Enform App Suite: Slacker vs Pandora vs iHeart
01-08-15, 11:50 AM
#1
Pole Position
Thread Starter
Enform App Suite: Slacker vs Pandora vs iHeart
I got the Enform app running on my phone now and am ready to start exploring these features, and notice some redundancy in regards to these internet radio apps. 
I have no experience with any of these apps admittedly, so before I get started I was wondering if anyone can chime in with experience between these 3 with any recommendations of going with one over the other and why? Or is it best just to get all 3 to go for variety?
Here are some more questions coming to mind:
Who has the best features or functionality?
Who has the most musical selection and variety?
How about sound quality, any variances?
Are there advertisements, who has the least of this?
Free vs paid subscriptions?
Any and all info is welcome, thanks in advance CL!
I have no experience with any of these apps admittedly, so before I get started I was wondering if anyone can chime in with experience between these 3 with any recommendations of going with one over the other and why? Or is it best just to get all 3 to go for variety?
Here are some more questions coming to mind:
Who has the best features or functionality?
Who has the most musical selection and variety?
How about sound quality, any variances?
Are there advertisements, who has the least of this?
Free vs paid subscriptions?
Any and all info is welcome, thanks in advance CL!
01-08-15, 11:56 AM
#2
Lexus Test Driver
If you have a Pandora subscription it's pretty great, no commercials and good variety. The automatic playlists that groups music is cool too and generally works well.
IHeartRadio is more designed to rope in local stations from around the US (and maybe the world, I dunno). So, if you're out of town you can listen to your local college football games or whatever.
Never bothered with Slacker, really can't comment.
However, I usually let my phone do all the work outside of Enform because apps take forever to load and present music in my 2013. Sometimes Enform doesn't want to cooperate either. So, I have TuneIn radio on my phone (free, no ads). It's basically a frontend for the ancient (and hugely expansive) Shoutcast radio browser. All internet stations with varying quality broadcasts. Using TuneIn, I flip the input to Bluetooth audio in the car and pick a station on my phone. Done. Sometimes if wifi is on (or if you get notification pip sounds on your phone) it will gap the audio stream so keep that in mind. Give it a try, nothing to lose.
IHeartRadio is more designed to rope in local stations from around the US (and maybe the world, I dunno). So, if you're out of town you can listen to your local college football games or whatever.
Never bothered with Slacker, really can't comment.
However, I usually let my phone do all the work outside of Enform because apps take forever to load and present music in my 2013. Sometimes Enform doesn't want to cooperate either. So, I have TuneIn radio on my phone (free, no ads). It's basically a frontend for the ancient (and hugely expansive) Shoutcast radio browser. All internet stations with varying quality broadcasts. Using TuneIn, I flip the input to Bluetooth audio in the car and pick a station on my phone. Done. Sometimes if wifi is on (or if you get notification pip sounds on your phone) it will gap the audio stream so keep that in mind. Give it a try, nothing to lose.
01-08-15, 12:08 PM
#3
Pole Position
Thread Starter
If you have a Pandora subscription it's pretty great, no commercials and good variety. The automatic playlists that groups music is cool too and generally works well.
IHeartRadio is more designed to rope in local stations from around the US (and maybe the world, I dunno). So, if you're out of town you can listen to your local college football games or whatever.
Never bothered with Slacker, really can't comment.
However, I usually let my phone do all the work outside of Enform because apps take forever to load and present music in my 2013. Sometimes Enform doesn't want to cooperate either. So, I have TuneIn radio on my phone (free, no ads). It's basically a frontend for the ancient (and hugely expansive) Shoutcast radio browser. All internet stations with varying quality broadcasts. Using TuneIn, I flip the input to Bluetooth audio in the car and pick a station on my phone. Done. Sometimes if wifi is on (or if you get notification pip sounds on your phone) it will gap the audio stream so keep that in mind. Give it a try, nothing to lose.
IHeartRadio is more designed to rope in local stations from around the US (and maybe the world, I dunno). So, if you're out of town you can listen to your local college football games or whatever.
