Pandora vs. Slacker

TX WJ

Intelligent Donkey
Oct 15, 2008
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I was a Pandora fan, but after using Slacker for a while I love Slacker.

I have made some stations, and now after tweaking them I have them almost perfect.

I have trouble getting the desktop player to keep working, for that reason I just use the web browser.

I have made 8 stations so far, and I am loving how they are shaping up.
 

Jleimer

Active Member
Oct 30, 2008
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The one feature I wished Slacker had was the quick mix that Pandora does with their stations because you can listen to all of your stations at once , and spice it up a little.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
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This is my latest comparison after using both for awhile now.

Pandora is better in some ways, especially when it comes to being able to seed a few artist and it sort of picks up what you want from there. You can also select holiday tunes from their normal tunes in station creation. This ability is very much so missing from Slacker. However, with that said once you've used Slacker for a while you get a sense of how it works as well and can pretty much get close to what you can do on Pandora, though for calling itself Slacker I have to say Pandora allows me to be a much bigger Slacker. Also like I stated above the ability to listen to the quick mix is great. An example of this is I can mix Christmas Country, Christmas New Age, Christmas Christian, Christmas Traditional into a Christmas Shuffle Station and it is GREAT!

What ultimately sucked me into Slacker was the portable unit. Even though I do have Pandora on my iPod Touch, which I listen to almost every night. Since Slacker portable doesn't give me any means of doing a sleep mode, I have just come to the conclusion that my best bet is to use my ipod Touch with the Pandora Application. This works great! I also still like the Pandora New Age and Meditation Channels I created better than their Slacker versions, but mainly because absent from Slacker are many of the more deep new age and meditation artist. Also Pandora uses a lot of various artist albums to draw from and Slacker does not.

So there you have it, they both have their strenths but ultimately I use them in differently. I do find that Pandora repeats a lot more than Slacker and If Pandora had a device that allowed me to download their stations to talk with me on the go that would be great. But they seem to want to be a streaming service, where Slacker is about downloading content to the device and having it readily available on a device for playback. Fact is I enjoy them both and have a hard time just saying one is better than the other. But I give Slacker the edge due to the portable device and the fact that I don't need an always on live connection to the internet to listen.
 

hank-the-dwarf

Well-Known Member
Oct 12, 2008
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From Pandora's Blog.

At 10:04am this morning we hit 2,000,000 registered iPhone Pandora users!

We're hearing all sorts of wonderful feedback from listeners who are using it on their commute, jogging with it, plugging it into home audio systems...you name it. And as usual, offering all sorts of great feedback and suggestions. It's thrilling for us to see the broader vision for Pandora take shape. Our hearty thanks for your continued support and input.

It also makes us very happy to know that the 60,000+ artists in our collection are now getting played on car radios all across the country. Times they are a changin' ...

Thanks also to the iPhone and iTunes teams at Apple who have been, and continue to be, so helpful and supportive.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
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At 10:04am this morning we hit 2,000,000 registered iPhone Pandora users!

It also makes us very happy to know that the 60,000+ artists in our collection are now getting played on car radios all across the country. Times they are a changin' ...

This really is good news and Pandora was smart to jump on this bandwagon. If only you could download the music to take with you even when you don't have iPhone with data plan or in the case of the iPod Touch a wifi connection. I think this will continue to be a problem for them until the bridge this gap.
 

hank-the-dwarf

Well-Known Member
Oct 12, 2008
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This really is good news and Pandora was smart to jump on this bandwagon. If only you could download the music to take with you even when you don't have iPhone with data plan or in the case of the iPod Touch a wifi connection. I think this will continue to be a problem for them until the bridge this gap.
I asked someone that works there about a portable and was told that they are not devloping one and are concetrating on streaming.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
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I asked someone that works there about a portable and was told that they are not devloping one and are concetrating on streaming.

Yes and I think in the long term this will likely be the reason that Slacker will continue to move beyond them. Streaming is nice, but it leaves out a great many users that don't have an iPhone or other cellular device that is always connected to the internet.
 

