One area that Android hasn’t reached its potential is with on-device music. Sure, the Music app plays songs well enough, but it’s not pretty, doesn’t have many features, and the widgets… don’t get me started on the widgets. This is one area where iPhone really shines. Then again, iPhone started out as a music player with phone stuff added on over time, so it’s understandable that iPhone would do music better — for now.

Cyanogen, Dan Josiah, and others involved in the AOSP are trying to address Android’s music short comings, and have made some fairly good inroads with Music Mod by Eliot Stocker which is included in the latest CyanogenMod ROMs.

Still, iPhone wins against Android for on-device music — again, for now.

Where Android excels is with streaming music apps.

Slacker Radio

Slacker Radio is very similar to Pandora, offering streaming stations from artists that you’ve never heard of alongside Top 40 hits. Where Slacker pulls ahead is with its offline mode. Check out this article for more on that.

Slacker Radio is free in the Market.

Pandora

Ah, Pandora, how I love thee! Seriously, Pandora has introduced me to so many new artists, I don’t think I can reasonably go back to over-the-air radio again.

For those of you who don’t know, Pandora is a web service that streams music stations to your phone or web browser. They assemble playlists based on an artist or song, and serve up similar songs. Most of the time they’re spot on. If they’re not you simply “thumbs-down” the song, and it won’t play it on that station again.

Pandora is free in the Market.

Sirius XM Radio

Reader Arther Brownlee IV was right to point out that for news, sports, and specialty programming, Sirius XM is a very good choice — it plays music, too. Of course, you do have to have a paid subscription to the service. Unfortunately, not all “satellite” stations are available for streaming to Android.

Last.fm

Last.fm is a great streaming music app, very similar to both Slacker and Pandora. I really like it’s social integration and “scrobbling” the songs you like to Twitter, Facebook, or even a widget on your blog. Very cool.

Last.fm is free in the Market.

WunderRadio

WunderRadio is yet another streaming radio service that now brings its popular app to Android from the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile world. According to their press release, WunderRadio gives you access to “over 50,000 radio stations ranging from AOL Radio to the BBC”.

WunderRadio is US$6.99 in the Market.

Scanner Radio

Getting away from music, Scanner Radio is a radio scanner app that lets you listen to amateur radio repeaters, public safety (police, fire, EMS, etc.), and similar radio feeds. You can have the app show you feeds close to your location, or pick from a given area, source, or even see the top 50 scanners.

EMS coverage may be spotty or may not cover your area. For some much needed white-noise or to stay on top of what’s happening in your neighborhood, Scanner Radio is a nice way to pass the time.

Scanner Radio is free in the Market.

Google Listen

Google’s Listen app is one of the coolest “audio” apps I’ve come across, and it’s where I spend the majority of my listening time. It’s got so much cool stuff behind it it really needs its own article… Look forward to that early next week!