Sirius XM kills 3rd party Smartphone streaming applications

Back in 2005, Dave from geekstoolbox.com started working on a Windows Mobile player for the Sirius internet stream called SiriusWM5. It is an excellent application that I use often on my WM devices. Fast forward to 2008, Dave and 3 other individuals who developed players for other platforms pooled their talents to form nicemac, LLC. The goal of forming this company was to build a multi platform Sirius/XM player called StarPlayr including a version for the iPhone. In February 2009, they submitted their StarPlayr for the iPhone to Apple. Apple has been sitting on the application since then with no rejection statement. It is not public knowledge to what happened next, but it seems that Sirius is developing its own iPhone application and used a clause in their terms and conditions to shut StarPlayr down. Not only did Sirius/XM shut down the iPhone version, but the Windows and Mac versions as well with no official acknowledgement of what their plan is. What seems bizarre is that they ignoring the loyal fans base of the StarPlayr, which are also Sirius/XM subscribers with no statement, not very good PR from a company that is struggling.

As a Sirius subscriber I had added the 128Kbps internet option to my account. In protest I have removed that option. Not that it will do anything but if they actually have a product in Beta for the iPhone, they should at least acknowledge the fact. When XM was a standalone company they had pre announced their plans for an iPhone application, I guess the new Sirius/XM PR guys think they are Apple, for keeping such a tight secret, I think not...

Comments

[Chuck]

I sure hope they restore the WMA stream but I bet they don’t. I will really hoping someone can develop a work aground.