Slacker 2.0 for iPhone, iPod, iPad Adds Caching

Slacker lovers who have longed to cache your favorite tunes on the iPhone/ iPod/ iPad can jump for joy as Slacker 2.0 is now available in the App Store. The new version of Slacker provides the ability to download songs to the device so listening is no longer restricted to times when connected to the Slacker servers.
The new ability to cache songs is available with a Slacker Radio Plus membership for as little as $3.99 per month. Users of the free version of Slacker can cache songs for 14 days at no charge, but will need to upgrade the membership to listen longer than that.

Perhaps the most polarizing news in these parts of late is around AT&T’s new smartphone data plan changes, which the carrier unveiled yesterday. Some customers are happy that they’ll be saving up to $15 a month with reduced plan pricing, while others aren’t thrilled to hear that unlimited data is going away in favor of 200 MB or 2 GB buckets with overage charges. Those in the latter camp might appreciate the facetious tweet of Rahul Sood, founder of VoodooPC: “Look on the bright side AT&T customers, your data is STILL unlimited, it’s your bill that was uncapped.”

But the new rate plans don’t take effect until June 7, so there’s still a wee bit of time for new customers to nab an iPhone or iPad under the current unlimited plan offerings. Considering the expectation of a possible front-facing video camera that’s sure to gobble up data on AT&T’s network, it just might make sense to buy a current iPhone 3GS to gain the unlimited data contract and hope you can return the old model for a new one next week. The newest iPhone hardware is widely expected to launch at Apple’s WWDC event next Monday, the same day the new AT&T tiered pricing plans kick in.

Meanwhile iPad owners, which watch three times more video on their Apple device than on others, seem the most miffed, and with good reason. Apple announced an innovative, unlimited AT&T data plan specific to the iPad when it introduced the device in January, which goes by the wayside with this new data plan.

So who’s buying an iPhone or iPad between now and Monday?