About a month of terrestrial radio was all it took…
My XM subscription lapsed in March, but they kept the music flowing an additional month or so while leaving me regular voicemails to renew service before I experienced an “interruption.”
I figured my new(ish) and brief commute of about only 10 minutes in each direction meant I could pass on satellite radio. But the AM and FM programming wasn’t getting it done for me. Which is largely the broadcasters fault (limited selection/range, inane morning talk). However, I also have an issue specific to my Honda — when charging my iPhone in the car, my top FM station (DC 101) is blown out by static.
So I called in yesterday to learn what my XM renewal options were. I had planned to push for the half off rate, as anything more would exceed the cost of having a line-in jack installed for iPhone Pandora and Slacker streaming. As it turns out, no pushing was required and the Iowa-based phone rep offered to renew me at my previous rate ($77/yr). Unfortunately, online streaming is still an upsell for anyone who hasn’t been grandfathered. But I went ahead and gave myself a year of that, too – for something like $32.
It’s been awhile since I last had XM online streaming. And I’m pleasantly surprised by the amount of talk, in addition to the requisite music, that’s available. Also, this is my first experience using the Sirius XM iPhone app. I can’t say it’s visually beautiful (no album art, no landscape view), but it gets the job done well. Until XM and Sonos figure out how to play nicely together, I’m on the lookout for an iPhone speaker dock.