Radio Survivor

Already some of us have been listening to live streaming internet radio on our mobile devices, like iPhones and Blackberries. But, as I argued last month, the experience still doesn’t quite add up to true mobile internet radio, especially because when you’re using cell data like 3G it saps the heck out of your battery. My experience streaming live radio on my iPhone gives me a little more than an hour before I’m nearly out of juice. The new Apple iPad looks to be a great mashup of an iPhone and netbook, which are both decent devices for listening to internet radio on the go, but also have their drawbacks.

The fact that some iPad models offer 3G wireless data connectivity out-of-the box, for a very reasonable $30 a month without any contracts make it a great candidate for mobile internet radio listening. It won’t necessarily be any better for the car than an iPhone, Blackberry or Android phone. But in other mobile circumstances it shows distinct promise.

So the question is, will the iPad bring us one step closer to truly mobile internet radio? Based on early specs, and having never touched it myself, the answer is a distinct maybe.

The first important factor is battery life. If the battery poops out after only an hour, then it’s only good for short trips. But if you have a longer train or bus commute, or are outside away from a wi-fi connection you probably want at least two good hours. While Apple specifies that you get 10 hours of active wi-fi use on a charge, no 3G batterly life specs are published. With a much bigger battery than an iPhone one would expect that constant 3G use would go longer, but we’ll have to wait until the first longer-term reviews come out.

The next big issue is sound quality. I currently use my iPhone, netbook or MacBook Pro to stream audio in a variety of circumstances, including home and when away in hotels. They’re all fine for using with headphones or external speakers, though the iPhone is the clear winner for fidelity. But I don’t always want to use headphones or lug around speakers. In a pinch the iPhone’s speaker is better than nothing at all (sounding like a pocket radio), and the netbook is barely any better. My MacBook’s speakers are the best in this category, but at the same time it seems wasteful overkill to use this powerful laptop computer just to listen to radio. My hope is that it will sound at least as good as a MacBook Pro, which itself is on par with a portable radio the size of a paperback book. We’ll have to see how the iPad’s speakers measure up against these competitors.

The final big factor is multitasking, and on this measure we already know the answer: there is no multi-tasking on the iPad. This is important because all of the streaming radio apps are not made by Apple, and you can only run one non-Apple app at a time. So you want to listen to a live feed of a Cubs game while Tweeting? No can do. Catch a live feed of the State of the Union while reading the New York Times online? Also a big no. So, unless Apple decides to add the ability to listen to live streams to the iPad’s iPod app–which is allowed to multitask with other apps–this is probably the biggest count against the radio capabilities of the iPad.

At least as far as mobile internet radio is concerned, the iPad looks like a tiny step forward. If the 3G battery life and sound quality are up to snuff, then it’s a bigger step. But without multitasking where you can listen to a live stream while using other apps, the iPad is not the next big thing in mobile internet radio.

I am one of those music Junkies with over 25,000 songs in my music library at home. When I sit down on my computer, I know exactly what I want to hear.  But the iPhone  changed that. It offered me radio options that I’d never considered before. Here are my favorites.

Pandora Radio

There is a reason why Time Magazine ranked Pandora among the Top 10 iPhone applications.  It’s awesome. If you are familiar with Pandora Radio then you already know what I am talking about. Its service has matching algorithms that allow users to listen to a completely customized radio service for free. I have found countless new music, artists and songs that are now a permanent mainstay in my iPod thanks to Pandora Radio.

In fact, I find the iPhone application is actually easier and more pleasant to use than their full online version. Pandora’s interface for the iPhone is simple and easy. It includes all the features their full website has to offer on a 3.5 inch screen. The advantages are that the advertisements are so small, so it’s hard to read them. You can even close the ad windows right within the application. But the elegant and simple interface is not why Pandora on the iPhone is truly great, it’s because the iPhone allows Pandora to be mobile.  Compared to my huge iTunes at home, my tiny eight gig iPhone seems downright claustrophobic. Sometimes I want something new and Pandora lets me do that wherever I am (barring the chance of spotty AT&T service). When I am walking to class, at the gym, or riding the bus home I can enjoy something new and maybe find my next favorite artist or song. (more…)

I keep reading all this hype about how HD Radio is the big audio deal at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, yet I fail to quite see what’s so exciting. Sure, there are some new models of HD Radio receivers rolling out, but the number of new entries roughly equals the number of models being retired. The end result is that there will be about as many HD receivers on the market as last year. That’s big news?

I guess Ford announcing stronger support for HD and the new iTunes tagging features count for something. But where the rubber meets the road is whether car buyers are willing to pony up the extra cash for the higher-end stereos. While Ford is doing better than Chrysler and GM, the last time I checked, the auto industry isn’t exactly thriving. And let’s not forget that just few years ago the big hype was how the auto manufacturers were embracing satellite, yet that seems to have mostly resulted in lots of XM Sirius-equipped rental cars.

I keep searching for information about all these new non-automotive HD receivers and I keep coming up with the same iBiquity press release regurgitated all over the place. The release lists off a pile of model numbers, but no other info that might help me evaluate how great these new receivers might be.

iBiquity set up a special page just for “breaking news” from CES 2010. But today, the next-to-last day of the show, there’s no news to be found.

Only This Week in Consumer Electronics has any useful information, including the most valuable data of all: price. Amongst the models listed by TWICE, at $69 the lowest cost receiver is Radio Shack’s FM-only Gigaware-branded add-on for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The price isn’t outrageous, and marks only a $10 – $20 premium over a typical FM-only radio for the iPhone. Past that, all of the new HD receivers come in over a hundred bucks. That includes even the entry from discount electronics brand Coby, whose HDR700 has a street price of around $99.

