Radio is a medium that hasn’t lost its relevance even in today’s digital age. It’s a fun way to catch the news, listen to interesting talk-shows, and discover new music. Moreover, technology has made it easy to listen to international stations and find new artists and shows from around the world. If that sounds interesting, tune in to these best radio apps for iPhone and iPad.
Listen to the world’s largest collection of radio stations on your Windows 10 device, absolutely free. TuneIn has all of the best sports, news, music and talk radio as well as top podcasts. I love this app because I can listen to different radio stations and different parts of the USA I have been listening to Iowa music radio station k i o a a because my daughter lives in Iowa I only have a problem y'all do not have any radio station for McGregor Iowa. While listening to podcasts, you can use the Playing Next list to view and change which episodes (or chapters within an episode) play next. In the Podcasts app on your Mac, click any option in the sidebar. Hold the pointer over a show or episode, click the More button, then choose Play Next or Play Later. The show or episode is added to the top of the Playing Next list (if you choose Play.
1. Pandora
Any list of the best iPhone and iPad radio apps is incomplete without mentioning Pandora. For millions of music lovers, it’s a must-have due to its ability to provide highly personalized music experiences. To start off, create a custom radio station as per your preferred artists, genres, or countries.
This app is worth no more than $1.99 and even less to me since it can play NONE of the stations I want to hear. I just discovered there is a website associated with the app (or vice versa). There's a free Mac app available to download to listen to streaming stations or you can listen via the website. Get the app to listen to your favorite stations anywhere, totally free. Over 300 stations in 50 cities, including over 3,000 podcasts. Welcome to RADIO.COM.
You can also craft a special playlist to easily access songs you like. Moreover, you can go for the premium version to unlock many other features. For instance, you can play music without ads, do have unlimited skips, and even download songs for offline listening.
Price: Free (Pandora Plus – $3.99)
2. SiriusXM
This radio app lets you listen to more than 300+ channels featuring ad-free music, sports commentary, comedy, news, and more on your phone, online, and at home. Moreover, it also gives you personalized recommendations to discover new channels.
You can also create custom stations with all your favorite artists’ music for a beautiful audio experience on demand. Additionally, watch videos of exclusive interviews and entertaining musical performances.
Price: Free
3 TuneIn Radio
The highlight of TuneIn Radio is the gigantic collection of 100,000 stations. You can tune in to live radio shows from around the world. Whether you are fond of news, sports, music, or talk radio, it has got everything to live up to your interests.
Further, the app also has a vast library of over 60,000 audiobooks. Catch up with podcasts at your own convenient time. Moreover, you can also download music on Wi-Fi to listen to them when your device is without the internet.
Price: Free (TuneIn Premium – $4.99)
4. iHeart Radio
Widely considered to be one of the best streaming radio apps for iOS, iHeartRadio is what you should use to access a massive library of music. Explore tons of local AM and FM radio stations and pick the ones that are perfectly designed to fit into your preferences.
You can stream podcasts from well-known personalities, including Ryan Seacrest, Elvis Duran, Bobby Bones, and Colin Cowherd. Moreover, you can fine-tune music stations based on several factors like genres, countries, etc.
Price: Free (iHeartRadio Plus – $5.99)
5. Simple Radio
This one’s a great radio app that provides a reliable and straightforward way to listen to a wide selection of AM, FM, and online radio stations on your iPhone, iPad, and even Apple Watch. You can play 50,000+ global radio stations!
Further, save your favorite stations and listen to them in just a tap of a button. It’s an excellent way to discover new music, stay connected to other countries, practice a foreign language, or make your daily commute more enjoyable.
Price: Free (Simple Radio Unlimited – $0.99)
6. myTuner radio
myTuner Radio is a perfect choice for those who love radio because it boasts over 40K stations from 200 countries. The app is designed to be your go-to companion whenever you need some audio entertainment.
With a wide variety of radio stations from news to sports, you can choose the kind of stations you enjoy listening to. You can also create a list and add your favorite stations to it. Lastly, make the most of more than one million podcasts too.
Price: Free (In-app Purchases start from $0.99)
7. Radio FM
Enjoy a variety of stations, including news, sports, music, comedy, concerts, sports, and other programs on this top radio app for iPhone. There are live broadcasts and the ability to search through varied genres such as pop, rock, reggae, metal, etc.
A notable feature of this app is the ability to listen to your favorite station when going to sleep. You can use the Sleep Timer feature without worrying about exhausting your cellular data if you nod off.
Price: Free
8. LiveXLive
Powered by Slacker, this is a completely reimagined music streaming app that lets you listen to your favorite tunes and watch live streaming performances for free. It features global coverage and a massive selection of music.
There are hundreds of interactive, handpicked stations and live video streams of global festivals and concerts from around the world. Have fun creating and sharing your favorite songs and playlists.
Price: Free (LiveXLive Plus – $3.99)
9. RadioApp
Best App To Listen To Radio On Mac Computer
If you prefer a clean user interface, try this free radio app that boasts a unique analog-style FM/AM tuner. This makes it feel like a traditional radio while giving you global access to tons of stations.
Moreover, it’s an excellent tool for discovering new music because it shows the name of the track playing. Multiple countries are supported at the same time, and it has some additional functions like an alarm clock and sleep timer. Canon camera connect app.
Price: Free (RadioApp Monthly – $2.49)
10. Stitcher
Stitcher is among the best radio and podcast apps on iOS. It allows you to personalize the front page. This internet radio app plays your podcasts and radio. For your weekend pleasure drive, you can create a personal radio station type playlists.
