So I groped the Slacker Portable last night. I’ve been hard on Slacker about how delayed its portable player has been. First it was supposed to be here by the end of the summer, then it was supposed to be here in December, then it got delayed again until the end of January. I hope it launches in the end of January like it’s supposed to because I don’t think it’ll be able to survive another delay.
The player itself is pretty nice — much, much lighter than I thought. The device I had in my hands isn’t the finished version, though, so there might still be some things missing from its innards.
There was another interesting player on the Slacker table from Logitech. Logitech has been adding Slacker support to many of its more recent Internet radio and streaming audio devices, so look for more and more of these to come out over the coming months. This one (I’m pretty sure) won’t handle direct to device downloads like the Slacker Portable. Rather, it’ll transfer music from your computer’s Slacker player software and stream it or transfer it, depending on whether or not it’s got built-in storage.
After the December delay, I canceled my Slacker preorder. That many delays are a bad sign for any company!
This Slacker looked like a great idea at the time – with all this delays – I start to think it might not be out ever – and even so it wont have any success at all.
Some things are worth waiting for. It Slacker makes good on it’s promises, then it will be worth the wait!
Slacker does not support use of existing MP3s on Macs. In addition, I used the Slacker online radio for 2 months in an attempt to pre-tune my stations, and found the web interface crowded and poorly designed. More importantly, the service just never seemed to key into my music preferences despite rating hundreds of songs, creating custom stations, and adding my artists as favorites.
Compare this to Pandora, which picked up on my music tastes rather quickly, while still introducing new music.
I like the Slacker idea. I just found the web player lack of usability and the device delays very off-putting.
So far the software player and web players have been solid. No issues. I have the portable player pre-ordered in the 2GB version. Customer Care said it can hold 1500 songs in its AACv2Plus format and maintain CD quality. Impressive. I sure hope it doesn’t get delayed again. Check out Slacker Social @ http://www.slackersocial.com They have a good fan following.
FlyTunes was announced at CES and appears to deliver what Slacker promises, except you don’t need to buy their player, and you don’t need to pay a monthly fee. It’s being marketed toward iPhone users, but can be used with any portable media player.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/01/07/flytunes-brings-internet-radio-to-your-iphone/
My wife and I both use the online radio and are crazy about it. The interface is just fine, superior to Pandora. Almost all their picks are just what I’m looking for. Can’t wait for the player.