I like listening to music on both my iPad and iPhone. I also like listening to the radio. I don't have to worry about adding new songs to some playlist, the radio just continues to play music all day, and all night, the only breaks being commercials. The radio stations that I do like, have iPhone apps, but the issue with them is the audio quality is quite poor. One day I started to look for some music apps on the App Store, and I came across TuneIn Radio. After a few minutes of using it, I loved it.
What is TuneIn Radio?
TuneIn Radio allows you to listen to radio stations of many different genres, from all around the world. No matter what your tastes in music may be, chances are this app has the station for you. According to its description in iTunes: "TuneIn offers over 70,000 stations and 2 million on demand programs for you to choose from." In other words, you have a lot of choice when it comes to music.
- Pause and rewind the station your listening to.
- Add your favorite stations to your presets.
- Shake your iPhone to hear new stations based on what you like.
- Share a station, song, or show on Facebook or Twitter.
- Alarm clock.
- Play music in the background.
- Play music over Airplay.
One thing I did like about TuneIn, is it can find local stations as well, so you can listen to stations you already know. And, to add on to what I said earlier, the sound quality of those stations I was talking about in the introduction is much better with TuneIn.
The layout of TuneIn is very appealing to the eye. I found it to be very easy to use, and had no issues using it after I installed it. Everything just made sense. The app is very well optimized for the larger screen of the iPad, the same goes for the retina display of the third and fourth generation iPad. The iPhone version is also designed well.
TuneIn allows you to pause and rewind the station your listening to, which can be quite useful if you want to hear something again, like a song, or a piece of information. This feature is quite similar to rewinding live TV. You can also add your favorite stations to your presets for quick access, which is a feature that I expect from a program like this. An actual radio allows you to do this, so if a virtual one can't, I'd be very disappointed.
Music Playback:
Most of the stations playback quite nicely, with no constant "buffering" which seems to get annoying after the first second or two. There have only been a few stations in which the audio quality has been poor.
Pricing:
- TuneIn comes in two versions (listed below.)
- TuneIn Radio- Free
- TuneIn Radio Pro- $4.99
The free version is ad supported, which really isn't that much of an issue. The ads appear in a large banner at the top of the app. Although the ads to take up a fair bit of space, they aren't that much of an issue.
TuneIn Radio is available for both the iPhone and iPad. The designs of the iPhone and iPad version differ drastically, but still do the same thing.
TuneIn Radio also features an alarm clock, which can be a very handy feature if you like waking up to the radio in the mornings. Setting the alarm is a very simple process, so you shouldn't have any difficulty doing this.
If you already have a TuneIn account, then you can connect your account to this app, or alternatively you can create a new TuneIn account if you don't have one.
There really isn't much left to discuss. This is a simple app, but at the same time, its packed full of features. This app has one main purpose. To connect you to radio stations from all over the globe. Its definitely accomplished this. I have a few favorite stations, some of those stations are local, the others are from the United States.
Would I recommend this app?
If you've been looking for an easy way to listen to music on your iDevice. Then yes, I would definitely recommend this app to you. You really don't have anything to lose by trying this app out since its free. Play around with the app for awhile, and figure out what stations you like, and which ones you don't. Once you do that, this will become a very useful app, one that you will most likely use quite often.
Follow me on Twitter: @ck270
Download Links:
TuneIn Radio (Free)
[App Store]
[App Store]