Filed under: Audio, Software, iPhone, App Store
TUAW Review: WunderRadio
The geniuses at Weather Underground have done it again! Now they've capitalized on their insight into weather radio to bring the iPhone world WunderRadio. Available in the App Store (click opens iTunes) for US$5.99, WunderRadio provides NOAA Weather streams based on your current location. But there's a lot more to WunderRadio than NOAA Weather. Weather Underground has joined with RadioTime.com to provide thousands of radio streams from around the world. Once again, based on your current location, WunderRadio provides a listing of nearby stations to provide you with local AM, FM, and Internet radio streams.
Enthusiasts of live police, fire, and EMS scanners get a bonus in the form of scanner feeds from ScanAmerica.us. With all of this content, who needs iTunes? Of course, the app has to do a good job of capturing the audio stream on the iPhone.
"The initial impetus behind this application was to provide iPhone users with instant access to local weather radio streams," said Alan Steremberg, President of Weather Underground. "During development, we decided to extend the scope of radio stations offered by working with RadioTime - the result is an easy to use portal to over 60,000 of the best talk, music and sports radio stations around the globe."
Read on for a quick review of WunderRadio.
I just arrived in Dallas, TX, where I'm teaching a Business Analysis class this week. It's always nice to know what the weather is going to be like where I am, so I pulled up the Crowley/Fort Worth, TX weather radio (see screenshot below), and found out there is a severe weather alert being issued. The NOAA forecast for the next few days mentioned that the weather is going to be rather nice, with temperatures in the lower 80s. This service, of course, only works for US locations.
Next, I thought I'd check out the news at home, so I pulled up a Denver news radio station (see below). The sound quality was much better than it used to be in my first car, a bright orange 1975 Chevy Vega Kammback station wagon. The station, KOA (AKA "The Blowtorch" because you can hear it all over the western US if conditions are right), broadcasts in AM so I think the signal was actually better on the iPhone than it usually is on a car radio.
As mentioned earlier, WunderRadio leverages the content assets of RadioTime.com. "WunderRadio has created an innovative approach for iPhone users to explore the unique music, talk formats and personalities only radio can offer, and which online streaming music services just can't provide," said Bill Moore, CEO, RadioTime. "The integration of RadioTime guide with Weather Underground's technology makes it easy to browse the enormous selection of radio the world has to offer."
Finally, I decided to check out the police scanner for my home county in Colorado (pictured below). Considering I've never listened to this before, it was kind of weird to hear the local sheriff's office reporting a car crash a couple of miles from my neighborhood, while I was sitting in a hotel in Dallas. Note that the green/yellow/red signal strength indicator only appears when there's actual content being streamed, so the screenshot was taken while the scanner was silent. The scanner service only includes US content at this time.
Having used several of the other free streaming radio clients available in the App Store, I was impressed with the breadth of content on WunderRadio. Unlike AOL Radio, which seems to pick a few stations per market area, or Pandora, just about every radio station in my home area was on the list.
As you can see from the screenshot following this paragraph, each station is identified with a small icon denoting the bandwidth requirement, with E meaning that the station works with an EDGE connection and 3G denoting the need for the extra bandwidth of a 3G network. The number underneath the E or 3G denotes the bandwidth requirement in kilobits per second. I'm fortunate enough to have a five-bar 3G connection here in Dallas, and the clarity of the signal for several of the high-bandwidth stations was just amazing. Some stations supply additional data along with the audio stream, including the name of the artist and song currently playing.
You can save your favorite stations to a "Favorites" list, making it as easy to change stations as punching the button on the old AM radio in the Vega...
Is WunderRadio worth the US$5.99? Absolutely! For this frequent traveler, it's a great way to feel like I'm at home even when I'm on the road. Wunder Radio makes it possible to listen to other radio stations all over the world, check on weather, and even listen in on what emergency workers are doing. This one's a keeper on my iPhone 3G.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Jash Sayani said 8:26AM on 10-07-2008
No one on TUAW has posted this major iPhone news!!
http://digg.com/apple/Fring_Patch_for_calls_over_3G
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JKT said 9:37AM on 10-07-2008
I've been a fan of wunderground.com for years--it's far & away the best weather website. It has been the best weather site on the iPhone too (i.wund.com)--it's the only one to provide real-time, localized, doppler radar. Friends ask "What IS that??" when I show them images of the thunderstorms approaching and affecting them.
