AOL Radio

[cynikal]

just my two peso's

according to:

http://daol.aol.com/software/mac/iphone/radio/faq/

Why are some of my stations grayed-out?

AOL Radio automatically adjusts to provide you with the best sound quality for your connection type. Some stations are currently available in high-bandwidth streams optimized for use on 3G or WiFi networks. If you are on an EDGE network connection, these stations will be grayed out.

so that page is saying it's SUPPOSED to work the same on 3G as it works over WiFi. i would think that means it's obviously a software bug and we have to wait until AoL posts a fixed version (and Apple "approves" it to be included in the App Store)

 

[trunksu]

i just hope AOL knows about it. at least i have pandora to help fill the music needs

 

[macduke]

i just hope AOL knows about it. at least i have pandora to help fill the music needs

Oh, they know about it. That Lee Givens guy has been posting in the apps forums giving out concise and helpful information. He is apparently the Mac Product Lead for AOL. He is rather knowledgeable. You should address him about any further issues.

 

[cenetti]

Now its working...with 3G....
I listened to some dance stations while driving tonight. Unfortunately, I think the bit rate for stations is quite low. They sound terrible...
I don't listen anything below 128 *ahem*....

 

[trunksu]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5A347 Safari/525.20)

Just tried it and works! but I can't tell the quality since I forgot to take my headphones with me x.x

 

[cynikal]

confirmed.. all radio stations worked on 3g (as well as wireless), BUT (and it's a big one), it seems the solution aol has employed was on their servers, by (as mentioned) giving us a very low quality version.

it does not sound any better than the CBS radio stations that worked on edge.. by ear i would say it sound like a 48 or 64kbps stream in MONO.. which is really quite crappy.. i also confirmed that over wireless it's still a good quality sound (around 128-160kbps in (joint) stereo probably)

while i'm happy it at least works "anywhere" (not tethered to a wireless network), the sound quality is a lot less than stellar and so i would petition AOL to come up with a real solution.. one of the things i LOVED about AOL radio when i first tried it was the amount of variety of music in actually very decent quality! this however seems like only a work-around.. i say DON'T ACCEPT THIS as a real fix people!!

additionally i've actually measured the amount of bandwidth used by a stream over wifi and it was only 20-24 kB/s (around 256kbps, or double the speed of traditional ISDN)... and i know for a fact that 3g CAN HANDLE THIS JUST FINE.. so i don't know what AOL is thinking at this point, i just hope they didn't close this ticket in their system considering it "resolved" when this is only a bandaid solution and not a real one :-\

 

[nyctravis]

I too had the problem of all radio stations other than local appearing greyed out on my 3G. Suddenly the other day I was able to play them. I got so excited I almost peed-until they started playing and the sound quality was so loooowwwwwww that I just couldn't stand it. Hopefully they will fix this!

 

[Rybold]

So are you guys saying that the sound quality is just as good as a computer when it is on WiFi, but the sound quality goes to crap when it has to rely on 3G or EDGE?

Any updates?

 

[cenetti]

So are you guys saying that the sound quality is just as good as a computer when it is on WiFi, but the sound quality goes to crap when it has to rely on 3G or EDGE?

Any updates?

Yes, thats exactly what we're saying. I don't know if they updated it or not, I deleted AOL Radio because of its useless low bit rate. Same as pandora. They hurt my ears..

However , I use Allradio, Tuner and Last FM on 3G everyday. They all ROCK!

 

[Rybold]

However , I use Allradio, Tuner and Last FM on 3G everyday. They all ROCK!

AWESOME !!!! Thank you !!!!!!!!!