SiriusXM has launched a new interface for their online streaming player for subscribers. The new interface has more of a full screen kind of look. It kind of gives the feel of something you would expect to see on a tablet or car dash screen.
Sadly, it isn’t quite ready yet for everyone but it does work perfectly on FireFox at least. On the latest Internet Explorer, it wouldn’t recognize our login. On Chrome, it wouldn’t go further than “loading”. So it looks some users may have to wait it out until they work the kinks out of tonight’s UI rollout. (update: resolution can be found below)
The new interface is a big push towards user friendliness as your selection of options are much more simple and spread about. The main focus of the screen is on the channel and track that is playing with arrows to change between channels to the sides of it. Above is a simple ribbon of controls that allow you to repeat the track, pause it or skip to the next one (as well as control the volume). There is a vertical menu to the left that provides the options to search, browse channels, view your recent activity, settings and favorites.
The new menus are clean with a similar structure as you would find on iOS. Your settings are located in the new “Me” option, and everything seems to work fluidly without any heavy pull on your processor.
Although there wasn’t much wrong with their old UI, the new UI is definitely refreshing and looks better. It is much more friendlier for those less tech savvy and competes better with the other streaming solutions available on the internet. Also, SiriusXM has been enjoying a small ride in their stock value as of late, so they are probably pulling all the punches to make sure that pattern continues.
We expect a bright future from SiriusXM and look forward to what else they have hidden up their sleeves. Hopefully including new services that will draw a larger niche of users, and expanding beyond just radio; but that’s just a preview of the concept idea I have in my mind for them–hoping they have the same thought process.
What do you think about the new UI? Let us know below in the comments!
Update:
We partly determined the conflict with the Chrome browser. All 3 PCs that were tested, were still actively logged into the previous (pre-update) session. The cookies somehow did not travel over to the new design. Upon manually deleting any cookies related to SiriusXM and refreshing the page, it resulted in getting kicked back to the login screen (expected). Once logged in, all 3 PCs successfully loaded the new player/design. However, nothing would stream. Once you have clicked anything, it would just sit there. Refreshing the page brings you back to the loading screen and sticks. There is a new option at the lower left however to switch to the “classic player”. This has been added clearly because SiriusXM must have noticed the lack of cross-platform compatibility.
For Chrome users, until they fix this bug, you will want to use the this link to listen with.
