MisterMixelpix
Android Expert
So if you're not aware of it, MOG just came out with some Android goodness, which you can find out about (and sign up for a free trial of) here: MOG's Streaming Music Service Launches Ground-Breaking Mobile Apps
Now I'm not big on a monthly fee for this kind of thing, but I was curious so I decided to give it a whack. If I like it, I might go for it. If not, no loss, right? So I downloaded it and went for it.
First off, the interface is stellar. I mean that. It may be the best interface of any of the various radio apps out there. Better than Last, Slacker, Pandora, or Sirius. Open 'er up and you're greeted with a friendly, well-laid-out screen that makes it pretty obvious what's what.
(note: the Kalmah background is because that's what I searched for)
Pick anything and you get a simple list of what's new, what's popular, or "featured" picks which I assume are selected by the Mog staff. Album art loads swiftly, information is full and accurate, and I have to admit, the selection seemed pretty good.
Of course, that's just based on all the popular stuff. One thing I do is pick an artist that's fairly well known but not ridiculously obscure to see what they've got. Today's selection was Kalmah (as per the above screen), and I selected "Kalmah radio" after going through the intuitive search interface.
The selection was actually surprising, it did indeed look like everything was there.
One thing that separates this from things like Pandora or Last is that if you pick "[Artist] Radio", it's ONLY that artist. Similar artists are a separate link and you can't simply say "give me everything that sounds like this". But I have to admit, Mog had TONS of artists.
In this respect, Mog whipped the CRAP out of Last and Pandora. I put in something like "Kalmah Radio" into Pandora and within four songs I'm getting Tool and Pantera. Last does better, but not by much. Mog? Well take a look for yourself.
Mog did something most streaming radio fails at: giving me NEW stuff. I was really surprised.
Playlists are kind of a pain, because you have to build them manually it seems. There's no "set it and forget it" a la Pandora or Last.FM, if you don't want to listen to one artist, you can do one of two things. You can either start building, or search other playlists.
If you do the latter, you once again can't search by genre, so pick an artist you like and start from there. I was impressed by the number of playlists, found a few that looked interesting, and browsed. As before, Mog delivered:
Okay, fine, but there's one hook: you can't just hit "play" and start streaming. It insists on DOWNLOADING everything you find via a playlist, and THEN it'll play. Thus far I have yet to find a way to simply stream playlists.
Mog devs: it takes a bit of time to download songs over a 3G connection, longer than I want to wait. Just let me play. Fortunately, once the first song is downloaded, you start listening, and generally speaking the 2nd song will be done by the time the first song finishes playing. Still, it's an annoyance. I don't want to store anything on my phone, I just want to stream.
The actual play screen is pretty good, too, with basic info and the ability to branch into similar artists and such. Nothing too fancy.
Okay, but what about the sound? Well, it sounds pretty dang good. Won't blow you away, we're not talking lossless, but it's a damn sight better than Last.FM, and probably on par with Pandora.
So, overall, I give it 4 horns outta 5. Check it out.
Now I'm not big on a monthly fee for this kind of thing, but I was curious so I decided to give it a whack. If I like it, I might go for it. If not, no loss, right? So I downloaded it and went for it.
First off, the interface is stellar. I mean that. It may be the best interface of any of the various radio apps out there. Better than Last, Slacker, Pandora, or Sirius. Open 'er up and you're greeted with a friendly, well-laid-out screen that makes it pretty obvious what's what.
(note: the Kalmah background is because that's what I searched for)
Pick anything and you get a simple list of what's new, what's popular, or "featured" picks which I assume are selected by the Mog staff. Album art loads swiftly, information is full and accurate, and I have to admit, the selection seemed pretty good.
Of course, that's just based on all the popular stuff. One thing I do is pick an artist that's fairly well known but not ridiculously obscure to see what they've got. Today's selection was Kalmah (as per the above screen), and I selected "Kalmah radio" after going through the intuitive search interface.
The selection was actually surprising, it did indeed look like everything was there.
One thing that separates this from things like Pandora or Last is that if you pick "[Artist] Radio", it's ONLY that artist. Similar artists are a separate link and you can't simply say "give me everything that sounds like this". But I have to admit, Mog had TONS of artists.
In this respect, Mog whipped the CRAP out of Last and Pandora. I put in something like "Kalmah Radio" into Pandora and within four songs I'm getting Tool and Pantera. Last does better, but not by much. Mog? Well take a look for yourself.
Mog did something most streaming radio fails at: giving me NEW stuff. I was really surprised.
Playlists are kind of a pain, because you have to build them manually it seems. There's no "set it and forget it" a la Pandora or Last.FM, if you don't want to listen to one artist, you can do one of two things. You can either start building, or search other playlists.
If you do the latter, you once again can't search by genre, so pick an artist you like and start from there. I was impressed by the number of playlists, found a few that looked interesting, and browsed. As before, Mog delivered:
Okay, fine, but there's one hook: you can't just hit "play" and start streaming. It insists on DOWNLOADING everything you find via a playlist, and THEN it'll play. Thus far I have yet to find a way to simply stream playlists.
Mog devs: it takes a bit of time to download songs over a 3G connection, longer than I want to wait. Just let me play. Fortunately, once the first song is downloaded, you start listening, and generally speaking the 2nd song will be done by the time the first song finishes playing. Still, it's an annoyance. I don't want to store anything on my phone, I just want to stream.
The actual play screen is pretty good, too, with basic info and the ability to branch into similar artists and such. Nothing too fancy.
Okay, but what about the sound? Well, it sounds pretty dang good. Won't blow you away, we're not talking lossless, but it's a damn sight better than Last.FM, and probably on par with Pandora.
So, overall, I give it 4 horns outta 5. Check it out.