Everything youll ever need to know about listening to radio on the iPhone

Yeah, hopefully other devs soon follow suit. The ooTunes folks told me they surely will. Not sure about the rest.

 

UPDATE (07/23/2009): Version 1.0.8 of Tuner2 is out

AppStore record

The only difference I could spot was the newly-added “Logged Titles” (screenshot of the new version; that of the previous one), which list all the tunes you’ve listened to (without your having to explicitly save them), while the original “Saved Titles” still lists the songs you’ve explicitly “saved”. In this way, it works in exactly the same way as ooTunes’ History.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any other change.

 

It uses stroage-based recording of the original, compressed stream; so, it can be even days. (Assuming you keep the phone alive all the times and there's no 30-minute pauses, which would stop the network access.)

 

UPDATE (07/25/2009):

1.) Tuner2 1.0.9 released. Compared to 1.0.8, it’s just a bugfix version – no new features at all.



2.) There’s a major rebate of Raizlab Corp’s ClockRadio this weekend: instead of $3, it’s sold at $1.


For this price, you may want to consider it. It has a major advantage over all the radio clients reviewed so far: if you leave it running (even on a suspended phone – that is, you don’t need to keep it running), it’ll be able to wake you up at a pre-set time.


It can be used as a desktop clock; particularly useful if you have a desktop stand with a charger and you disable auto-lock in system-wide settings. You can use any widely used backlight / text color combo; settable by dragging the screen anywhere while on the main menu. For example, the next setting emulates an LCD screen with green backlight:



And this either a LED radio with active LED’s – or a standard LCD one with inverted colors:



You can turn down the screen brightness by finding some "sweet points", which is particularly useful if you do leave it running the entire night in your bedroom.

Unfortunately, otherwise, it’s pretty incapable. In addition to the clock / SHOUTcast station directory (more on it in the next bullet), all it offers is Favorites (it’s there that you can enter custom stations) without any kind of editing capabilities (except for deletion). While it does display station metadata, there aren’t any added, metadata-specific features either.

Note that if you search for a station, not only stations containing the search string in their names will be displayed, but also the songs played some time in the past. An example of searching for "Beatles":



Unfortunately, searching for a song name won’t allow you to actually listen to it as this list seems to be old and non-updated. That is, don’t think this is anywhere near ooTunes’ Radio RooLette.

3.) There’s another, new radio client (now offered at a 75% initial sale), Left Coast Logic’s Smart Tunes Radio.




It offers somewhat more sophisticated alarm features (e.g., repeating alarms etc.):



Also, it allows for defining sophisticated sleep features:



Unfortunately, its built-in station directory is far inferior to that of ooTunes (or, for that matter, Raizlab Corp’s ClockRadio reviewed in bullet 2) when it comes to non-English stations. (And even English ones: for example, the "70s" category is completely missing etc.) While, for example, ooTunes has plenty of hits of "Schlager" (the German for popular, somewhat old-fashioned hits; screenshot HERE) and so does Raizlab Corp’s ClockRadio (screenshot HERE), there isn’t any hits with Smart Tunes Radio. And, if you look at the Germany group of the main group "Location", there are very few stations. (Incidentally, Pocket Tunes doesn’t really have many stations either – screenshot)

All in all, the built-in station directory is pretty limited. Unfortunately, there isn’t any way of manually adding stations either – and there’re not even favorites. Because of this and the far better-looking main interface (should you really want to use it in a cradle showing the actual time), if you do want to have a clock radio, I don’t really recommend this title. Then, Raizlab Corp’s ClockRadio reviewed in bullet 2 may turn out to be a much better choice.

4.) I’ve very thoroughly tested each of the most recommended radio stations (ooTunes, FStream and Pocket Tunes) in backgrounded mode on an iPhone 3G. (This means the results may be different on the 3G S, which has double the RAM memory and a much faster CPU. The local T-Mobile will only announce when they start selling the 3G S on Monday; hopefully, I’ll be able to get one next week. Then, I’ll, of course, re-test this on it too.)

I played the same 128 kbps (Vancouver, Canada) MP3 stream and navigated the same Web pages in iCab Mobile version 1.6 (the, in my opinion, way best third party Web browser).

FStream has turned out to be the one which was very quickly shut down by the system, closely followed by the new (still not publicly available over AppStore) and, CPU-usage wise, bugfixed ooTunes. Pocket Tunes was by far the best in this respect; in general, it wasn’t shut down at all. I’ve also tested the new, 1.0.9 version of Tuner2 in this respect; it was quickly terminated too. Of the two clock radio apps reviewed in this update, Smart Tunes Radio was slightly better; however, after some 10-15 minutes of browsing, it was shut down too. That is, at least on an iPhone 3G, go for Pocket Tunes if you do want to have a radio client reliably running in the background. (Or, of course, go for streaming using the built-in QuickTime client – either clicking MP3 / AAC links from Safari or waiting for the ooTunes version that can already pass the playback of these kinds of streams to QuickTime. The QuickTime playback hasn’t ever been stopped and, of course, it doesn’t need a jailbroken iPhone either.)

 

UPDATE (08/17/2009):

The price of Pocket Tunes Radio (one of the most recommended titles) has been decreased to $8.