Never bothered with Slacker, really can't comment.
However, I usually let my phone do all the work outside of Enform because apps take forever to load and present music in my 2013. Sometimes Enform doesn't want to cooperate either. So, I have TuneIn radio on my phone (free, no ads). It's basically a frontend for the ancient (and hugely expansive) Shoutcast radio browser. All internet stations with varying quality broadcasts. Using TuneIn, I flip the input to Bluetooth audio in the car and pick a station on my phone. Done. Sometimes if wifi is on (or if you get notification pip sounds on your phone) it will gap the audio stream so keep that in mind. Give it a try, nothing to lose.
How about features and controls via TuneIn vs the Enform app, any differences to note? For example, can you search and tune for various genres, artist etc. via the vehicle Remote Touch controls still or do you just select Bluetooth and then you must manage the interface from your phone?
I am hoping to utilize the big ol nav screen to manage audio still while I am driving.
01-08-15, 01:56 PM
#5
Pole Position
Thread Starter
I am really diggin the XM for sure, I may have to keep that going once it expires.
My thought here was to try out the other options in the meantime to find the best go forward solution as far as variety, functionality, and price are concerned.
Not getting a lot of feedback just yet, does this mean most members don't use these features, and if so what is your preferred solution?
Open to other suggestions, and there are certainly quite a few options as far as audio is concerned in the new GS!
My thought here was to try out the other options in the meantime to find the best go forward solution as far as variety, functionality, and price are concerned.
Not getting a lot of feedback just yet, does this mean most members don't use these features, and if so what is your preferred solution?
Open to other suggestions, and there are certainly quite a few options as far as audio is concerned in the new GS!
01-09-15, 09:42 AM
#6
Pole Position
Thread Starter
Enform/Slacker: Tested & Review
I decided to go ahead and start testing these out for myself to get the real perspective, and I will share what I find in case it helps others down the road, or if others can help me with some shortcomings I came across.
It was real easy to get this going since I already had Enform on my cell phone. I simply synced up my Enform account with my new Slacker account, then hopped in the GS for my ride home to test it out and it fired right up for me without issue. Here are some of my notes:
The sound quality is quite nice for certain, although it did seem to skip or pause slightly at times while driving down the freeway. Not sure if this is latency or losing signal from time to time, sounds more like latency to me though.
There are quite a few "stations" to choose from so the variety seems promising, although I found while you are in motion the scrolling feature is disabled, so you sadly can only choose from the stations you see on the screen. So I wasnt able to fully explore or really even get a good glimpse of the variety yet.
Same goes for searching, which you can search by artist, song, and even genre I want to say which was cool. Again though, search is disabled completely while in motion. Since I drive in freeway traffic most days, this is quite limiting.
I found when you come to a complete stop even while in D the search and scrolling is finally enabled (until you move again), so I can quickly scroll to a station I like, or if its a long stop light I may be able to perform a search. I can see disabled searching, but the disabled scrolling seems a bit overkill imo, and severely limits the functionality of the app. They do display album art, as if that is quite ok to look at while you are driving oddly!
I havent found a way to reorder the stations either, or mark stations as your favorite. So the interface doesnt seem to provide ways around these obstacles. You can mark a song as your favorite, and navigate to your favorite songs, but this would take forever to compile everything you like by artist, album, or genre. I didnt test it out, but I hope next time I get in the car it will at least recall my favorite station to make things easier. Or else I have to set it before I start moving.. uggh!
I think I maybe heard one commercial or more like a quick station identifier to let you know what you are listening to the entire hour or so I spent in the car so that was pretty nice.
When I got home, my cell phone was dead and I had to throw it on the charger, and I am sure this was sucking data the whole time too, as a side note if you dont have an unlimited data plan.
So overall it works decent and easy to setup and use, but it is annoying you cant get to all the music they have to offer while you are driving the car by searching or even scrolling through the list of stations offered. I wasnt a huge fan of the latency or glitch every 5-10 minutes either.
