XM PCR Control Program for Mac OS X

nsayer writes "I'm a fan of XM Radio. The least expensive XM radio you can get is the XM PCR, which is powered and controlled over a USB connection to a host PC (the audio does not, however, come back across the USB connection. It's just got an analog line-out jack). Unfortunately, the only software they give you is for Windows. But fortunately, it's been reverse engineered, so I was able to write MacXM. At this point, it is very stable and easy to use, and so far as I know it is the only XM radio software that integrates with the iTunes music store (click a button and iTunes pops up with a search for the current song title and artist)."

Comments

XM radio

[JelloG3]

thanks to the people who love macs, yet another product that people made for windows, and was saved and ported to the Mac =D

Re:XM radio

[tackaberry]

I'd be so much more inclined to subscribe to either XM or Sirius if their stations were available streamed as an iTunes Radio Station

From what I can see, XM doesn't stream online (only samples of their stations), and Sirius requires that you use WiMP.

Both of them should be able to offer attractive alteratives to the Live365 stations in iTunes, give the public a chance to try their service, and seriously consider whether they should layout the $ for a car/home/boat receiver.

Re:XM radio

[Johnny Mnemonic]

I agree 100%. If they've already put together the service, why not make it available to as many folks as possible? Why require this funky dongle, instead of just an MP3 stream that I can get anywhere that I have internet access?

If the streams were good enough, yeah, I might be willing to pay the $10/month or whatever. But I sure as hell am not going to buy more hardware. I suppose it's there to prevent rebroadcast of their signal--but that would take more work to circumvent than I think most people would be willing to put forth.

Re:XM radio

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you'd be as happy as a pig in shit if someone reverse-engineered some of your mac-only apps and ported them over to windows.

Re:XM radio

[TellarHK]

When you've spent a few billion to put the two biggest commercial satellites ever built into orbit, you tend to get a bit protective of your profit stream. XM is a -great- thing to have, I've had a unit in my car for about the past year. They use something like a 192Kbps AAC stream from the satellite down, if I recall correctly. Very good quality, even on the Bose system in my car.

Re:XM radio

[tackaberry]

I agree completely, it is a great_improvement, over today's commercial radio. With all of the media consolidation, voice-tracking, endless commercials, and super-tight playlists, there is very little out there that I find appealing.

The station I listen to the most is public-supported WFUV. Most of the other stations in NYC are horrible. If I'm not listening to 'FUV, I'm listening to my iPod.

Satellite radio, meets the gap by offering the breadth of programming that is absent in today's commercial radio. However, as a new technology there is a steep adoption curve, and with all of the capital costs involved, subscriber base is the most important measurement. Instead of charging for each unit, they may be better off charging per customer, and allow them to use multiple units (what is their increased marginal cost - I can only listen to one radio at a time). Streaming via iTunes could be another revenue stream. I can sample their service, without having to spend a lot of money for a receiver. If I like it, chances are, I'm more inclined to put a receiver in my car.

I can't recall where I read it, but somewhere I recall reading that Apple users are more inclined to embrace new technologies, and a great percentage of Apple users have broadband versus Windows users.

If they are using AAC, there is no excuse to use the best Mac music client.

Re:XM radio

[wolrahnaes]

Acidus (yes the same Acidus from the Blackboard stuff) had written a paper on XM Radio. It is available here.

He had some thoughts on the format and quality of XM streams.

=Compression=
The number of theories of the compression schemes that XM uses is around the
number of Grassy Knoll theories. MP2, MP3, AMBE, AAC, the list goes on and on. A
few things are known. XM Radio had a contract with Digital Voice Systems, Inc to
use their AMBE (Advanced Multi-Band Excitation) speech compression algorithm.
The XM Radio Customer Agreement states that the AMBE technology in their product
is copyrighted and licensed for their use. That makes it safe to say that AMBE
is used at least in part to compress the speech-only channels. Since the STA450
has a built in EPAC decoder, it is safe to assume that at least a bulk of the
music is encoded with this algorithm. This conforms to a claim made by an XM
engineer that their compression technology is similar to Mpeg-4.

Re:XM radio

[nsayer]

What the heck. I'll bite.

If I was selling hardware, and someone reverse-engineered it to provide support to an alternate platform, I'd be very happy indeed (as I'm not an anon^H^H^H^Hpig in shit, I can't comment on the comparison). If I would normally sell N units, and having someone else write software that changes that to N+M, why wouldn't I be happy?

And it turns out that some folks have actually spoken to folks in authority at XM, and they're quite happy indeed to find that they've created a device that has inspired a community of hackers to make it better.

