Tag: Radio »

Frisky, the electronic music internet radio station, is now available on iOS with an eponymous app. Frisky comes with two distinct flavors of stations to listen to: Frisky and Chill. Frisky is for high-energy dance music, boasting the same shows from the DJs scheduled on the Frisky website. Chill is programmed to slow things down, keep things cool with ambient and lounge music with some movie scores mixed in. The Chill station is an extension of their ChilloutSundays programming, except as a 24/7 station, and it's currently only exclusively available through the app.

Each station changes the interface's appearance slightly, with even the volume slider matching the color scheme for the station: warm pink for Frisky, and cool blue for Chill. A simple swipe of the finger switches stations. Frisky supports 128 kbps MP3 and AAC streams, along with a 48k AAC stream for listening over cellular networks without taking up too much data. Listening status can be shared via Twitter, Facebook, and email. Best of all, the app has launched for free.

5by5, the digital network that purports itself to be for "geeks, designers, broadcasters, and entrepreneurs" has launched a new iOS app that lets listeners check out their various shows while on the go. Shows such as Mac Power Users, which is exactly what it says on the tin, and The Cocktail Napkin, a show about inspiration and the ideas that come from them are now streamable through the app. For those that want to listen to the shows as they record live, the app offers push notifications to find out when they start broadcasting. The app supports background audio, and supports AirPlay for playing shows on remote speakers. The episode also features a schedule of upcoming broadcasts, integration with the 5by5 newsletter, and the ability to see how many other people are listening live to the app. Note that it is not a universal app – at least not at the moment.

Swann, a global leader in security monitoring systems, and also a producer of many remote controlled (RC) helicopter models, has just announced the addition of a new RC helicopter to its fleet that can be controlled via an iOS device. The i-Fly Micro Lightning is an RC helicopter that can be controlled by iOS devices through Swann's free iFly app and an adapter that fits into the device's audio jack. The user can control the i-Fly Micro Lighting with on-screen touch controls or by tilting their device in tilt mode. There is also a 3-way infrared control included to control without an iOS device. The little helicopter charges via USB and will fly for up to 8 minutes on a full charge.

The i-Fly Micro Lightning will retail for $69.99, and will be available from Fry’s Electronics, BrandSmart, and other major retailers. The free iFly app is available for download form the Apple App Store and is compatible with iPhone, iPod, and iPad devices running iOS 3.0 or later.

It's refreshing to see increasing numbers of radio stations offer their own official apps so that iOS users can easily listen to music stations wherever they are. The latest to implement such an app is that of Radio Volum, a Norwegian based radio station that focuses on EDM (Electronic Dance Music). Broadcasting live 24/7, it offers the best in Trance, House, Dance and Progressive music.

The freely available universal app allows users to tune in live, read the latest news from the official website, track the station's Twitter feeds and Facebook page, listen to exclusive Mixtapes and watch the latest YouTube videos too.

Multitasking support is available so that users can carry on with other tasks on their iOS devices while listening to the latest dance music.

Radio Volum should provide exactly what dance fans could want from a music app. It's available now and it's free.

Southern Californians and music fans alike should instantly recognise the name KCRW. It's a public radio station that's become increasingly popular thanks to its use of modern methods like podcasts and streaming Internet radio broadcasts in its efforts to educate music fans in the latest and greatest new acts. In the past, KCRW hosts have helped showcase the likes of Beck, Adele, Florence & the Machine, Coldplay, Dido and Massive Attack.

Now there's an app from KCRW that aims to take 'listeners on an audio adventure of artists especially selected by DJs' from the station. Pretty exciting, huh?

KCRW Music Mine - an iPad only app - is dedicated entirely to music exploration using The Echo Nest's music intelligence platform to track down the best new artists. The app offers up to 100 artists at a time with lists updated daily in tandem with the on air playlists for KCRW. Listeners who want to learn more can then find videos, photos, blog posts and more behind each artist as well as discover the musical talent.

The format of KCRW Music Mine lends itself to users who don't have a lot of time on their hands for messing around with configurations. Intead it's an app that's simple to browse and quickly find something of interest.

For fans who just want to kick back and relax, they can jut tap the KCRW's 24 hour, all music stream Eclectic24 and enjoy the music, or they can listen in to full shows by many KCRW DJs.