I am wondering if the modules used to let you play dvd's while the car is in motion would correct this issue now, anyone know? That may be a required upgrade at one point, if I want to get some real functionality out of this thing.
It was real easy to get this going since I already had Enform on my cell phone. I simply synced up my Enform account with my new Slacker account, then hopped in the GS for my ride home to test it out and it fired right up for me without issue. Here are some of my notes:
The sound quality is quite nice for certain, although it did seem to skip or pause slightly at times while driving down the freeway. Not sure if this is latency or losing signal from time to time, sounds more like latency to me though.
There are quite a few "stations" to choose from so the variety seems promising, although I found while you are in motion the scrolling feature is disabled, so you sadly can only choose from the stations you see on the screen. So I wasnt able to fully explore or really even get a good glimpse of the variety yet.
Same goes for searching, which you can search by artist, song, and even genre I want to say which was cool. Again though, search is disabled completely while in motion. Since I drive in freeway traffic most days, this is quite limiting.
I found when you come to a complete stop even while in D the search and scrolling is finally enabled (until you move again), so I can quickly scroll to a station I like, or if its a long stop light I may be able to perform a search. I can see disabled searching, but the disabled scrolling seems a bit overkill imo, and severely limits the functionality of the app. They do display album art, as if that is quite ok to look at while you are driving oddly!
I havent found a way to reorder the stations either, or mark stations as your favorite. So the interface doesnt seem to provide ways around these obstacles. You can mark a song as your favorite, and navigate to your favorite songs, but this would take forever to compile everything you like by artist, album, or genre. I didnt test it out, but I hope next time I get in the car it will at least recall my favorite station to make things easier. Or else I have to set it before I start moving.. uggh!
I think I maybe heard one commercial or more like a quick station identifier to let you know what you are listening to the entire hour or so I spent in the car so that was pretty nice.
When I got home, my cell phone was dead and I had to throw it on the charger, and I am sure this was sucking data the whole time too, as a side note if you dont have an unlimited data plan.
So overall it works decent and easy to setup and use, but it is annoying you cant get to all the music they have to offer while you are driving the car by searching or even scrolling through the list of stations offered. I wasnt a huge fan of the latency or glitch every 5-10 minutes either.
I am wondering if the modules used to let you play dvd's while the car is in motion would correct this issue now, anyone know? That may be a required upgrade at one point, if I want to get some real functionality out of this thing.
01-09-15, 09:43 AM
#7
Pandora and Slacker are basically the same thing IMO. You pick a genre of music, an artist or a particular song, and the app will selects a variety of songs similar to what you've chosen to create a custom station. Each will "learn" your preferences based on what songs you choose to skip past (or "dislike") or "like".
Ease of Use
Both apps are fairly easy to use and allow you to skip past the current track using the physical buttons on the steering wheel or center console. Pandora's Enform interface is very straight-forward and very easy to use. I found making a custom station on the fly is a little easier with Pandora. Slacker's Enform app has big graphics on a white background which is a cool departure from the rest of the dark Lexus interface. Getting to your favorite Slacker stations is easy once you set them up, but finding certain functions in Slacker can take some hunting at times.
Music Selection
I've tried the free versions of both Pandora and Slacker exclusively for a few weeks and REALLY loved Slacker's variety over Pandora. I've discovered so much new music using Slacker. Pandora's selection was a little more predictable, which is fine; however I found myself skipping a lot of songs because it didn't really get what I was in the mood for. There are some genres in which I found Pandora much better than Slacker, but overall Slacker gave me a better experience so I recently got a Slacker subscription.
iHeart Radio is a different type of music app. It enables you to stream terrestrial FM radio stations to your car over the internet. I thought it was cool that I could listen to local radio stations from Miami, New York, or Nashville here on the west coast. Unfortunately the app is slow as h#ll. Loading stations takes forever, so flipping between stations during commercial breaks is painful. I stopped using it and haven't looked back.