Re:XM radio

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Well, frankly, that's the wrong attitude. They aren't "protecting their profit stream"; rather, they're alienating and diminishing the very stream that they want to protect.

I'm sure it's a great service. But $70, the inconvenience and compatibility issues of a dongle, AND a monthly? The question is: what are they going to do with these satellites if they fail to get a subscriber base?

I'm glad you like them, really. I hope they do well; well enough, in fact, to hand Clear Channel's ass to them and demonstrate that customers really do appreciate quality, diversity, and some unusual music. But I don't think that they're going to do it this way. It's like trying to sell computer users Windows if Linux had 90% of the market and was still free.

Re:XM radio

[Anonymous Coward]

Your remarks are those of a person who obviously hasn't tried the product. XM will have 1.3-1.4M subscribers by year end. Now, it takes a lot more (5M) to break even, but a million cars will be factory equipped with XM for '04, and we know that historically, 70-75% of those million become paying subscribers. Furthermore, we know that "subscriber churn" is in the area of 1% -- low, by ANY standard. The bottom line is it is largely a matter of getting people to try the product. Once they do, they can't get by without it. There simply is no comparison between satellite radio and traditional FM. I have several thousand CDs in my collection and have not purchased six in the 18 months I've had XM. It is that good. Anyway, it is pretty clear the market is there and is growing extremely fast.

Re:XM radio

[Mononoke]

If they've already put together the service, why not make it available to as many folks as possible? Why require this funky dongle, instead of just an MP3 stream that I can get anywhere that I have internet access?

Because an infinite number of receivers can receive over-the-air broadcasts without any scaling or bandwidth issues. Only a finite number of users can listen to streams, and every single stream adds to the bandwidth bill.

Brushed Metal

[Johnny Mozzarella]

Nice interface! Gotta love it when the FREE software has a better interface.

Re:Brushed Metal

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the developer did a great job with the program. However, I do think the interface could be improved by making it more like a radio interface or like iTunes.

1. Power should not be a check box. It should be a button with some kind of status light on or next to it.
2. Mute and Power buttons should be near the volume control.
3. Volume should be labeled.
4. Now playing box should be more distinguishable.

Again, I think the developer did a fantastic job, but there's always room for improvement. If I have the time, maybe I'll get around to learning Cocoa and interface builder to make the changes instead of just complaining... ahh the beauty of open source

Re:Brushed Metal

[nsayer]

2. Mute and Power buttons should be near the volume control.
3. Volume should be labeled.

Um, there is no volume control. I think you're looking at the song rating slider.

4. Now playing box should be more distinguishable.

Not sure I understand what you're saying here. But let's take this conversation over to the bug and/or feature request section of the project rather than continue here.

But For How Long ... ?

[paxcirca]

I'm glad to see Windows-only products made available to Mac users. XM Radio, though, isn't in great financial shape.

Re:But For How Long ... ?

[Shaleh]

my issue is I have to pay per receiver. for car and home that is 15.99. Want a portable radio while you work out -- that's another 6.99 too.

All of these little monthly utilities add up quickly. Plus, there is the concern that it is cheap now but will become more and more like cable as things progress.

No surprise people are not willing to give up free broadcast radio just yet.

Java/Cocoa App Great!

[tyrione]

Nice to see people leveraging Cocoa and Java together.

Re:Java/Cocoa App Great!

[nsayer]

I've learned quite a bit from MacXM. If I had to do it again, I'm not so sure I'd use Java. Not that I wouldn't rather use it, it's just that if you're writing Cocoa using Java, you're a second class citizen. There are a number of things that are made a lot more difficult that shouldn't be.

1. Where is the Java version of runSelectorOnMainThread? That is, in a case where in a Swing app you'd have said SwingUtilities.invokeLater(), what are you expected to do in Java/Cocoa? I had to roll my own NSTimer event to poll a queue for invokes. Ick!
2. If you have a C main(), as is the case with the default Java/Cocoa template in ProjectBuilder, why can't you use the Info.plist properties to adjust things like the JNI library path? Alternatively, where is the Java version of NSApplicationMain()? Without a solution, you can't use System.loadLibrary();. There is an alternative Cocoa way to load them, but it winds up not being portable, which is an issue if you're talking about a potentially reusable model class. It also precludes you from selecting which version of the JVM gets used.
3. Why isn't there some nice facility to allow for a Java equivalent to Categories? I suppose subclassing is the only way. I wound up writing a proxy category for NSApplication in Re^H^HObjective-C to enable AppleScript handling. It's a bit ugly.
4. When you subclass a Cocoa UI object, you need to implement all of its constrictors, including the protected ones (the implementations just call the base constructor with the same arguments) used by the NIB loader. Naturally, those are undocumented. Fun!
5. The Java URL class can't handle arbitrary URL protocols without some shimming. Why, then, isn't there an overload to NSWorkspace.openURL() that takes a string? This is an issue because openURL() handles more types of protocols than the URL connection factories in Java do.
6. Why didn't they include javax.comm? That would have been a helpful fix for #2, at least for me.