KCRW Music Mine sounds like the ideal companion for KCRW fans and a fantastic app for music enthusiasts keen to find something new to love. I can certainly see some lazy Sunday afternoons being lost to checking out new music.

It's free to download so why not give it a try today?

Rdio Unlimited Family, announced today, is a new discounted way to have more than one account for your family and friends. Calling it "the industry's first digital music family plan," Rdio hopes to allow folks who know each other group their accounts in bundles of up to three at a time. Each account acts as it's own individual account, with the ability to listen to an individual mix of the over 10 million songs on the Rdio service. Users can also follow other Rdio listeners, and share songs and playlists with other users, Facebook, and Twitter. The accounts are fully functional Rdio accounts, able to access their unique settings on a variety of devices and platforms, including the iPad, iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile 7, as well as home devices like Sonos and Roku.

"When we first introduced Rdio, everyone in the industry offered the same rates and service plans for on-demand music: five dollars per month for Web-only access and ten dollars per month for Web and mobile," said Drew Larner, CEO of Rdio. "Now with whole families using Rdio, we've had a tremendous number of requests from our users for a family plan. We're really proud to be the first digital music service to bring this type of plan to market."

The new Rdio Unlimited Family Plan, users can save 10% with a two-account plan, at $17.99/month. If there are three accounts purchased in the bundle, there is a 23% savings, coming in at $22.99/month, while additional accounts above and beyond the three are charged at the standard $.9.99 per month. So, while a family of six will save some on the first three accounts, it might behoove them to purchase two family accounts, with up to three accounts each.

We hope to see more services adopt this "buy more, save more" approach with time, and Rdio is leading the way. I look forward to the time when the discounted savings includes more than three at a time, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

With the enormous amount of music discovery, internet radio, and music subscription services available, the ones that have a unique idea deserve a little extra attention. The Hype Machine is a hybrid between a music blog aggregator and a music radio service.

While the Hype Machine just released their iPhone app, the service has been available online for a while. Hype Machine handpicks a variety of music blogs (and from the looks of it they use a large amount of them) and uses links to MP3s on those blogs to cook up radio stations in the app. It’s possible to actually read the source blog post within the app while the song it came from is playing. And since the very nature of most music blogs is to talk about relatively unknown, new and upcoming bands, the radio station turns out to be a powerful discovery tool.

The Hype Machine crew is selective on what types of blogs make the cut. On the Hype Machine blog they explain, “We look for genuine voices; people excited about music, thinking, drawing, experimenting, creating. We want people who would blog whether or not they were listed on the Hype Machine.”

The Hype Machine app allows users to listen by genre, popular music on the Hype Machine, recent posts, by blog, by friends, and also has a radio show highlighting the months’ best music. Also, by picking favorite blogs and songs, Hype Machine can create a Pandora-esque mix station.

Hype Machine already boasts over one million monthly visitors and has some interesting demographics. Users tend to be musically inclined with 20% of them being bloggers, 20% DJs, and 24% musicians. Before buying the app for $2.99, check out the type of music available and sign up at hypem.com.

Every now and then, an app comes along that makes you scratch your head in wonder at just how it works. One such app is What's On Air. It kind of reminds me of the traffic alert system on my car radio but while I understand that, I'm intrigued as to how What's On Air figures things out.

You see, this app keeps track of your favorite music then detects what songs and bands are playing currently on all manners of internet radio stations. Once it's tracked the song or band name down, it can then switch to that station with the shake of your iOS device. Plus you can always browse through what's currently being played on air.

There's more too with multitasking meaning you can listen from outside of the app and you can browse through information about your favorite band courtesy of Wikipedia, YouTube and a full discography.

Priced at $1.99, What's On Air looks set to be an ideal way of ensuring you get the best out of the radio airwaves.

8tracks is a site that lets you create and share digital mix tapes. Self-described as "handcrafted internet radio," 8tracks allows users to upload the music files of their virtual playlists so that others can then legally stream their handiwork. This capability has now been expanded to the iPhone, as 8tracks Radio has been launched to the app store.