Stitcher Premium service gives you exclusive content from shows you love, Moreover, your premium membership is a passport to some exclusive original content. At home, you can listen to Stitcher content on Sonos speaker using Amazon Alexa too.
Price: Free (Stitcher Premium – $4.99)
11. Beats 1 (Apple Music)
Apple Music is primarily a music streaming app but it also incorporates a radio service called Beats 1. With network over 100 countries and streaming 24/7, it is certainly worth checking out for loyal Apple aficionados.
It entertains you with exclusive songs from top artists. Moreover, you can watch music videos, live shows, TV shows, and movies, especially primed for Apple Music users. Of course, it comes at a small price but is worth it.
Price: $9.99/Month
Summing Up
Are there any other great radio apps for iPhone or iPad that we didn’t include in our list? Share them in the comments below, and do let us know your preferences.
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Jignesh Padhiyar is the co-founder of iGeeksBlog.com who has a keen eye for news, rumors and all the unusual stuff that happens around Apple products. During his tight schedule, Jignesh finds some moments of respite to share side-splitting contents on social media.
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After assessing the state and likely demise of the iTunes internet radio tuner, I started to consider what this means for listening to internet radio with a computer, rather than mobile device, smart speaker or appliance. Then we received an email from a reader who reported they still use iTunes for internet radio, in part because it allows them to curate a playlist of their favorite stations for easy access. The reader noted that using station websites doesn’t quite work the same way, and that those sites vary widely in design and how simple they make it to start a stream.
I’ll admit that iTunes does excel at that kind of radio preset-style tuning. It’s something I’d forgotten since I do most of my internet radio listening using my Sonos, where I keep my favorite stations bookmarked in the system’s favorites.
I started to poke around to see what kind of desktop radio apps are left out there. I started with macOS because that’s what I primarily use. I found that there are damn few.
Best App To Listen To Radio On Mac Os
Go searching in the macOS App Store and you’ll encounter about a dozen or so true internet radio apps. But the majority of them seem not to have been updated in the last three to five years. In fact, I found only one that is worth trying.
myTuner Radio
myTuner Radio is free in the App Store and very simple. It has a reasonably comprehensive directory of a purported 50,000 stations organized by country. https://gfxdgz.weebly.com/blog/can-i-see-when-an-app-was-opened-mac. Besides that, they aren’t otherwise categorized. The search is decent, provided you know the call letters or name. If you’re searching by genre or format, you’d better hope that it’s in the name.
Stations owned by iHeart are pretty much entirely absent, though I could find plenty of Entercom and CBS stations, along with those owned by smaller groups. myTuner Radio has banner ads, but mercifully no audio ads. A paid version gets rid of all ads.
You can favorite stations for quicker recall, but there’s no provision to organize them, nor is there a provision to add a station’s stream URL like in iTunes. While using myTuner Radio is easier than bookmarking station webpages, you may not find all the stations you want, you can’t categorize the ones you bookmark and you can’t add additional ones not in the directory.
TuneIn Radio
TuneIn Radio has a desktop Mac OS app that replicates the web or mobile app, more or less. To that end, it’s about as good as those. The directory is enormous, and organized by format, genre, location and language. But as I observed earlier, iHeart and Entercom stations have been removed by their owners.
There’s more flexibility in organizing your favorite stations, by putting them into folders. Yet, TuneIn still has no provision to add a station that’s not in the directory. If you like TuneIn on other platforms, you’ll like the desktop app, but it’s not quite a full iTunes replacement.
Odio
Odio (not Odeo) is a free open source app that visually resembles iTunes more than the other apps. It’s directory is more idiosyncratic than either TuneIn or myTuner. I could find some iHeart stations, like New York City’s Z100, but not others, like Portland’s The Brew. I had similar hit-and-miss results with Entercom stations.
Stations are organized by country, language and tag. It took me a bit to figure out how the tags get added, since I saw no feature for doing so in the app. It turns out that Odio uses a directory called Community Radio Browser, where anyone can submit a station. That probably accounts for the idiosyncrasies, since you don’t need to affiliated with a station to submit it. Right now Community Radio Browser lists 24,582 stations, and the project’s webpage has an intriguing list of apps and platforms that use its directory, along with code libraries for folks who might build their own app.
You can maintain a “library” of favorite stations, but there’s no way to organize them.
VLC
VLC is a cross-platform multimedia player app. In that way it’s the closest we have to a free, open source iTunes alternative – one that’s also continuously updated.
The app uses the Icecast Radio Directory. Icecast is an open source streaming audio platform, and stations using it can opt in to be listed. As a result the selection is very eclectic, though you may be hard pressed to find a lot of US broadcast stations. What you may find are live police scanners or Chicago Public Radio WBEZ’s all Christmas music stream. There is no organization – search is your only friend here.
Because it’s a perennially well-supported project, there are ways to add other directories, like TuneIn’s. However, plug-and-play they’re not. You’ll need to know your way around your Mac’s file system. It’s not crazy difficult, but it’s not as simple as installing most apps.
I would call VLC’s interface utilitarian. It’s built more for a power user than a novice, though there’s plenty of help to be found with a quick web search. Its two most iTunes-like features are the ability to add any station’s stream and to organize stations in playlists.
Other Options, Caveat Emptor
Researching this topic I encountered at least a half-dozen other free and open source iTunes alternatives offering at least some kind of internet radio feature. However, they all seem to have little to no development for at least three years. They may still work fine for your, but an OS upgrade could easily foul up the works.
Is there a currently supported Mac OS internet radio app I’m missing? Please let us know.