[Macworld]

Post your comments for Review: Internet radio apps for iPhone here

[mkmcfr]

Concerning the Pandora service, I am an American citizen who spends a lot of time out of the country. I have a US address and credit card. I have no problem ordering music and videos on the US iTunes store wherever I am in the world. Whenever I try to use Pandora, I get a message saying that I am not in the US and therefore the service is not accessible. I find this particularly stupid, since I just installed the Last FM app and it works beautifully and the sound is fantastic. Therefore, Pandora can take their service and stick it in their globalized ear.

[nom]

The idea of a readion station moulded to one's tastes is clever but full scale internet radio with a choice of genre works best for me as I like everything from classical to trance electronice and heavy via bluegrass, folk and ambient.
there's no way I'd want to listen to a mish-mash of all of that intermittently from one stream.
it all depends on my mood/the time of day or what i'm doing whilst playing music.
I love Tuner for my iPhone as I, at last have a huge choice of internet radio in my lounge - something I've wanted for some time and was close to paying a lot of money for in the past year.
so now I can have old style jazz from KJAZ when relaxing - or switch to Philosomatika or Seceret Agent for driving techno when gaming
the dock which came with the iPhone has an audio out port which I connect to my hi-fi and a travel charger plugged from dock into socket means the phone is charging at same time - perfect!

[ibeetle]

The surprises the author likes about Pandora can be a double edge sword and is what I do not like about the service. If you tell them you like The Beatles you get two Beatles songs then everything but The Beatles for two weeks.
A lot of people give Tuner a hard time for being a paid app. It really is worth it. Until (unless) Live365 comes out with their own app where else can you find Gong, Talking Heads, Club 977 Networks, and a dozen old time radio stations? All in your pocket.
With the iPod Touch and iPhone the portable Satellite Radio market might just be producing anal bricks.
The fact that all these are low or no cost means you can and should download them all. It won't hurt anything and as I have found their are stations on each service that are not on the other services.

[Macalways]

mkmcfr said:

Concerning the Pandora service, I am an American citizen who spends a lot of time out of the country. I have a US address and credit card. I have no problem ordering music and videos on the US iTunes store wherever I am in the world. Whenever I try to use Pandora, I get a message saying that I am not in the US and therefore the service is not accessible. I find this particularly stupid, since I just installed the Last FM app and it works beautifully and the sound is fantastic. Therefore, Pandora can take their service and stick it in their globalized ear.

Great attitude.

Perhaps simply getting your butt out of your * and you would have seen this message?

"Dear Pandora Visitor,

We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

We believe that you are in Canada (your IP address appears to be 24.137.195.83). If you believe we have made a mistake, we apologize and ask that you please contact us at pandora-support@pandora.com

If you are a paid subscriber, please contact us at pandora-support@pandora.com and we will issue a pro-rated refund to the credit card you used to sign up. If you have been using Pandora, we will keep a record of your existing stations and bookmarked artists and songs, so that when we are able to launch in your country, they will be waiting for you.

We will be notifying listeners as licensing agreements are established in individual countries. If you would like to be notified by email when Pandora is available in your country, please enter your email address below. The pace of global licensing is hard to predict, but we have the ultimate goal of being able to offer our service everywhere.

We share your disappointment and greatly appreciate your understanding?"

http://www.pandora.com/restricted

[waveracr]

I think this review is on the money regarding the features and relative stability of last.fm and Pandora. With all that, I still prefer last.fm over Pandora in terms of the recommendation engine, and the playlist sharing and general social networking features on the web seem more well thought-out. Pandora does explain why it chooses certain artists/tracks, but that doesn't make those choices any less peculiar too much of the time.
But the Pandora guys are good guys, and their app does seem more well behaved as an iphone app.

[kostby]

Isn't technology wonderful???
You can ALMOST replace a $12. Chinese AM/FM radio/CD player with a Chinese iPhone, for $199. down plus $59.99 a month!
So what will happen to all the 'free' stuff on the internet, including TV and radio when the internet finally gets TAXED* (probably metered and taxed according to bandwidth), and you suddenly have to pay subscriber fees to get what has been 'free' for so long?
*If you think that nearly every local, state, and Federal government agency isn't looking for whole new untapped revenue stream, you haven't read the newsfeeds lately!

[Jason Snell]

I think the point is, most Internet music services provide content that's not available on the AM/FM dials. I'd be happy to tune in Radio Paradise on an FM radio... but it doesn't broadcast there. It only broadcasts on radioparadise.com, so that's where I listen to it.

[mkmcfr]

Yeah, that's cool, but why can I listen to Radio Paradise from anywhere in the world, last FM and iTunes (the American store) but only Pandora tells me that there is a distribution rights problem if I am outside the country? I know this is a problem that doesn't affect most of you, but is the deal with globalization, if an American can't listen to American radio wherever he happens to be? Anyway, too bad for Pandora, if that is the way they want to do it. They good get hip and say to the record companies, "this guy has an American zip code, he should be able to listen to his own radio stations." But, I am sure there is another forum for this.

[TheBum]

I bought Tuner and couldn't be happier. I don't know about the other apps, but Tuner allows me to open arbitrary MP3 streams. There are a few stations not in the normal internet radio directories that stream my alma mater's football games, which is the only way I can listen to them since I live two states away. I just plugged in the URL for the main station I use and it started coming through loud and clear, even on the EDGE network.

[Jason Snell]

Pandora's not quite the same, since it's personalized. It's Not Quite Radio. It's more like a personalized music service. And if it's U.S. only, I'd assume it's not because Pandora wants it to be that way, but because they've been forced to make it that way.

[shurup]

Tuner sucks for me. All i can get is hiphop rock and all to plentiful to use maisteam stations . Don`t waist your money. Speaking of money why in the hell can`t you say sorry i really want my money back?

[hillstones]

AOL Radio rocks because I live in Santa Clarita, just north of Los Angeles, and pretty much all the radio stations are wiped out by the mountains. Now I can listen to KROQ and KROQ2 - ROQ of the 80's (it streams HD Radio multi-cast stations!). The iPhone app works just fine over Edge or WiFi (better quality on WiFi obviously). Just don't max out the volume and it sounds great. Now I can listen to Kevin and Bean in the morning on KROQ and listen to Classic KROQ on KROQ2 during the day. I connect my iPhone to powered speakers on my desk at work.

I also use the standard AOL Radio app on the Mac and use AirFoil to stream it to my AirPort Express connected to my living room stereo. The FM broadcasts with AOL Radio turn the iPhone into an FM tuner for free! That is worth the free admission right there.

[jrandersoniii]

Two words... Background Apps
The only time I use AOL Radio is when I am in the Airport and want to get a quick news or talk radio fix. Other than that, I don't really see a reason to waste batter life. But to each their own, thats cool.
I really wish the App would keep running if I go do something else. I am sure battery life is an issue as well as processing power.
But if it is possible, that would be grand. Ditto for AIM and Safari pages (e.g., Meebo)