Stitcher, the personalized streaming radio service, is releasing its native iPhone application in a limited private beta. The first 100 TechCrunch readers to submit their email addresses here will be eligible to participate. Note that you’ll have to submit your iPhone’s serial number, which is required by Apple’s Ad Hoc beta program (as is the 100 user limit).
Stitcher can best be described as Pandora for everything but music, allowing users to compile a playlist of audio feeds from hundreds of sources, including news sites and radio stations. The site also employs a small team to read popular blogs and websites aloud so you can listen to them on the go.
When I first covered Stitcher in May, I wrote that the site’s mobile service had a lot of potential, but that its iPhone web app was slow and clunky (which was more an issue with Mobile Safari than Stitcher).
The demo video below shows that Stitcher’s native app has resolved these issues – there’s no longer any lag when switching stations, and the interface is much cleaner and more intuitive. Once it launches on the App Store, Stitcher will see no shortage of competition from other audio streaming apps including Pandora (one of the most popular apps in the store), AOL Radio, and a number of others.
You can see a demo of the app below. Note that Stitcher is a work in progress, and that the team is still making improvements as it builds up to public release:
Wow, that’s cool
A whole list of streaming radio channels to come I bet, the hope is in the near future it seems!
http://blabtech.blogspot.com
Very cool. I use Stitcher every day.
I don’t get it. Why listen to blogs when you can scan through them more quickly using an RSS reader? And how many iphone users are interested in any other type of talk radio? seems like a small market to me. Besides, they’ll have to compete with music and games for the consumer’s mindshare. Good luck…I think they’ll need it.
Why listen to books on tape when you can read them yourself?
Plenty of people like to listen to something other than music while they’re driving to work. This may not have as much reach as Pandora, but it’s not a small market.
Have registered so thank you but another boring UScentric iphone app. like Jott, loopt and pandora to name but a few. zzzzzz
you’re entitled to your opinion and i’m entitled to mine. it’s a small market imho. music is very different from talk radio. surprised that I need to say that…people use pandora to discover new music and because it can unearth new music that they like. you need to lsten to music to experience it. talk radio is very different. you listen to it either to get your news or because you respect the opinion of the commentor or enjoy his/her personality. are there other reasons that you can identify? if that is the case, then why is stitcher necessary? also, the optimal way to experience music is to listen to it (as opposed to reading sheet music). in most cases, the optimal way to consume a blog post is to get it via rss as it is the most efficient. pandora may be the best music experience on the internet…don’t set the bar so high for stitcher.
I tried it out this morning. Cool stuff there.
Todd, you are wrong.
This app is very cool. I’ve been listening to the channels and love how easy it is to find content. Maybe you haven’t noticed that there is a ton of RSS audio content. Even if you love a specific talk show host you have to listen to it when they are on the radio. This is like radio on demand. Cool.
congrats mike! they have a great team that could do some real damage.
Sweet, Sticher is an awesome service already. Can’t wait.
Mike,
Great to see this is getting well off the ground and doing great! Congrats!
This is like radio on demand. Cool.