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TuneIn's new radio discovery feature is now available in the mobile app
Now access TuneIn Explorer directly from the app
While many predicted radio to die a slow, painful death with the advent of television, that wasn't the case. In fact, radio platforms continue to thrive, even with the supercharging of smartphone technology. The folks at TuneIn understand this notion pretty well and have evolved accordingly to offer one of the best Android apps out there. Its makers recently rolled out the exciting new global radio discovery feature known as TuneIn Explorer, offering a detailed map view of radio stations from all over the world, with a selection of over 100,000 stations. While this feature was exclusive to the web version of TuneIn until now, the company announced Monday that it's now making its way to the TuneIn Radio apps on Android and iOS.
Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G dual SIM support has been improved in March update
You can now use 5G on both a physical SIM and eSIM at once
Monday's feature drop for the Pixel phones included a fun nugget that wasn't in the official changelog: it appears you can now use both a physical SIM card and an eSIM on 5G networks at the same time. Previously users who had both installed and operational were limited to LTE speeds, even if their carrier had 5G service in the area.
Media marketing researcher Nielsen claims as of 2019 that 272 million people in the U.S. listen to honest-to-goodness live radio every week one way or another. For some, that means buying the TuneIn Pro app and being able to record programs as they like for later replay. But that ability is about to go away.
Apple Music adds two new radio stations and renames Beats 1
Throw on your ten gallon hat and tune in to Apple Music Country
Apple may be a dirty word around these parts, but you've got to admit it has a pretty good handle on the music market. The company released Apple Music on the Play Store in 2015, bringing its blend of streaming music and live radio to Android users. Today Apple is announcing that its flagship radio station Beats 1 has a new name, and two more radio stations are being added to the service.
Sonos has made a few misfires lately, like creating confusion around the discontinuation of older speakers and briefly having a "recycling" program that bricked speakers. Thankfully, the company's latest announcement sounds like a step in the right direction — a free radio service for all Sonos owners.
SirusXM is best known as a broadcast provider for satellite radios in cars, but the company expanded its business to smartphones long ago and recently bought the streaming platform Pandora. Now SiriusXM has teamed up with Google to bring its lineup of radio stations to the Assistant across all of Google's devices. This should drastically expand the number of radio stations available on the company's smart home speakers.
Last summer, The Beeb (as it's affectionately known on my side of the pond) launched a new app for all of its various audio content, inventively called BBC Sounds. At that point, we knew the BBC iPlayer Radio app's days were numbered, but now the time has finally come to say goodbye to what many people still believe is the superior app.
The Google Home got an update today with no immediately discernible changes to the UI. But as usual, there are some other interesting changes that speak to what we'll see happening in the future. Google is preparing the interface for users to migrate their Nest accounts to Google for improved security, there will be support for Internet radio, and it looks like a lightweight bottom navigation bar is in development.
Streaming music provider Deezer is offering United Kingdom-based listeners a new app. Radio by Deezer provides access to more than 30,000 radio stations from around the world, completely free. There are no additional ads (ads the stations are already running are still present), and you don't even need a Deezer account to listen, although having one will help you make the most of the app.
The UK's most famous media institution, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), seems like it's constantly in transition as it tries to maintain its traditional values at the same time as adapting to a new generation of viewers, listeners, and readers. As far as audio content goes, the BBC has had to supplement its live and on-demand content by releasing podcasts on other services, too.
iHeartMedia is one of the last titans of the radio industry, with more than 850 AM and FM radio stations under its belt. The company's iHeartRadio mobile app, which allows users to listen to all of its stations over an internet connection, currently has over 50 million installs on the Play Store. However, it yesterday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as part of an effort to restructure its debt.
SiriusXM is a satellite/internet radio company, which has offered an Android smartphone app since 2010. The company has also embraced Android's other form factors - a Google TV app is still live on the Play Store. An Android TV version is now widely available, with seemingly no announcement from the company.
Subscribers to TuneIn Premium will not be psyched to learn that the streaming audio service is dropping out of the audiobook market effective January 15th. TuneIn started offering unlimited audiobook streaming for Premium subscribers in August 2015, making this feature decently short-lived.
If you've ever sampled the BBC's excellent radio output, there's one app you really need in your life: BBC iPlayer Radio. It's a one-stop shop for all BBC radio shows, from sport to comedy to current affairs, and while the app may have its quirks, it's still a mostly good experience on Android.
Internet radio app iHeartRadio is pretty popular with Android users and with good reason. It's built up an impressive feature set to go along with its attractive interface and is frequently updated with useful additions, such as Google Home support earlier in the year. The latest version brings with it a dedicated Android Wear 2.0 app, and you don't need your phone for it to work.
There are quite a few Android phones that support FM radio, at least on a hardware level. But the feature is rare on devices in the United States, and even more rare on carrier-sold phones (carriers would much rather you use more data). Most of LG's recent devices have shipped with the feature (at least in some regions), including the G5 and G6, but it will expand to more devices soon.
Following an early access test for the Galaxy S8, Google has now released a new station for users of Google Play Music: New Release Radio. It's a daily mix of recently-released music based on your own tastes. Whatever you are into, each day you'll be able to check out the latest songs by your favorite artists.
Google Home has supported playing radio through TuneIn since launch. Simply ask it to play a local AM/FM or internet station, and it will start streaming in seconds. Now it looks like Google is in the early stages of rolling out support for iHeartRadio.
The community over at XDA-Developers is a little less voracious these days. There are a lot of reasons: an ever-expanding selection of Android phones means it's harder to make a modding nexus for each one, general improvements in hardware and software make rooting less necessary, et cetera. But those tinkerers can still get some fantastic results. Case in point: it turns out that it's totally possible to get the unlocked HTC 10, currently being sold free of contracts and carriers from the HTC web store, to operate on Verizon.
SoundCloud, the free music service particularly favored by independent and grassroots musicians, has finally added 'stations,' a sort of never-ending playlist of related tracks and songs. The feature has been in beta for about a week, and is now hitting the release version of the Android app. While new for SoundCloud, this is something that's been available on most other music streaming services for quite a while. Spotify and Apple Music call it 'radio,' and Play Music has 'instant mixes,' but they are all different names for the same thing.