XM radio app for sports, music, other commercial-free entertainment finds foothold on new platform
Sirius XM Radio announced on Friday the availability of its new
app for Android-powered smartphones.
Joining existing apps for BlackBerry and iPhone, the new Android app delivers 120 channels of commercial-free music in addition to sports and talk shows, news, and entertainment.
Thanks to Android's built-in multitasking capability, users can tune into XM radio while surfing the Web or playing around with other apps on their phone. Browsing categories, surfing channels, and saving favorite stations are all central functions to Sirius' app.
Though the app is free and comes packaged with a week-long free subscription, users will have to sign up for a Premium Online subscription to continue using the app.
Current Sirius subscribers or XM subscribers need only add the
Premium Internet Radio service, which costs an added $3 to their existing plans. Users can also sign up for the Premium Online service alone, at some unnamed cost.
For strict music fans, Sirius may have some trouble attracting new customers away from old favorites like Pandora and Last.fm, which offer Android apps that allow users to listen to free streaming radio anytime. (Those services do include commercials between blocks of songs, but do not currently offer any paid, commercial-free alternatives.)
Steven Loeb