Ease of Use
Both apps are fairly easy to use and allow you to skip past the current track using the physical buttons on the steering wheel or center console. Pandora's Enform interface is very straight-forward and very easy to use. I found making a custom station on the fly is a little easier with Pandora. Slacker's Enform app has big graphics on a white background which is a cool departure from the rest of the dark Lexus interface. Getting to your favorite Slacker stations is easy once you set them up, but finding certain functions in Slacker can take some hunting at times.
Music Selection
I've tried the free versions of both Pandora and Slacker exclusively for a few weeks and REALLY loved Slacker's variety over Pandora. I've discovered so much new music using Slacker. Pandora's selection was a little more predictable, which is fine; however I found myself skipping a lot of songs because it didn't really get what I was in the mood for. There are some genres in which I found Pandora much better than Slacker, but overall Slacker gave me a better experience so I recently got a Slacker subscription.
iHeart Radio is a different type of music app. It enables you to stream terrestrial FM radio stations to your car over the internet. I thought it was cool that I could listen to local radio stations from Miami, New York, or Nashville here on the west coast. Unfortunately the app is slow as h#ll. Loading stations takes forever, so flipping between stations during commercial breaks is painful. I stopped using it and haven't looked back.
Last edited by blacksun; 01-09-15 at 09:46 AM.
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01-09-15, 09:54 AM
#8
Pole Position
Thread Starter
^ Thanks a bundle for the reply blacksun, this is exactly the kind of experienced based info I was hoping to get here!
I agree it seemed like a lot of variety on Slacker, yet was struggling to get to it. I was marking a few songs as favorites (via the heart icon) but I didnt see where it had created a whole new station based on this, yet!
Glad to hear the interface isnt super intuitive and that is wasnt just me! Mind telling me how to get to this personalized station you are referring to by chance? I had checked my music, and that seemed to be my songs, and my vibe, which had nothing. maybe I need to check more favorites before this kicks in?
Sorry for the dumb questions, as stated I am barely getting started with this and was kinda struggling and getting annoyed by all the disabled functions.. any help is highly appreciated!
I agree it seemed like a lot of variety on Slacker, yet was struggling to get to it. I was marking a few songs as favorites (via the heart icon) but I didnt see where it had created a whole new station based on this, yet!
Glad to hear the interface isnt super intuitive and that is wasnt just me! Mind telling me how to get to this personalized station you are referring to by chance? I had checked my music, and that seemed to be my songs, and my vibe, which had nothing. maybe I need to check more favorites before this kicks in?
Sorry for the dumb questions, as stated I am barely getting started with this and was kinda struggling and getting annoyed by all the disabled functions.. any help is highly appreciated!
01-09-15, 09:58 AM
#9
I decided to go ahead and start testing these out for myself to get the real perspective, and I will share what I find in case it helps others down the road, or if others can help me with some shortcomings I came across.
It was real easy to get this going since I already had Enform on my cell phone. I simply synced up my Enform account with my new Slacker account, then hopped in the GS for my ride home to test it out and it fired right up for me without issue. Here are some of my notes:
The sound quality is quite nice for certain, although it did seem to skip or pause slightly at times while driving down the freeway. Not sure if this is latency or losing signal from time to time, sounds more like latency to me though.
There are quite a few "stations" to choose from so the variety seems promising, although I found while you are in motion the scrolling feature is disabled, so you sadly can only choose from the stations you see on the screen. So I wasnt able to fully explore or really even get a good glimpse of the variety yet.
Same goes for searching, which you can search by artist, song, and even genre I want to say which was cool. Again though, search is disabled completely while in motion. Since I drive in freeway traffic most days, this is quite limiting.
I found when you come to a complete stop even while in D the search and scrolling is finally enabled (until you move again), so I can quickly scroll to a station I like, or if its a long stop light I may be able to perform a search. I can see disabled searching, but the disabled scrolling seems a bit overkill imo, and severely limits the functionality of the app. They do display album art, as if that is quite ok to look at while you are driving oddly!
