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May 29, 2007

software

Listen to Sirius satellite radio on your Mac

Posted May. 29, ’07, 5:13 PM PT by Aaron Freedman
Category | Software

Smac Satellite radio has started to catch on lately. With commercial-free music, high quality, and pretty much nation-wide coverage, the medium has a lot of appeal. But, one of the other cool things about satellite radio is being able to listen to it as an online stream. Unfortunately, this process can be not as easy as one may think, especially for Mac users. But, if you’re a Sirius satellite radio subscriber, SiriusMac can help.

SiriusMac is a free OS X app for playing Sirius web streams. The interface is very sleek and simple, resembling that of a Sirius radio, complete with customizable presets, a virtual display, and navigation keys. Unfortunately, the installation process is not as easy as using the program itself. First off, you need to have the open-source VLC player, Growl notification system, and Python programming language (version 2.5) installed before SiriusMac will run at all. Then, you need to download a hard-to-find disk image with an older version of the app and two scripts, which you then have to install, followed by downloading the updated version of the app and installing that. This process isn’t that hard, but mostly just annoying and slow. Once all this has been done, you can open the app, select a Sirius stream, and start listening (though it took a little while for my stream to open).

So while SiriusMac’s installation process is quite annoying, using the actual app is much more enjoyable than fussing around with the web interface and Flip4Mac. Plus, this is still a very new program, so it will probably get easier to use over time.


5 Comments

GCarden said:

Check out AOL Radio as well (you do need a free AOL screen name, though):

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/internet_utilities/aolradio.html

Though it may not play Sirius, it has several XM channels in addition to AOL's channels.

May 29, 2007 5:48 PM
msadesign Author Profile Page said:

Come ON, Aaron- the installation process is so onerous that this one gets an F, dontcha think?

Sheesh. Python? PYTHON? I can hear myself telling my mother-in-law now! "Ma, look for Python- no, Ma, it's not a snake- yes, Python, Ma…"

May 30, 2007 3:59 AM
Aaron Author Profile Page said:

Now see, I would have teared it apart in the review, except that, according to the forums, an easier install is in place, and the app itself just works so damn well. I mean, the interface is just so easy to use and eveything works so well once it's all installed.

May 30, 2007 4:08 AM
Antonio said:

Hasn't been a problem streaming Sirius with Flip4Mac, for me...no "fussing" necessary....just plays fine....But, I'm always up for looking at new cool apps, and will check out the seriousmac thing. Speaking of cool new apps, same people who do F4M have a dvd imaging thing out now called Drive In

May 30, 2007 8:37 AM
Walt said:

I use XM satellite, and I can listen to the stream over my Mac. I did it once just to see it work, which it did. I choose not to do it regularly because I bought two radios – one for my Firebird and one for my house. But listening to your satellite from XM is achievable without the additional software. I’ve never been a big fan of streaming radio over my computer, so maybe I’m missing something here, but I’ve always had the capability of listening to my satellite radio on my Mac.

May 30, 2007 9:22 AM

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