There are others I can't think of right offhand. Don't get me wrong - I love Java, and I really love the combination of Java and Interface Builder. There are just a few issues that you run into when doing Java/Cocoa. I hope they get resolved soonoer rather than later.

Is this the future of the "integrated" app?

[amichalo]

This is an interesting application - not that it enables a Mac to use a PC product, nor that it is for the XM radio, though both are note worthy.

This application is interesting because it is integrated with another application (iTunes). It is the second such "Integrated Applicaiton" application recently, as Quicken 2004 will integrate with iCal as well.

We have had this in part for a while - click a Mailto: tag and Outlook Express launches - but I am talking about more tight integration.

I am a huge fan of this type of integration. One of my favorite features of Apple's "Mail" is that when iChat is running, and a person who's e-mail address and IM address are in "Address Book" is on-line, there is a little green icon in "Mail" that lets you know so instead of sending them an e-mail, you have the option to click the icon ("iCon") and chat in iChat. Three apps, iChat, Address Book, and Mail, working together to deliver functionality none could deliver otherwise.

So are we seeing a trend? Is this in kind with other great technologies like Web Objects (what MS has rebranded as .NET) or is this a new phanominon born out of Apple's own developer network?

Whatever it is, I would like to see more of it. In what other ways could applicaitons be more tightly integrated amongst eachother?

An Apple a day keeps the BSD away.

Re:Is this the future of the "integrated" app?

[Da Penguin]

There are loads of such integration, thanks to the great design of Cocoa and Applescript. My favorite is Clutter, which automatically retrieves cover art for what you are playing in iTunes (plus loads of other features).

But you are right in that integration is (hopefully) the way of the future. It's happened more than a couple of times that I wanted to make something, and ended up building it around an existing program like the above.

And for those who do not know, almost all of the iApps have hooks so that other programs can, say, reference the itunes library, update the address book, modify pictures in your album . . .

Re:Is this the future of the "integrated" app?

[Da Penguin]

> Just thought I might point out that when Apple integrates
> products for the end user's convenience, they're
> innovators and geniuses, best thing since sliced bread,
> etc... But when Microsoft does the same thing, they're
> abusive monopolists who crush the little guy.

Apple doesn't integrate their apps into the OS. Apple integrates the many apps together with publically accessible APIs, so that other people may do the same.

Plus many times when they come up with some useful functionality, they put it into the API so that others may profit from their work.

Re:Is this the future of the "integrated" app?

[Anonymous Coward]

penguin pointed out why you are wrong, its good anwser and it is right. but i would liek to add another difference is Microsoft is a CONVICTED monopolist who crushed, crushes and is continuing to crush little guys. Apple has 3% market share, they dont ahve the weight of influence to be a monopolist in the legal meaning of word

Re:Is this the future of the "integrated" app?

[ZackSchil]

Not only are most of the APIs public, most of them are even in AppleScript, which allows not just developers but end users as well to take advantage. Take away the sarcasm of this post's grandfather and you have the truth. When Microsoft integrates things, it is almost always to crush 3rd parties or exercise power. When Apple does it, they end up innovating or coming up with a better product. Gotta love it.

Re:Is this the future of the "integrated" app?

[phillymjs]

Not only are most of the APIs public, most of them are even in AppleScript, which allows not just developers but end users as well to take advantage.

Amen! My entire home automation system is nothing but a few Mac apps bound together with AppleScript: XTension, the software that manages the X10 modules; MacCallerID which logs incoming phone calls; WhistleBlower, which monitors the services running on my machines and alerts me if any go down; and X2Web, which works in conjunction with webserver software to allow AppleScript to be embedded in HTML and executed when a client loads the page-- and that's all with crappy old OS 9.1! Apple has done even better in OS X with making application interoperability accessible to the masses, and they've done a far better job of it than Microsoft ever could, IMHO.

~Philly

Re:Is this the future of the "integrated" app?

[WHudson]

In the legal definition of monopoly power, it's all about the ability to control prices and restrict output; doing the public harm is also a key factor. Hence, monopoly power is less about market share than the ability to restrict competition outside of legal means (such as patents).

Sirius radio

[Anonymous Coward]

Sirius radio is in much better shape than xmsr. Also, they have commercial free radio unlike xmsr.

Re:Sirius radio

[Triumph The Insult C]

Sirius doesn't have Frank's Place. To me, absolutely worth the $10/mo, *alone*.

