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Getting tunes on your personal device has evolved quite a bit in the past few decades. Instead of getting into the details of the transition from walkmans, etc, this article instead will focus on a few of the current platforms and sites that cater to those looking to get some great streaming audio customized and personalized to their listening styles.
The iPhone and iPods are device that easily influence the way we thought of digital music. Without going into an extensive history, these devices have internet access either through wifi or through the networks. Access to the internet is a critical point in getting your music anytime, anywhere. Of course, even without this, there are a lot of options for syncing those devices to include literally thousands of songs or other audio content.
Another set of devices that you may be very successful with when it comes to getting your streamed audio is the Android platform. These are devices that tend to have a very clean look and feel to them with a lot of options for customization that the iPhone and iPods don’t necessarily offer. Many of the devices are manufactured in conjunction with Google who is the producer of the operating system that runs these devices. There will always be a varied opinion on them, but after trying these, many people have been swayed to a new phone and new OS.
Since the iPad was introduced and has now come out, it has a lot of competitors. However, the device itself with either a wifi connection or an optional data plan with a SIM care may be a good option for those looking to get more out of their streaming media. If the site that streams the audio has flash and uses flash for the streaming or the user experience, there may be some issues with getting them to work effectively with the i-Devices. That said, there will be several methods of how to overcome this, especially for those producing the services as coding an application is apparently not overly complicated.
Androids have their own version of the “pad” or tablet device. These wouldn’t necessarily be considered laptops even though there is a good likelihood this thing will sit comfortably in your lap. The device itself to me seems like it would be really cool to play around with. As I’m already a huge fan of the Android OS on the mobile device I have, I could see this developing well into a great platform and possibly even the future of computing at a personal level.
To get more indepth into the streaming side of this, an introduction to Pandora is in order. This is a site that allows you to select a song, artist or album. It will then select songs that it believes you will like based on this initial selection. Once you begin listening to songs, you interact with the system so that it will begin to learn which type of songs you like and dislike. It will then continue to make recommendations and in my experience not only becomes pretty good at guessing what I’ll like, but introducing me to music I’ve never heard of before and artists that most likely I would never have come across on my own. For this reason, Pandora is an excellent service and provides a lot of value.
Grooveshark is similar to Pandora. However, I’m not sure the extent to which Grooveshark has developed its “intelligence” related to helping choose which songs to play next. I tend to get stuck with another great feature that Grooveshark has. That is Grooveshark will let you play the same song over and over again as well as coordinate your own playlist and allow you to add your own songs into that list. You can “mix and match” this list with your own MP3 collection. It’s really cool what they allow you to do. Either way, both Pandora and Grooveshark have free versions online that allow for this. Some of the streaming and other options that exist for the portable devices may incur an additional fee or monthly cost depending on what they are.
In conclusion, the portable devices themselves have a great likelihood of improving the music or audio scene for anyone with the right device, the right amount of bandwidth, and the right service or site that delivers up the goods. People will tend to form opinions on any number of different aspects of the devices and services. The best thing to do may be to try these out and see what you like or may not like.
You can find several more articles covering audio-related topics including outdoor speakers and wireless home theater.
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