I havent found a way to reorder the stations either, or mark stations as your favorite. So the interface doesnt seem to provide ways around these obstacles. You can mark a song as your favorite, and navigate to your favorite songs, but this would take forever to compile everything you like by artist, album, or genre. I didnt test it out, but I hope next time I get in the car it will at least recall my favorite station to make things easier. Or else I have to set it before I start moving.. uggh!
I think I maybe heard one commercial or more like a quick station identifier to let you know what you are listening to the entire hour or so I spent in the car so that was pretty nice.
When I got home, my cell phone was dead and I had to throw it on the charger, and I am sure this was sucking data the whole time too, as a side note if you dont have an unlimited data plan.
So overall it works decent and easy to setup and use, but it is annoying you cant get to all the music they have to offer while you are driving the car by searching or even scrolling through the list of stations offered. I wasnt a huge fan of the latency or glitch every 5-10 minutes either.
I am wondering if the modules used to let you play dvd's while the car is in motion would correct this issue now, anyone know? That may be a required upgrade at one point, if I want to get some real functionality out of this thing.
It was real easy to get this going since I already had Enform on my cell phone. I simply synced up my Enform account with my new Slacker account, then hopped in the GS for my ride home to test it out and it fired right up for me without issue. Here are some of my notes:
The sound quality is quite nice for certain, although it did seem to skip or pause slightly at times while driving down the freeway. Not sure if this is latency or losing signal from time to time, sounds more like latency to me though.
There are quite a few "stations" to choose from so the variety seems promising, although I found while you are in motion the scrolling feature is disabled, so you sadly can only choose from the stations you see on the screen. So I wasnt able to fully explore or really even get a good glimpse of the variety yet.
Same goes for searching, which you can search by artist, song, and even genre I want to say which was cool. Again though, search is disabled completely while in motion. Since I drive in freeway traffic most days, this is quite limiting.
I found when you come to a complete stop even while in D the search and scrolling is finally enabled (until you move again), so I can quickly scroll to a station I like, or if its a long stop light I may be able to perform a search. I can see disabled searching, but the disabled scrolling seems a bit overkill imo, and severely limits the functionality of the app. They do display album art, as if that is quite ok to look at while you are driving oddly!
I havent found a way to reorder the stations either, or mark stations as your favorite. So the interface doesnt seem to provide ways around these obstacles. You can mark a song as your favorite, and navigate to your favorite songs, but this would take forever to compile everything you like by artist, album, or genre. I didnt test it out, but I hope next time I get in the car it will at least recall my favorite station to make things easier. Or else I have to set it before I start moving.. uggh!
I think I maybe heard one commercial or more like a quick station identifier to let you know what you are listening to the entire hour or so I spent in the car so that was pretty nice.
When I got home, my cell phone was dead and I had to throw it on the charger, and I am sure this was sucking data the whole time too, as a side note if you dont have an unlimited data plan.
So overall it works decent and easy to setup and use, but it is annoying you cant get to all the music they have to offer while you are driving the car by searching or even scrolling through the list of stations offered. I wasnt a huge fan of the latency or glitch every 5-10 minutes either.
I am wondering if the modules used to let you play dvd's while the car is in motion would correct this issue now, anyone know? That may be a required upgrade at one point, if I want to get some real functionality out of this thing.
01-09-15, 10:15 AM
#10
Pole Position
Thread Starter
You should be able to search for a particular artist or song while driving using the voice search function on the Slacker app. (I think it's a little microphone on the top right corner on the main app page.) It's not perfect since you have to depend on the voice recognition system to understand you, but as long as the artist name/song isn't too crazy (Taylor Swift = OK / Iggy Azalea = Not so much) it works in a bind.
Nice tip! I'll try it out, although I admit testing the voice recognition in the past seemed like a futile effort that I had already abandoned!
I will search more for that personalized station you spoke of based on my favorites... hopefully I can find it, and that it provide me with a fresh supply of new stuff I will like.
Thanks again pardner!
01-09-15, 11:30 AM
#11
Lexus Champion
I noticed on my 2015 that there isn't a microphone icon on the screen anymore. I was worried that they got rid of the voice feature, but it works when you go to the app and press the voice button on the steering wheel.
