Slacker Radio now does multitasking on iOS 4!

Slacker Radio had been looking like, well, a slacker, since Steve Jobs demoed rival music streaming service, Pandora, at the WWDC earlier this month as an example of iOS 4's new multi-tasking capabilities (though in the grand scheme of things, it was only 2 days). Well, no longer.

The San Diego company said on its user forum Tuesday afternoon that its much-anticipated iOS 4-compatible update was now available on Apple's App Store. The update lets users listen to Slacker in the background while running other apps on their iPhone. And from my early experiments, I've discovered that Slacker also keeps playing music even if you put the iPhone to sleep by pressing the top button. That ought to effectively provide a big boost to your iPhone's battery life. Note: Pandora can do this, too.

The update also fixes stability issues that had caused Slacker to crash on iOS 4 after 2-3 songs for many users, including my whinging self.

According to a spokesman, Slacker's 'slackerliness' wasn't totally its fault. The app had been submitted to Apple last week, he said, but was only approved by Apple earlier today.

I'm going to take a listen while driving home (the killer app for these Internet radio services, IMHO) but everything seems to be working just fine. How about you guys?