So I've little hesitation before I'm about to run off and buy this app. With the quality they put into their website, I'm sure this app is winner.
superted said 9:40AM on 10-07-2008
I can see the headlines now:
"Man touts own Digg entry on popular mac blog"
:)
Jash Sayani said 10:01AM on 10-07-2008
Correction: Fring for iPhone patched to make VoIP calls on 3G !!!
Justin said 10:14AM on 10-07-2008
Buried for being a douche-nozzle and spamming this blog.
St3phen said 8:49AM on 10-07-2008
What's fascinating about this is the reason that many stations don't appear in other streaming radio applications for the iPhone: they broadcast in Windows Media or Real formats. The iPhone can't play either of those formats natively and, of course, the apps don't add codec support for them.
To my absolute delight on Saturday morning when I purchased WunderRadio, the stations that broadcast in these formats were there. I then noticed that WunderRadio makes an MMS connection back to a central server (RadioTime's?). This server must be performing realtime transcoding, amazingly, of all these streams!
This is the new must-have application for the iPhone and I, for one, would pay double the price I did for this kind of quality and functionality.
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Joe said 9:15AM on 10-07-2008
Is KEXP (90.3 FM out of Seattle) one of the available stations?
Steven Sande said 12:49PM on 10-07-2008
Response is actually to Joe...
Yes, KEXP is a station that requires Wi-Fi. Really high bandwidth requirement, but it sounds great.
TUAW Steve
preston said 10:03AM on 10-07-2008
Sounds awesome!
But...I won't be linked to a 40 year old terrorist group should I decide to download this, will I? Just checking because I might be running for president one day.
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superted said 9:37AM on 10-07-2008
This barely works for me in the UK. Crashes constantly.
Waste of money frankly.
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alansteremberg said 10:21AM on 10-07-2008
please send us support http://help.wunderground.com and list a few of the stations that don't work, or the entire directory listing you are looking at (ie: Europe / UK / Belfast) and I will fix the streams for 1.1 - a lot of the streams in Israel were crashing, but 1.1 fixes nearly all of them. Hopefully this will be out in 2 weeks or so.
superted said 10:25AM on 10-07-2008
Thanks for listening!
I'll do that now.
superted said 10:31AM on 10-07-2008
I can't seem to find where to submit it so here's my problem:
XFM UK London - Seems to get to 30% MMS over TCP(?!) then tries to stream and just exits the app.
BBC Radio 2 UK - Looks like it is about to load but hangs, does not quit the App but freezes.
Thanks, looking forward to an update
Pine said 5:05PM on 10-07-2008
WOUB 91.3 is an awesome station! (see first screen grab) Everyone should check it out.
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ChrisW said 9:58AM on 10-07-2008
Excellent application.
One big thing missing from the iPhone is local radio and now I can get several channels here.
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alansteremberg said 10:19AM on 10-07-2008
Joe: I just tried: KEXP it works via wifi. There are a few other bitrate options, so it should work when you are out and about as well.
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boser924 said 1:03PM on 10-07-2008
Great app!! Works great in Birmingham, AL.
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Phoenixfury said 10:34AM on 10-07-2008
I've been wanting an app that dealt with local radio stations with the exception of CBS since those are handled by AOL anyway. I stumbled on this little gem the other day and it has met and exceeded my expectations. I am pleasantly pleased with this app.
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MfS said 10:43AM on 10-07-2008
Finally...a service (like AOL Radio, which isn't very reliable) that provides quality AM radio signals to an iPhone/iPod touch.
I've always been amazed by the number of "FM Radio" add-ons and the ability to listen to just FM music and *not* AM radio on the iPhone. What gives? AM radio is akin to listening to podcasts, and have never understood why no one wanted a way to listen to AM signals, which can be as valuable if not more so for information, than FM. It's fine to have an FM station to listen to music on the iPhone, why not AM to listen to podcast-like info on the iPhone too?
Will be buying this app for sure.
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mentalsticks said 11:03AM on 10-07-2008
Has anybody else noticed that the appreciews on tuaw are starting to sound more and more like advertisements?
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