I made a decision recently to do a little experiment with regards to mobile audio.  I have been a Sirius satellite subscriber for a couple of years now and have basically been pretty happy.  Happy enough that I cannot stand anything to do with terrestrial radio in any form or fashion.   Anyway, I was basically using Sirius as my music/talk radio platform and supplementing it with Podcasts and some Audible audio books and have been fairly happy.
But I got to thinking that I was missing many features on my iPhone that I could be taking advantage of.  So for my experiment I took the Sirius radio out of my car and bought a Griffin FM transmitter for the iPhone from the local Apple store.  I decided that I was only going to use my iPhone for my mobile audio needs.

So how did my experiment fare ?  Well I can tell you that I went ahead and cancelled my subscription to Sirius ..

Is the iPhone a perfect solution?  Not quite, but it is pretty damned close.  I found that I was able to not only replace any functionality I had, but I actually got more enjoyment out of just my iPhone.  So what did I use ?  Here is a quick list of the what I used:

1. Pandora
2. Slacker
3. Podcasts
4. Audio Books
5. AOL radio

So on Sirius I had found a couple of stations that I really enjoyed, but with the apps like Pandora and Slacker I have found that I can stream literally anything I want to listen to and create my own personalized radio stations that continue to get smarter as I rate the music.  Both of these apps stream equally as well on both the Edge and 3G networks.  The flexibility has not been just good for me either.  I have two small girls who of course love Hanna Montana and all those other Disney like groups.  We were in the car the other day and they wanted music.  With one quick search on the Pandora app, I had them listening to their very own Miley Cyrus station (I know I know …).

I have been a podcast listener for many years now and continue to find great stuff to expand and listen to.  One of my new favorites is the an Oxford style debate podcast from NPR called Intelligence Squared adn I LOVE IT.  Of course I listen to the standard MAC and tech podcasts like TWIT.  But there is a lot of good free content out there.  I also have an Audible subscription and get one audio book a month to listen to.  It is a great change of pace when I am tired of listening to the other stuff.  And besides, who the hell has time to sit around and actually read these days ???

So in the event that you do need/want to listen to something more local you can check out AOL Radio.  It has a pretty cool function where it uses the GPS to identify your location and presents you with some local radio stations that it rebroadcasts.  So here in the DC area I was able to listen to 106.7FM and some other local DC and baltimore stations.

All in all I am extremely satisfied with my decision and have not regretted it one bit, and in turn it has even saved me a few bucks a month that I was spending on satellite radio.  I think in this economic climate, we will all be looking for those little bits of expenses to cut and the iPhone can really be a huge help inm meeting your audio needs.

So what do you all think ?  I think you should take the vow to and see how far the iPhone can go to meet all your mobiel audio needs.

On one hand I am always amazed at the sheer marketing “genius” and reach of Apple and how it never ceases to amaze me that one company can drum up such fierce loyalty and drama for their products.  And on the other hand I am constantly amazed that as smart as one company can be in certain areas, they can be so damned stupid in others.

One only had to read the mountain of blog posts and news stories to understand that their would be great demand for the 3g iPhone.  I am sure Apple knew this was coming, yet the seemed utterly unprepared.  now I understand their are supply chain logistics that I probably dont totally grasp, but it seems to me fairly obsurd that there are STILL lines to buy the iPhone nearly three weeks after its initial launch.

I will admit I made 2 trips to the mall over the last couple of weeks to pick up a 16GB black iPhone, only to find long, extremely long lines.  My thought was always, “How the hell do I know if I wait in this long ass line, that I will get the model that I want?”  That alone kept me away.

So I was shocked to see this post over at iPod Observer about how Apple is now using a voucher system at the stores !! Brilliant.  It took the company who made $1 billion in profit last quarter 3 weeks to noodle this system out ?  They all must have been busy trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with their MobileMe fiasco ….

According to the post

The vouchers are handed out to customers starting at the beginning of the line and note which iPhone 3G capacity and color each customer wants. If the day’s inventory of a specific model is already sold out or accounted for through vouchers, potential customers will know before they get in the store, making it easier for shoppers to decide if waiting in a potentially hours-long line is worth their time.

So now those poor idiots at the back of the line know that when they get to the front of the line, they actually have an iPhone to take home …

It is truly sad it took this long to come up with this tremendously complicated solution ! Great job Apple.

The developers have done great work and I look forward to many more great titles to be released in the coming weeks.

I did have a thought today while at work about some of the apps, in particular AOL Radio and Pandora.  I totally love the regular Pandora site and when at my desk at work, this is the web site I always have up, playing a never ending stream of music I like.  Well with their great iPhone app, I now get that same experience on my iPhone.  I was hesitant at first, wondering how the music would stream over the “slow” Edge network, and was surprised by the quality.  It played without pause.

So as I sat at work, I wondered to my friends, “Do you think that the Pandora app will play through the fm transmitter in the car ??”  We thought about it for a moment and talked about how cool that would be.  So after work, I gave it a go and was pleasantly surprised that Iwas able to stream the AOL and Pandora apps right through my fm transmitter !  What a cool surprise.  I sat in my car and thought about this for a moment.  I have had Sirius radio for about that past two years and I love it.  I have not looked back to terrestrial radio in the least bit.  But now it occured to me that this may being another turning point.  Besides my Sirius I listen to my iPod/iPhone for mainly podcasts since I catch most of my music on Sirius.  But now what if my iPhone could go so far as eliminate the need for Sirius, music and talk.  With Sirius, I bounced between several stations for my music and would catch some talk shows no and then.  Well now with my iPhone, I not only get my fix of talk shows that I want to listen to through podcasts, I also get a music station that is totally personalized just for me, without a single commercial !  Pandora’s algorithm is such that is finds music you like and adds it to your station.  I have several personal stations set up, an Alt Indie, Jazz, and so on and the Pandora app lets me play any one of them.

This is an interesting time for both the satellite and terrestrial radio businesses.  Traditional radio has been looking in their rear view mirror as the new kids on the block, XM and then Sirius crept up to take a larger and larger share of the market.  And now those same satellite providers are trying to merge in order to not only stay alive, but also to continue to fight the traditional outlets for listenership.  Well now with the ability for a platform like the iPhone to stream content you want with no commercials for free, those new kids on the block better watch their mirrors as well.