Smith

New Member
Feb 16, 2009
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I have a Slacker G2, but would trade it in a second for a Pandora portable dedicated device, if such a thing existed. (I'm not going to buy an iPhone/iPod Touch/phone to listen to Pandora, and I want the thing to cache, not requiring a connection for anything other than loading music.)

I just personally prefer the music that Pandora throws at me on a station as I heart/ban.

Like others mentioned in previous posts, I emailed Pandora about this, and unfortunately they said "no plans for a dedicated device". :( Sure would like to be able to listen to Pandora away from a signal!
 
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Jon

Well-Known Member
Dec 16, 2008
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I like the fact that Pandora isn't tied down to a device, a certain satellite radio company could learn to take a cue from that.

I'm using Slacker/Pandora about 50/50 Nowadays. There are songs that one has that the other doesn't. I can hear Megadeth's '99 Ways to Die' on Slacker, but can't even get it to come up on Pandora. The interface on both is very slick, although the Slacker UI is easier to use on the iPhone than Pandora.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
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I like the fact that Pandora isn't tied down to a device, a certain satellite radio company could learn to take a cue from that.

You may like it, but I think to some degree it hurts them when compared to Slacker and the ability to download songs and use the device anywhere. Most folks aren't going to go out and buy an iPod, Iphone or Blackberry to get Pandora. However, if you have a reasonably price device they just might. I think Slacker has certainly done well with the G2, and with the Woot sell out of the G1's there are many dedidcated portables out there for Slacker.

I don't think having a dedicated device is the wrong move, provided you make it available on all the other platforms as well. Clearly Slacker right now has a clear advantage over Pandora. I'd listen to Pandora more if I didn't have to stream it.

I don't follow you with the satellite radio comment, except to say that there is a iPod/iPhone application being worked on now. Sat radio wouldn't work for most if it was not on a dedicated platform via their own tuners. It sure wouldn't work for me only streaming it via Wifi/Edge/G3. You admit you fight with getting it to work well in your vehicle as it is and I think most would grow very annoyed if that was the only option for sat radio as it is with Pandora.
 

Jon

Well-Known Member
Dec 16, 2008
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You may like it, but I think to some degree it hurts them when compared to Slacker and the ability to download songs and use the device anywhere. Most folks aren't going to go out and buy an iPod, Iphone or Blackberry to get Pandora. However, if you have a reasonably price device they just might. I think Slacker has certainly done well with the G2, and with the Woot sell out of the G1's there are many dedidcated portables out there for Slacker.

True, but most folks have those devices already. Pandora's listener numbers alone went up by 2 million after the iPhone app was released.

I don't think having a dedicated device is the wrong move, provided you make it available on all the other platforms as well. Clearly Slacker right now has a clear advantage over Pandora. I'd listen to Pandora more if I didn't have to stream it.

Yes, it's okay to have a dedicated device as long as you make it available to other devices with no restrictions. I'm waiting to see if they offer satellite radio as a stand-alone subscription with the new iPhone app like slacker has available, or if you have to be a current customer to use it. They'll be shooting themselves in the foot with their own gun if the latter is the case.


I don't follow you with the satellite radio comment, except to say that there is a iPod/iPhone application being worked on now. Sat radio wouldn't work for most if it was not on a dedicated platform via their own tuners. It sure wouldn't work for me only streaming it via Wifi/Edge/G3. You admit you fight with getting it to work well in your vehicle as it is and I think most would grow very annoyed if that was the only option for sat radio as it is with Pandora.

It wasn't Pandora's fault (or slacker's for that matter) that it didn't work well, it was the FM Transmitter not being made for the iPhone. I'd like to have it be where I can plug it into an AUX connection on the radio, but that's not feasible now. I have other options. Satellite radio has a problem with availability, you either have to buy the equipment, or stream it online with no access to the full channel lineup. That's the problem with a lot of technologies today. If you can make access available to as many platforms as possible (Slacker already has iPhone, iPod touch and Blackberry as well as their own player AND online) the better off you'll be. I almost wish Slacker had gone with the refresh by satellite option since that would have steered me toward a G2 that I can refresh while playing in the car.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
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True, but most folks have those devices already. Pandora's listener numbers alone went up by 2 million after the iPhone app was released.