 

UPDATE (08/25/2009):

1.) The highly recommended ooTunes is getting better and better. There have been several beta releases for beta testers; some of the improvements are as follows (I’ve tested these myself and can assure you they do exist and work):

- Totally revised buffering code (should never have silence when the screen doesn't show "buffering".)
- Search is now done on the server (no downloading huge lists, etc.)
- Reconnect code now works for all stream types (going from edge to wifi to 3g, etc. as long as you don't have a long break should just reconnect automatically)
- Settings are now in the app itself (and still in the "Settings" app).
- Moveable tabs for the bottom of the "now playing" screen.
- Fixed a bug that was using way too much CPU for AAC and MP3 streams (like 2x more battery life than now).
- Added the ability to "play in background" using Safari
- Hugely improved OGG Vorbis stream playback.
- Sleep timer
- Added a toggle setting for "timeshifting" (may improve battery life further to turn it off).
- Improved accessibility (voice over labels) for the "now playing" screen.
- selected Album/Artist/Genre and Genre/Country/US City tabs are remember when going back.
- No "do you want to play in safari" message for "DRM" tracks, now it just goes to it (since there's no other way to play them).
- fixed several crashes
- Built in Browser is now full screen when turned in landscape mode. Turn back to portrait to use the controls again.
- Now uses the built in mail functionality for sending feedback. (goodbye ugly webform!)
- Ability to upload the log from the now playing screen
- Artwork for streams' now playing is now full screen (if it's found).
- Search button on now playing screen
- Go to bookmarks from the "heart" icon on the front.
- Web browser controls are now labeled for voiceover
- Stop button in web browser (stops a loading page).
- Fix the automatic finding the stream from Sirius.
- Can now bookmark tracks that already played but are no longer
- Can now bookmark tracks from your ooTunes server (and play them back later from that area, if you are logged in of course)
- Bitrate display value from some streams (real audio streams in particular) now more accurate.
- Removed a few bad characters when posting to twitter
- Option to have the audio stop or pause when your headphones come unplugged (save you some embarrassment when listening to milli vanilli in public and your dancing gets out of control)
- Option for shake to stop/start playback.
- RTSP bitrates bitrate selection is more accurate now (you really will get a much higher bitrate if you so choose, if it's available of course)
- Tabs for Movies and TV Shows are now different (though this will take a server update to work again).

The official AppStore release is imminent.

2.) Based on an Apple forum request, I’ve quickly tested the number of BBC stations included in the most recommended players (ooTunes, Pocket Tunes Radio and FStream) and, in addition, Clock Radio (ooTunes will only later receive this functionality; therefore, I still recommend Clock Radio if you do need an alarm clock radio). Pocket Tunes Radio has about 20 of them; ooTunes way more. Note that WunderRadio, which also has tons of radio stations built-in, also has a lot of stations, including BBC. FStream and Clock Radio only have one.

Nevertheless, don't forget that you can manually add any stations (including those of BBC) to any radio clients. It, surely, requires some work.

Some screenshots of these:

The first two pages of Pocket Tunes Radio (the third only has some 4-5 stations; also see the scrollbar on the right side to be able to see the number of stations):




ooTunes (again, as with all the other screenshots, check out the scrollbar’s height):


two shots of WunderRadio:



FStreamer:


Clock Radio (as you can see, only one station – at the very bottom – is listed):


3.) A newly-released, free(!) AppStore app “Streamer” is also capable of playing back internet radio stations – in addition to video (e.g., WMV). I, however, don’t recommend it for various reasons. Please see my dedicated article for more info.

 

UPDATE (09/27/2009):

1.) The recently-released version, 5.3.0, of Pocket Tunes Radio has – following ooTunes, which implemented this kind of functionality first – background playback capabilities with streams compatible with the built-in QuickTime player. That is, if you run into an MP3 or an AAC stream (but NOT AAC+, unlike what the app description states), you can use QuickTime for playback, you won’t need to jailbreak your phone and install Backgrounder, with all its hassles and, on pre-iPhone 3G S, share of problems like Pocket Tunes silently exiting because of memory / system resource shortage.



To invoke background play, just tap the “Play Station in Background” title just above the station list during playback:



Note that this will also be displayed with incompatible streams. The above screenshot shows an OGG stream being played back; the title is visible even then. Of course, with these incompatible streams, you won’t want to attempt to play it back in QuickTime – your only choice is jailbreaking and Backgrounder.

After this, instead of Safari’s directly firing up QuickTime (just like in ooTunes), you’ll be presented a Web page where you’ll need to tap the “Open Station” button to actually start playback:



2.) the highly recommended ooTunes 2.5 has officially been released. See above for what’s new inside. Note that its price has been somewhat increased (to $5) and it seems it’s a separate app from the previous ooTunes version (I’m a paying customer of the previous version but still can’t upgrade without paying – it may be a local problem on my part, though); that is, you need to purchase it again to be able to download it.

 

UPDATE (10/15/2009 12:09 CET): Time-Shift Radio has received another update:

 

UPDATE (10/24/2009): Clock Radio has been updated:

 

UPDATE (10/28/2009): Frontpage at iPhoneMVP.com

Let me show you the picture accompanying the iPhone MVP article:

No comments are needed ;-)

 

UPDATE (11/05/2009 16:00 CET): another Tuner2 Hi-Fi Radio bugfix release:

 

UPDATE (11/06/2009): Pocket Tunes 5.4 released with stream recording capabilities. Please see THIS for a full review.