage over Spotify, which only has a staring system. You star it and it shows up in a folder, but there is no library type setup that keeps it orderly like with MOG.

Rdio just updated there app again and it introduced two bugs that are driving me crazy. One is that if you pause for a period of time and come back, instead of picking up where it left off. It starts the track over again. The other is that for some reason my playlist aren't staying cached. I've gone off a few times to discover that perhaps a song or two out of each playlist needed to be re-downloaded, so this makes the whole playlist unplayable. It has happened several times, so this is a real bug.

Sound quality wise I have to really say MOG has them all beat. I just wish they would add the ability very soon to be able to create, add too and edit playlist via the iOS MOG app. Overall I am really pleased with MOG. None of these apps and services are going to be perfect. You just have to pick the one that works best for you.

I had pretty much settled on Rdio till this last update introduced these bugs. I have not had the service long enough to know how long it takes them to fix stuff like this. But I don't have a very high tolerance! :)

Oh and did you know that to sign up for Spotify now you must have a Facebook account. That is crazy!
 

dualsub2006

Member
Nov 11, 2008
172
5
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I started a MOG trial over the weekend. The Android app is nothing special, but it's ok.

The sound quality is the best, but not that much better than Spotty. No way to create or save a playlists, but I really like that when you do an artist search you can view playlists that include the artist or song you searched for.

It seems like a fine music service so far, but unless I can find a way around a few flaws that I see I'm sticking to Spotify for now.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
9,434
149
63
Louisiana
I started a MOG trial over the weekend. The Android app is nothing special, but it's ok.

The sound quality is the best, but not that much better than Spotty. No way to create or save a playlists, but I really like that when you do an artist search you can view playlists that include the artist or song you searched for.

It seems like a fine music service so far, but unless I can find a way around a few flaws that I see I'm sticking to Spotify for now.

Hey dual, thanks for the share! Can you tell us a bit more about what specific few flaws you found so we can compare notes?

I agree with you that Spotify and MOG for the most part have very similar sound quality on most tracks. I think MOG probably has more high quality tracks than Spotify. One of Spotify's biggest shortcomings is no library built into the computer and/or mobile apps. That staring thing just blows compared to a real library. MOG and Rdio both have real means of sorting your music into a library by artist, albums, songs.
 

dualsub2006

Member
Nov 11, 2008
172
5
18
My gripes with MOG:

1. Didn't scan my phone for local tracks. I've got a lot of good stuff on my memory card and I can't mix it in to a MOG playlists.
2. No playlists. I can't save shared playlists from a search and I can't create a new playlist.
3. My personal iTunes library doesn't show anywhere. Spotty shows what they have license to in the mobile app.
4. No inbox. I may be the only father of grown children that shares their musical interests nearly entirely. We send each other tracks all the time.
5. No stars. I know you don't care for them, but I use like a honeydo list of tracks or artists to give a listen to. From there, it makes a playlists or it gets cut.

I am only talking about the Android app here and I do like MOG, but I think if I drop Spotty I'll be giving Rdio a twirl next.

Spotty has more new releases from the record labels that I like than Rdio does, but Rdio has the Sub Pop stuff and Spotty doesn't.

It's a tough call because all three are great, but I'd rank them 1. Spotty 2. Rdio and 3. MOG.

And any way that you want to slice this pie, I'm much happier with any one of them over XM.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
9,434
149
63
Louisiana
Thanks again dual, I think some of those are just personal preferences (that is what this is all about), but you are correct in that MOG doesn't support any of those things.

I've never used the inbox to be honest didn't have a clue what it was and always wished I could just get rid of it. LOL

The staring thing is nice as you said for marking stuff, which I like to do occasionally, but just don't find it as good as having the ability to use a library.

I did do the iTunes match thing in Spotty, but it was rather messy, but I did find by just using certainly directories I was able to just have the rare music that I wanted in my library without it including my whole iTunes library.

Spotify shortcomings for me;

1. Will occasionally drop songs from playlist and force you to re-download them. Not sure about this one, but see it mentioned in there help forums a lot.
2. No library, so if I want to save an album without putting in in a playlist, I am out of luck.
3. Having everything show up in the starred folder end up being a big old jumbled up mess because there is no way to sort it by artist, album or songs.
4. Library, I have not been that delighted by Spotty's library overall. I listen to a lot of new age music and they are very lacking in that area, almost as bad as Slacker is. Rdio and MOG kicks there butt in this genre.
5. iOS5 App still has some crashing issues, this app has really not been very reliable since they came to the US. It has improved though and eventually they will ge there if Apple will quit upgrading there OS. LOL

I would rank these services like this and this is based on user experience and library for my person preference.

1. Mog, 2. Rdio, 3, Spot (So you and I just swap 1 and 3. hehehe

One thing I will say is that MOG's iOS app is way too busy, no easy way to get back to now playing, though you can it just takes multiple taps on the screen to get there. Rdio's app now playing screen is always nestled in a tiny window at the bottom of the display. Quick and easy to always get back to what is playing.

The bottom line is that none of these things are perfect, but as you said when it comes to music they are far cry better than Sirius XM.

I can find negatives and positives with all of them. I am just hoping Rdio drops an update soon to fix those two issues I mentioned early because I may be tempted to give my $9.99 to MOG this next month until they do get it fixed. Even though I rated MOG higher than Rdio I did that purely bases on sound quality. I still prefer Rdio as an overall service.
 

MikeJW

Member
Oct 27, 2008
92
18
8
DAB, im glad to hear you're enjoying MOG and that you've seen a difference in the app since last time you used it. I've been getting word out to my friends and several other people have now switched to MOG. I'm loving it. I mainly listen now through my Squeezebox Boom and the squeezebox app and sound quality is amazing. I hope you continue to enjoy it and I'm looking forward to the upcoming ipod app update.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
9,434
149
63
Louisiana
DAB, im glad to hear you're enjoying MOG and that you've seen a difference in the app since last time you used it. I've been getting word out to my friends and several other people have now switched to MOG. I'm loving it. I mainly listen now through my Squeezebox Boom and the squeezebox app and sound quality is amazing. I hope you continue to enjoy it and I'm looking forward to the upcoming ipod app update.

I spent a bit more time doing library comparisons and there is little doubt that MOG has the better library too. When I had previously subscribed to MOG I had sent in a lot of request to Laurie the girl that handles music request. I got a little frustrated because much of the new age music I request seem to never be added. Well low and behold it seems Laurie got about 90 percent of it added now. This was a sweet find!

I do appreciate your information and though I've not decided just yet, I may end up with MOG again. I've not had any luck getting any answers from Rdio on there bug issues that were introduced in the last iOS app update. I also discovered that with Rdio if you tell it to sync to your mobile then it does this on all the iDevices you have. MOG will only sync what you tell it to on each device. So that is a much better option.

Thanks again!