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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)."
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 . . .
> 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.
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.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
He had some thoughts on the format and quality of XM streams.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
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)
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.