Some features of the 8tracks Radio app include:

Listen to user-curated mixes
Follow your favorite DJs and play their mixes through the Mix feed
Search for mixes containing your favorite artists
Browse hundreds of popular tags like alternative rock, sleep, sad, chill or dubstep
Listen to mixes everywhere - on your commute, at the gym or at home via AirPlay

The core philosophy behind 8tracks is that user-created playlists will trump those that are algorithmically generated. The online mixes that you submit to the open community via the website, along with accompanying cover art, must contain at least 8 tracks, with no more than 2 belonging to a specific artist. Listeners can then search by a variety of methods, and 8track offers select mixes curated by various notable sources such as SPIN, Pitchfork, Metric, Threadless, etc.

So, remember those days when you were mad at your parents, and you just broke up with your girlfriend, and you expressed yourself in the ultimate angst-ridden mixed tape? Uhm, yeah. Me neither. That was a friend of mine. Have any personal mixes that you'd like to share? Let us know in the comments...

There's no shortage of radio apps on the App Store, but good, inexpensive ones with a large number of station choices are a bit harder to find than most. That's where TuneIn Radio comes into play. TuneIn provides solid support for Radiotime presets as well as DVR-style controls for rewinding and recording favorite songs and shows.

The core interface for TuneIn Radio looks an awful lot like iTunes, but that's not a bad thing. The left-hand side of the screen displays major headings for radio stations - from location-based stations, to music, talk or sports. Choosing one of these opens sub-menus, and each of these opens a sub-menu, and so on and so on until you find a station you prefer. Stations are imported from the online Radiotime service, so there are literally thousands to choose from, plus you can enter specific URLs for more esoteric stations that might not be featured via Radiotime. If you've already got a Radiotime account (as I do, since I use Radiotime with WunderRadio) all you have to do is enter your user name and password and your favorites/bookmarks will be imported. Otherwise, you'll create bookmarks as you work your way through the program. Either way works smoothly and seamlessly, so you will not have a hard time creating a cache of your favorite stations in no time.

What really sets TuneIn apart from its competitors, however, is its use of DVR-style record/rewind/fast forward functions. At any point during a listening session, all you have to do is click the record button and you will record as long as you remain on that station (it will even spool back and record the bit you listened to before clicking record). Even better, you can set a timer on your iPad or iPhone (TuneIn is, gratefully, a universal app) to begin recording when and what you want. Have a favorite daily show? No problem. Just set the timer and listen at your convenience. The background tasking of iOS 4.2 means you don't have to keep the program open in order for this to work either.

Recordings are all stored, naturally enough, under the "Recordings" side heading, but therein lies a small problem. There is no way to export your recordings or save them to anything other than TuneIn. This sounds like more of a issue with Apple than with the app developer, but it would certainly be nice to export your saved programs to iTunes or other similar programs.

Finally, it should be noted that TuneIn supports audio-only AirPlay features, so you can send programs to your Apple TV if you wish. It's not an Earth-shaking feature, but it's a nice inclusion nonetheless.

TuneIn handles streaming audio (and recording that audio) very well. Considering its low price point of $0.99, and the fact that it's a universal app, it's a good choice for anyone looking for a radio app for their iPad and iPhone.

"Jelli is the future of radio." - Jaime Chaux – Austereo

I see a ton of music radio type apps come through my inbox every week, but none are nearly as ambitious as Jelli. Jelli is a crowdsourcing music platform that enables the listeners to really listen to what they want. Unlike most online-only platforms, Jelli is integrated into many radio stations across the country, from KITS-FM in San Francisco to WPST-FM in Philadelphia to provide an on air experience like no other. Listeners then can hop online and literally vote a song off the air... mid-play. As Jelli says, their product is true radio democracy.

Up until now, users of the system could only vote through their computers, leaving many people on the go without much of a say. To fix this, Jelly has launched the Jelli app which not only lets you listen to Jelli based community controlled playlists (consisting of music genre sections and no genre anarchy rooms) or any of the FM stations across the country that use the platform.

The app is a completely interactive app that lets you vote online for what comes next (much like iTunes DJ), and also lets you chime in as to whether the song that is playing "Sucks" or "Rocks." If the song fills up the suckitude quota, it is instantly yanked off the air and the next song will play. To get a song on the air, or to get a song out of the list to vote on, you use your social gaming type rockets and bombs. When a song that you rocket up gets selected, your "DJ" name gets announced and you earn points for more rockets to use in the future. Use your rockets and bombs wisely though, because you only get a limited amount.

Jelli is free to download and free to listen to, so hop on board this new wave of internet/broadcast radio... and don't pick any crappy songs.