CTIA 2008: Hands On with Slacker for BlackBerry

CTIA Fall 2008 is now a part of wireless history, but it's still making for some good CrackBerry blog post content. If you tuned in last week, you may have saw the news that Slacker and RIM have partnered to bring personal radio to BlackBerry smartphones.

The folks at MobileCrunch spent some hands-on time with the app at CTIA, and posted some images (more after the jump) of Slacker in action along with some hands-on feedback:

The relationship brings Slacker Personal Radio to BlackBerry devices. The biggest benefit is the ability to cache thousands of songs. Every time you hit a hotspot the device will sync and update the station. Plenty of music is available from Fergie to Bad Company. If you don't like something, you can ban the song or artist. Conversely, if you do like something you hear, you can rate the artist or get more info. I didn't see a "buy now" link, but I'll bet donuts to dollars somebody is working on that.

For now, there doesn't seem to be a way to access playlists beyond what's next and what was recently heard. While this might make sense for streaming radio stations, it should probably be an integrated feature if a station is living in the cache.

Overall, the service worked fine when not trying to do too much. Music was played, music was listened too. Switching between stations seemed to me a little slow, but the ability to edit playlists within a station means you might not be flipping around the dial so much. Control was pretty easy and intuitive, with basic menu commands available in a pop up menu.

Are you excited about Slacker for BlackBerry? Sound off in the comments!

 

More Slacker in Action Photos

 

[ BerryReview via MobileCrunch ]