Not too bad, but the rumor is that Slacker has over 6 millions users registered for their service and how many of them subscriber I don't know, but I would bet it is a hell of lot more than are subscribed to Pandora.

Yes, it's okay to have a dedicated device as long as you make it available to other devices with no restrictions. I'm waiting to see if they offer satellite radio as a stand-alone subscription with the new iPhone app like slacker has available, or if you have to be a current customer to use it. They'll be shooting themselves in the foot with their own gun if the latter is the case.

Slacker has zero content that they don't have rights to make available via the Internet, which is likely why they don't have talk programming. If you do not have the rights to make something available via Internet streaming, you simply can't do it, which happens to be the case with much of Sirius XM's content. So there has to be some restrictions. Do you honestly think Sirius XM is going to allow folks that have an iPod Touch, iPhone, Blackberry to gain access to the service for free? They are a subscription based service, that is their business model and their primary delivery method is satellites. This is not something they are going to just change overnight. Satellites right now is still the best method for what Sirius XM offers and I've seen nothing in the way of streaming rather G3/Wifi or otherwise that would indicated any different. I think they would be shooting themselves in the foot to make their content available for free.

I almost wish Slacker had gone with the refresh by satellite option since that would have steered me toward a G2 that I can refresh while playing in the car.

I doubt this will ever see the light of day as it simply isn't necessary. If you have a G2 you have plenty of content so that refreshing is just not something you need to do while going down the road. Clearly this was something they evaluated and came to that conclusion about because now you see NOTHING mentioned about this. Even truckers who would even remotely be the only folks needing this type of ability due to being on the road so much can refresh their channel at most truck stops while fueling, taking a shower and getting a meal.
 

topcats69

New Member
Jan 12, 2009
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besides wifi is almost everywhere know and much less money. Even in some rest stops on the interstate have wifi.
 

Jon

Well-Known Member
Dec 16, 2008
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Not too bad, but the rumor is that Slacker has over 6 millions users registered for their service and how many of them subscriber I don't know, but I would bet it is a hell of lot more than are subscribed to Pandora.

Oh I don't doubt it for a second. But there were that many additions to Pandora when the app came out. I can only imagine what the numbers are like for Slacker.



Slacker has zero content that they don't have rights to make available via the Internet, which is likely why they don't have talk programming. If you do not have the rights to make something available via Internet streaming, you simply can't do it, which happens to be the case with much of Sirius XM's content. So there has to be some restrictions. Do you honestly think Sirius XM is going to allow folks that have an iPod Touch, iPhone, Blackberry to gain access to the service for free? They are a subscription based service, that is their business model and their primary delivery method is satellites. This is not something they are going to just change overnight. Satellites right now is still the best method for what Sirius XM offers and I've seen nothing in the way of streaming rather G3/Wifi or otherwise that would indicated any different. I think they would be shooting themselves in the foot to make their content available for free.

I'm not saying ALL their content. I'm saying add a few channels that might get someone to subscribe (if there are any left) and want more. Podcast highlights from the Howard Stern Show. Get people to hear what you have so they'll want to investigate further. It would also help that they make it a lot more interactive, but I don't see that happening.


I doubt this will ever see the light of day as it simply isn't necessary. If you have a G2 you have plenty of content so that refreshing is just not something you need to do while going down the road. Clearly this was something they evaluated and came to that conclusion about because now you see NOTHING mentioned about this. Even truckers who would even remotely be the only folks needing this type of ability due to being on the road so much can refresh their channel at most truck stops while fueling, taking a shower and getting a meal.

I don't see it either, for the reasons you mentioned. And there aren't a whole lot of places that don't have Wifi nowadays. I have it at home, and no one I know doesn't have it, so it's not like it isn't available.