Slacker Radio for iPhone (free; optional subscriptions from $3.99 per month), much like competing streaming music service Spotify, has undergone several changes in the last few months as the battle for your listening dollar rages on. Slacker's latest update isn't as massive a change as the 2013 interface redesign, but the under-the-hood fixes make it more stable for sure. Slacker may lack a handful of features found in competing products, such as track crossfading and gapless playback, but it has enough standout features and content of its own to continue its reign as our favorite iPhone( at Amazon) streaming music app.
Pricing and Sound Quality
Slacker for iPhone is free, but listeners can also subscribe to Slacker Radio Plus for a commercial-free experience with offline listening and unlimited song skips for $3.99 a month. The next tier up, Slacker Premium, delivers the ultimate experience with on-demand listening, the ability to create custom playlists, and more for $9.99 a month.
In testing, Slacker streamed crisp, hiccup-free audio over my home and office network connections. Unless you're an audiophile who's used to listening to music through higher-end headphones, Slacker's sound quality will satisfy. The Dirtbombs' "Ultraglide in Black" album sounded terrific as I streamed songs to a pair of Astro A38 wireless headphones. The bass lines were full and bouncy, and there's a good separation of high and low sounds. Certainly, a good pair of headphones improves the experience, but it'll only ever be as good the tracks you're streaming.
Putting the Virtual Needle to Virtual Wax
Slacker's home screen has three sections that give you easy access to the service's deep content well. The top portion is a strip that highlights Slacker's curated channels, where you'll find such highlighted music collections as The Slacker Top 40.
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The Stations section holds Slacker's dozens of genre categories. Tapping the Electronic music icon, for example, reveals multiple sub-genres such as Indie Electronic, Dub Step, and Trap. The category king is Decades/Countdown, which boasted more than 80 channels when I was testing. The My Vibe section houses curated playlists designed to set a mood appropriate to the time of day (Thursday Afternoon, for example) and your activity (Driving).
The My Music section lets you access your stations, playlists, bookmarked stations, and recently played stations. Three recently played stations also live on the home screen as shortcuts. Favorite Songs is easily my, well, favorite section, as it creates a station around songs you've marked as favorites. It's like having a personalized greatest hits station, and it's a joy.
Radio Days
The News/Talk/Sports category is exactly what it sounds like—a section that caters to the news, talk, and sports crowds. Comedy, ABC News, American Public Media, and ESPN programming fall under this category. The most intriguing of these stations are the ESPN stations that let you tune in to live sports talk. Unfortunately, ESPN is the only channel to serve up live programming, but it's a standout feature in Slacker Radio that sports nuts at least will appreciate. Men and women's lifestyle stations (where you'll hear grooming tips, financial advice, and more) round out the talk options. If you're looking for a streaming music app that specializes in live radio and lets you build custom stations, iHeartRadio may be more your speed.
Spotify for iOS offers no live streaming options, but it counters Slacker with unique features of its own. Spotify lets you download and subscribe to your buddies' playlists, offers exclusive access to Led Zeppelin's Swan Song/Atlantic recordings, and suggests songs based on what's trending in your area. It's a far more social experience than Slacker. Plus, Spotify has gapless playback and crossfade capabilities. These are definitely features I'd love to see Slacker adopt.
Tapping a Slacker Radio channel launches an information page with sub-sections that let you Ban or Favorite a song, read lyrics, and view album/artist information. The album and artist pages are far more streamlined than Spotify's and therefore a bit easier to read and navigate. Lyrics aren't available for every song.
The Fine Tune area has toggles (for turning on/off the Slacker DJ, and ESPN and News updates), and a slider that lets you adjust the balance of hits vs. discovery within a station. The service's human-curated content is top-notch; the DJs add gravitas to many of the themed stations such as Pharrell: DNA. There I learned that "Hollaback Girl" was Gwen Stefani's response to a perceived dis from Hole's Courtney Love. This type of background information makes Slacker feel like an old-school radio station.
The Final Countdown
If you fancy taking Internet radio on the go, you'll be well served by Slacker Radio for iPhone. The app is a breeze to navigate, and the music and talk catalogs are top-notch. In short, if you're an iPhone user who likes radio, download Slacker Radio for iPhone, our Editors' Choice iOS streaming music app.
The latest version of Slacker Radio for iPhone brings excellent streaming music, news, and talk programming to Apple's smartphone. It remains a standout service in an increasingly crowded field.
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