I really believe that price is the key here. With the collapse in the quality of commercial radio programming, HD Radio really has not been able to sell itself on programming, despite the largest broadcasters like CBS Radio blanketing their stations with ads touting HD’s virtues. The quality issue is also debatable. So, at best, I think HD Radio is still a curiosity for most people who might be attracted by having a few more channels at their disposal, or having AM news, traffic and weather on the FM HD channels. But what are people willing to pay for this curiosity?
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Music listening has changed dramatically in the past decade in large part because of the rise of digital music. Following the explosion and shut down of illegal file sharing service Napster (1999-2001), a variety of digital music companies attempted to profit from the burgeoning interest in music delivery via the Internet.

Some focused on music subscription services (such as Rhapsody and eMusic), others turned toward music recommendations (like my former employer Uplister, which had hoped to turn the playlist into the “next unit of global music consumption”), and the legal descendants of Napster (from Apple to Amazon.com) became purveyors of MP3 downloads.

The timing of the digital music explosion couldn’t have been better; as many radio listeners were turned off by the increasingly consolidated commercial radio landscape that appeared on the scene as a result of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which reduced limitations on the number of stations that could be held by one owner.

A direct result of the reduction in the number of station owners was less diversity on radio, with shorter playlists and fewer artists represented. As a 2002 report by The Future of Music Coalition pointed out, music fans were not pleased by this and stated that they actually “want longer playlists with more variety,” flying in the face of commercial radio’s own survey results. (more…)

Hot on the heels of the new FM-enabled iPod Nano comes the rumor that there’s actually an FM radio already hidden inside current iPhones, and that Apple is about to turn it on. Apparently the radio circuitry is currently used as part of the Nike+ that connects up certain sneakers to report exercise data back to your phone.

According to 9 to 5 Mac, which originated the rumor, the hold-up on the radio is getting it integrated into the iTunes music store the way that the new Nano is, so that users can tag songs for future purchase as they listen. I’m not entirely sure I buy that explanation, since I’d think it would be harder to implement in the Nano–which has no application platform–than the more powerful iPhone and iPod touch.

If Apple does decide to wake up the sleeping iPhone radio I’m wishing for more recording time than the Nano’s short fifteen minutes.  Recording airchecks on the go, like the CC Witness Radio, would be a great bonus to have in addition to not having to take a separate radio with me when I travel. But I wonder if the FM radio will sap the battery all the faster, or if it will be more efficient than listening to streaming internet radio which kills the battery with just an hour or so of listening. Perhaps users of the Nike+ app might be able to illuminate this mystery based on their experiences.

I’ve heard no timeline for release of the radio app, but we’ll be sure to keep you up to date here at Radio Survivor.

You can get it on the iPhone, you can get it on your Blackberry. Now you can get Pandora on Android. “I know this has been a really long time coming and I’d like to thank all of you for your patience. Hope you enjoy the app,” declared Pandora “tech and product guy” Tom Conrad on his blog today. This was the guy who once said he “needed Android like a hole in the head” (he apologized later).

Android is the open source/open platform Linux based smart phone backed by the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium that most famously includes Google. Open platform means that developers can add apps much more freely.

In his youtube explanation of the Android, co-founder Nick Sears explains that he helped create the open source phone because “it was too difficult to get new products out to consumers in a timely fashion.” This wasn’t example of timeliness, but better late than never.

In moves that could have an impact on every voice and streaming radio service on the Internet, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission proposed laws and launched inquiries today that show that the Obama administration and its allies on Capitol Hill weren’t kidding when they promised to promote net neutrality and device openness.

First, representatives Edward J. Markey (D-MA) and Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA) announced the introduction of H.R. 3458, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act (pdf), into the House of Representatives.  The bill would make it unlawful for an Internet Service Provider to “block, interfere with, discriminate against, impair, or degrade the ability of any person to use an Internet access service to access, use, send, post, receive, or offer any lawful content, application, or service through the Internet.” It would also require the FCC to set up rules to enforce these provisions, and to set up a complaint system by which consumers could alert the Commission to problems.

Shortly after Markey and Eshoo announced their new proposed law, the FCC sent letters to Apple, AT&T, and Google asking for details on reports that Apple has rejected Google Voice as an application. Here’s the agency’s letter to Apple’s Government Affairs Vice President Catherine A. Novelli in its entirety.

Dear Ms. Novelli:
Recent press reports indicate that Apple has declined to approve the Google Voice application for the iPhone and has removed related (and previously approved) third-party applications from the iPhone App Store.1 In light of pending FCC proceedings regarding wireless open access (RM-11361) and handset exclusivity (RM-11497), we are interested in a more complete understanding of this situation. To that end, please provide answers to the following questions by close of business on Friday, August 21, 2009. (more…)

I’m actually amazed at how noncommercial radio has become the site of so much innovation in the medium in the last decade, and how commercial radio is getting left in the dust. On the music side we have Seattle’s indie rock KEXP and New Jersey’s freeform WFMU which both have significant internet listenership along with substantial on demand archives and net-only programming. With traditional public radio you can find archives of nearly every nationally syndicated program, as well as live streams and internet-only shows.

Now public radio has taken a big leap in mobile with the 2.0 release of the Public Radio Player for the iPhone. The previous release of the player provided an easy way to listen to the live stream of public radio stations across the country. While a convenient app, there was little to differentiate it from any number of other apps that let you listen to live radio streams.

The new 2.0 player breaks new ground by integrating on demand listening to hundreds of public radio programs, both national and local. The Public Radio Player is a collaboration between all the major public radio organizations led by the Public Radio Exchange, which is itself an innovative (but not the first) online archive of public radio content from member stations, networks and independent producers.
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