01-09-15, 11:56 AM
#12
Pole Position
Thread Starter
Me and this GS are going to have a chat today on the way home it seems.
What do I say to her specifically for best results in your experience? Play "artist name", "station ", or "song " or "search for xxx"?
01-12-15, 04:42 AM
#13
^ Thanks a bundle for the reply blacksun, this is exactly the kind of experienced based info I was hoping to get here!
I agree it seemed like a lot of variety on Slacker, yet was struggling to get to it. I was marking a few songs as favorites (via the heart icon) but I didnt see where it had created a whole new station based on this, yet!
Glad to hear the interface isnt super intuitive and that is wasnt just me! Mind telling me how to get to this personalized station you are referring to by chance? I had checked my music, and that seemed to be my songs, and my vibe, which had nothing. maybe I need to check more favorites before this kicks in?
Sorry for the dumb questions, as stated I am barely getting started with this and was kinda struggling and getting annoyed by all the disabled functions.. any help is highly appreciated!
I agree it seemed like a lot of variety on Slacker, yet was struggling to get to it. I was marking a few songs as favorites (via the heart icon) but I didnt see where it had created a whole new station based on this, yet!
Glad to hear the interface isnt super intuitive and that is wasnt just me! Mind telling me how to get to this personalized station you are referring to by chance? I had checked my music, and that seemed to be my songs, and my vibe, which had nothing. maybe I need to check more favorites before this kicks in?
Sorry for the dumb questions, as stated I am barely getting started with this and was kinda struggling and getting annoyed by all the disabled functions.. any help is highly appreciated!
I'm probably confusing you w/ my terminology. You can think of a "station" as just a type of playlist. Anytime you search for a song or artist to play, the app creates a new playlist (or station) of music that is similar. For example, if I search for "Michael Jackson" the app is gong to play a few MJ songs and also a variety of music by similar artists. That playlist is your new Michael Jackson "station".
As you listen to your playlist, if you mark certain songs as a "favorite" the app doesn't create a new playlist, it just fine tunes the selection of music on the current playlist. So if I fav MJ songs from the 80's but tend to skip forward past MJ songs from the 90's the app will figure out I like early MJ and will play less of his later work.
Last edited by blacksun; 01-12-15 at 04:45 AM.
01-12-15, 08:10 AM
#14
Pole Position
Thread Starter
Not dumb questions at all!
I'm probably confusing you w/ my terminology. You can think of a "station" as just a type of playlist. Anytime you search for a song or artist to play, the app creates a new playlist (or station) of music that is similar. For example, if I search for "Michael Jackson" the app is gong to play a few MJ songs and also a variety of music by similar artists. That playlist is your new Michael Jackson "station".
As you listen to your playlist, if you mark certain songs as a "favorite" the app doesn't create a new playlist, it just fine tunes the selection of music on the current playlist. So if I fav MJ songs from the 80's but tend to skip forward past MJ songs from the 90's the app will figure out I like early MJ and will play less of his later work.
I'm probably confusing you w/ my terminology. You can think of a "station" as just a type of playlist. Anytime you search for a song or artist to play, the app creates a new playlist (or station) of music that is similar. For example, if I search for "Michael Jackson" the app is gong to play a few MJ songs and also a variety of music by similar artists. That playlist is your new Michael Jackson "station".
As you listen to your playlist, if you mark certain songs as a "favorite" the app doesn't create a new playlist, it just fine tunes the selection of music on the current playlist. So if I fav MJ songs from the 80's but tend to skip forward past MJ songs from the 90's the app will figure out I like early MJ and will play less of his later work.
I will jump in and see how that works today!
01-13-15, 10:59 AM
#15
Lexus Test Driver
I really hope we get TuneIn radio in the future. It's my favorite by far, is 100% free, has different quality streams you can choose from and has a great app on both kinds of phones. I always mention it in the Lexus Advisory Board surveys, so hopefully one day they will expand the music app selection.