All Radio: The 59p Application which brings International Radio, to iPhone and iPod.

Posted on August 28th, 2008. Written by Arron.

[Update] – App Store link fixed.

Ever since the iPod’s introduction, the one feature missing was radio. It was heavily suggest to Apple throughout the years by many people, but for some reason didn’t make the cut into their iPod OS. With the introduction of the iPod touch and it’s new OS, I think people expected it to just ‘do’ radio out of the box – it “just works” right? – Of course, it didn’t.

Apple then introduced the iPhone and it’s SDK. Apple essentially at this point opened up the entire platform, while still insuring a certain amount of stability and safety to it’s users. This gave developers an albeit ‘closed’ but powerful platform to work on. A platform, which VisuaMobile didn’t shrug at …

VisuaMobile was one of the first companies to submit to the App Store, with their application, AllRadio [App Store]. All Radio provides real-time streams from over 4000+ radio stations, in 35 genres. Recently updated to include a dedicated volume control user interface, and the addition of a new directory menu, ‘All’, which provides a breakdown of stations available in each country the application support, All Radio is set to be a leader on the App Store.

Basics
Opening the application brings you to the player screen. This is were you can list your favorite, most listened to, radio stations. This screen also provides indicators as to the status of the application and the current live stream your listening to.

International Radio
The big news is All Radio supports international radio. This means not only can you listen to UK radio, streams can also be listened to from stations across the world! – And let me tell you, they have a huge selection.

Needs more UK Support
The one thing currently letting this application down is the support for major UK radio stations. Currently, the application only seems to support regional stations (.. you won’t find Radio 1 here).

Price point – Perfection!
One thing this application does have going for it, is it’s got a GREAT interface, clean and consistent to the iPhone’s overall look – but that’s not all, it costs just 59p!! – Yes, if you drop the 59p you will have access to over 4000+ radio streams, in a user intuitive iPhone interface, almost instantly.

An Interesting Feature
I have to admit, 59p or no 59p, the application unexpectedly quit a few times within my hours use of it. However, this was over-shadowed by relaunching the application and being met with this:

All Radio is one of the first applications to actually not leave you in the lurch after an unexpected crash. The application offers to reset itself or the phone (I’m not quite sure which, as I haven’t tried it yet ..) to fix the issue.

Overall
With the recent updates being pushed through to the store, I believe the developer will keep pushing functionality into this, and hopefully All Radio can become the radio application we all wanted, all those years ago.

Supports iPhone
& iPod touch.

Rating: 9.5/10 (Exceptional value, but lacking …)

App Store: All Radio

R-Fly

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