Better Than Pandora Music for Your Blackberry Pearl
When you think of a Blackberry Pearl, you probably imagine a go-getter type who needs to always be connected and in communication with the office. A power player who is making deals no matter where he or she may be. That’s about to change thanks to a little application called Slacker. I know it’s hard to imagine the words slacker and Blackberry being used in the same sentence.
With Pandora failing to provide Blackberry applications, many have turned to Slacker.com which just might be even better. Pandora is another company pandering to the hype of the iPhone rather than looking the considerably larger market share owned by Research In Motion. I still don’t understand why it’s so difficult for these software companies to see the mistake they’re making by ignoring the Blackberry.
Slacker is the ultimate streaming radio station for your Blackberry Pearl (it’s great on the Curve, Bold and Storm as well). Not only does it stream high quality music over your normal data plan, but it lets you pick the music. Not just suggest the songs, but actually go in and pick specific songs you love by specific artists. This goes a little beyond what Pandora has to offer. It still lets you “teach” it what you like and don’t like while you’re listening to music, but Slacker also lets you build your own custom stations in advance.
Slacker offers about 100 genres of music already programmed with all of the music that fits, chosen by experts in that particular selection. Fire up the 80′s station and start listening. If you hear a song you REALLY like, click on the little heart icon and Slacker will make an effort to play that artist more often. Hear someone you really dislike and click “ban” to make sure Slacker never plays that artist again on that station. Over time, with your input, Slacker becomes an expert in your likes and dislikes.
I discovered another very fun feature with Slacker on my drive home today. As I was listening to one of my custom stations, Slacker started playing a song I liked by an artist I didn’t know. So, with a couple of clicks I was able to bring up a complete artist bio, album review and even all of the album artwork. All while I continued to listen and without leaving the application.
One of the best features about Slacker is something they call station or son “caching”. Basically, if you have an extra MicroSD memory card in your phone (and you should), you can store a station on your phone so you can play it when you get outside of your phone coverage area. For example, when you’re flying and can’t turn your phones signal on, you can play your “cached” or stored station. If you upgrade to the premium plan, Slacker will even allow you to cache or store individual songs.
The basic Slacker service is very cool and probably sufficient for most people. If you listen to music a lot and really want to maximize your enjoyment and ability to customize, you may want to spend the $47.88 per year for the premium package. That comes to just under $4 per month for all the music you can imagine. This will give you that ability to store a favorite individual song on your Blackberry rather than an entire station.
The premium service also gives you some other benefits which may be worth the very small fee. Unlimited music skipping means you can continuously scroll forward through the songs until you find just the right one. You can also make an unlimited number of song requests which allows you to create a specific playlist of your favorite songs. It’s about as close as you’ll come to having an unlimited number of MP3′s on your Blackberry. Of course, you don’t need to go the paid route and you’ll still find plenty of enjoyment using Slacker.com
With all this music on your Blackberry Pearl, you can listen with your favorite set up ear buds, but you can also use an FM transmitter to send the music to your car stereo. I even use a wired cassette adaptor. My daily commute is now filled with nothing but music I love and no commercials. Plus, with the Slacker technology it only gets better as it learns my likes and dislikes. You may end up enjoying this so much, you’ll want to invest in a mobile battery charger to get you through those longer trips and still have a full battery.
You can download Slacker right now by pointing your mobile browser directly at www.slacker.com. If you’re not near a computer, don’t worry, you can register on your phone and be up and running in no time. Of course, you can log into your Slacker account via your high speed home connection and build all of your custom stations. That way they’ll be waiting for you the next time you fire up Slacker.