The commericials on XM are very short. I've yet to hear one longer than 30 seconds, before it's back to music. The channels I listen to don't have them anyways. =)

Re:Sirius radio

[Mononoke]

Bullshit.

quoting Andy Ihnatko: (answering complaints about his XM preference)

1) I didn't mention that Sirius, unlike XM, has sixty channels of commercial-free programming. True. That's because Sirius' marketing claim doesn't tell the whole story: that leaves (if I remember correctly) forty channels with commercials. And it's not like the commercial-free ones are without interruptions. You still have to listen to promos and teasers. XM doesn't make any commercial-free claims, though this seems to be more of a practical decision. Some channels have ads, some don't. In the past three hours, I haven't heard a single ad. Plus, this isn't like traditional radio, in which you'll hear one cut off of "Lose Your Illusion" and then twenty minutes of ads for tires and part-time vocational classes.

So much for the marketing people

[SuperBanana]

At this point, it is very stable and easy to use, and so far as I know it is the only XM radio software that integrates with the iTunes music store (click a button and iTunes pops up with a search for the current song title and artist).

I love it. $50 says Apple and XM spent weeks having their Little People negotiate over it all...and this guy's just gone and done it :-)

Re:So much for the marketing people

[proj_2501]

I would not be terribly surprised if Apple just paid the guy off and started including this thing in a future release of iTunes, although it would probably take a couple generations before this happened.

Several additions to Mac OS 7.5 came directly from shareware programs. The Menu Bar Clock was originally SuperClock! which was distributed with a Macworld book. The submenus under the Apple Menu were also available as a shareware add-on, as were the PopupFolders (when you double-click on a folder and hold down the mouse button, the folder opens up up in a window right under the pointer)

Re:So much for the marketing people

[W1BMW]

It would certainly be cool. I think it's a logical direction for Apple to take with support for either flavor of satellite radio given their digitial lifestyle focus.

I have XM in each of my vehicles and have been waiting on getting one for the house until a device came out that I could control with the iMac I have dedicated to home automation. I ordered one within five minutes of seeing the screen shots of the application...time to dig out the applescript book again!

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting comments, perhaps more truthful than its parent.

Stream XM Radio

[Anonymous Coward]

I forget where the post was saying "If the stream was good enough I would pay $10 a month" "And I could listen to is anywhere on the internet". I think there is a misunderstanding on what this XM radio does. It doesn't stream anything over the net. Period. It's simply a receiver to pick up the sat signal. The software controller sends its request over the USB cable to change channels, etc.- while the line-out goes to your home stereo unit. So in short no XM radio streams over the net :-)

Re:Stream XM Radio

[MadBiologist]

If you want to get streams over the internet, Sirius sat radio offers this. That being said, I'll take the XM over anything that I can d/l. No #$^$^# buffering, great song selection, and now that the XMPCR is intigrated into iTunes, I'll be buying one soon (well, as soon as I have some spare $$ sitting around, doing nothing!).

Re:Sirius radio, much better shape?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, this statement is just plain wrong. XM is in far better financial condition. More debt, but they have eight times the number of subscribers, and that's the name of the game. To put it in perspective, Sirius had a total of $2,000,000 (that's right, two MILLION) dollars in revenue for last quarter. That's on 1.75 BILLION in market capitalization (and $250 MILLION in debt, on top of that). Sirius will probably make it, but it will be years before they will break even. XM will clearly cash flow breakeven around the end of '05. The real kicker is XM's product development, though. Sirius has been weak, weak, while XM is innovating from the word go. It really is no contest.

Not so fast... Don't think you mean "integrated"

[mactari]

Apple integrates the many apps together with publically accessible APIs, so that other people may do the same.

Careful how you bash Microsoft. It's fun, and I'm using Jaguar this minute to post, but nobody does a better job exposing APIs to the public than Microsoft and COM.

Guess how long it takes to make a web browser in Visual Basic 6? Seconds if you know what control to use (Microsoft Internet Control) -- and seconds if you don't; there's a pre-built form you can add from the Project-Add Form menu item. How long to add Media Player? Seconds. How about automate Excel or Word? Those are a little more complicated, but only b/c of their more complicated APIs.

(And yes, I know about cocoa and embedding browsers)

Don't get me wrong. I don't like Microsoft's silly claims that they can't take IE out of Windows OS. I hate the way they embrace and extend. I hate the way they aggresively go after smaller businesses and spend them out of existence. (imo, etc)

But when it comes to making something quickly that communicates between two application engines, whether first or third party, you won't get any more robust a solution than VB6. MS loves opening up their APIs. Means every one of your users will also have to pay the Windows Tax.