The AOL Radio beta that is out now is pretty decent for a AOL beta program. It does what it's supposed to do, which is good, and it does it in an interface that is recognizable from iTunes.
The XM stations seem to be a bit on the light side, but I was able to find something that I liked. The plus about the XM stations is that there is no advertising while that page is loaded. On all the other stations, it has a banner across the bottom of the screen, which is annoying and bothersome sometimes. If I pay for the AOL service already, why do I need to see these ads? How about you provide me with something that doesn't have ads, AOL.
A neat thing about the interface is that you can click on the band name, song name, or album name in the track info area and get information. Ingenious idea and better than the arrow in iTunes that leads to the iTMS. More about the interface, a bezel shows up on the screen when a new song plays on the station that you're listening to, which is great since I don't always want to look to see what I'm listening to.
Album art showing up in the upper right corner is a great idea, too. I've never seen that done in any radio program and I would love it if iTunes could do it, too.
The quality of the radio stream is quite good. Even on my slow dial-up at the moment, I have yet to reload a stream or anything. I've been listening consistently for minutes on end. In iTunes, I would have to re-buffer (that's the word I'm looking for!) numerous times. The audio quality is normal for a radio stream, but is consistent and not hollow like some streams tend to sound.
Overall, I think that AOL radio is a good program that does need some tweaking like any beta program, but overall is good. It has it's bright spots such as the interface and the selection of radio stations overall. Not to mention that the XM integration is quite nice, too. If you have an AOL account, download this program and use it. It's worth it.
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