Your Wish, Our Command

Throughout the Public Radio Player’s existence, we’ve valued your feedback. And we’ve had a lot over the past year and a half, including all sorts of suggestions for new features and functionality. We’re proud to say that a number of these ideas have made their way into the latest version of the app. Another update to the Player is planned for early Summer, so keep sending us your ideas for improvements.

[disrupsean / cc / Flickr]

Here are some of the most popular requests (along with a few odd ones).

• Allow the app to run in the background  We’re investigating some workarounds and hoping Apple loosens its current restrictions on third party apps
• Alarm Clock  Done!
• Sleep timer  Done!
• Provide instructions  Done!
• Desktop App that recreates the Player  We’re planning to introduce a web based version of the Player
• Make the Player a Boxee plugin
• Live stream program schedule  Done!
• Display bit rate of streams   Done!
• Port to Android/Palm/Blackberry
• View upcoming hours and schedules within program guide  We need to determine if that data is available
• Add the CBC
• Add commercial radio stations
• Add Cubs games
• Allow donations  Investigating how to make this happen, but challenging due to Apple’s no donation policy
• Allow stations to add local sponsorships  Currently testing this with WBUR — check out their livestream page on the app
• Add CSPAN
• Add games to the PRP so we don’t get bored listening to the radio
• When music is played, add song title and artist information
• Provide links to iTunes to buy songs we hear
• Allow users to back up their favorites list on their computer
• Make the code open source
• Allow playlists for on-demand programs  We’re looking into this feature for the next version
• Play a program’s on-demand episodes continually   Same as above
• I want a pony!  At this time, the Public Radio Player can only support rainbows and candy

Have an idea for the Public Radio Player? Let us know!

Updated Guide for Stations

To our friends at local stations – be sure to note some recent changes to the Guide for Stations. Stream submissions to the Public Radio Tuner are now being handled by Public Interactive. If you have a stream you’d like to add to the Tuner, or make changes to information on existing streams, you can do so through Public Interactive’s stream submission page. Also, we’ve added some additional promo copy and web graphics in the Guide for Stations to help you get started promoting your station’s stream on the Public Radio Tuner. Participating station WUWM sent us audio of some great promos they’re running on-air, and we’ve posted them in the Guide for Stations for you to hear.  If you are running on-air promos or web graphics to spread the word about the Public Radio Tuner, drop us a line. We would love to showcase your work to other participating stations. Thanks!

Feeling the Love at 1.5 Million Downloads

The Public Radio Tuner has been downloaded 1.5 million times. Thanks to those of you who helped get us here by spreading the word! But we’re not done yet. We want to be on every iPhone and iPod Touch out there (who wouldn’t?). You can help by joining our Facebook group, twittering about the app, and, of course, simply TALKING about the Tuner with your real-world friends. Given the interesting tug-of-war happening in the iTunes reviews, you might be tempted to participate there, too.

In the meantime, we’re making great progress on Version 2.0: The Public Radio Player. Designed with your input. Coming out in June 2009.

Public Radio Tuner on All Things Considered

Welcome All Things Considered listeners! We are happy to have NPR news fans visit this site and get to know the Public Radio Tuner. You can find out all about the Tuner and who’s behind it on the About Page, and by reading through the posts below. Of course, if you are an iPhone or iTouch user, now is the time to download the Public Radio Tuner from the iTunes App Store. It’s free! Jake Shapiro, Executive Director of the Public Radio Exchange was on ATC this afternoon to discuss the Public Radio Tuner.

Love letters and advice

Over the last couple of weeks, we have seen a huge increase in downloads of the Public Radio Tuner iPhone app. After being featured in the App Store, the Tuner surged up the charts, rising to #1 among music apps and peaking as the #2 free iPhone app overall! People are blogging about it, tweeting about it, and most importantly – using it to stream hundreds of public radio stations on their iPhones and iPods. With the large number of new users, we’re also seeing a lot of comments and reviews coming in.

In the iTunes store, user Roobieroo gave the Public Radio Tuner this review:

Wow, everything I wanted them to fix in the previous version has been addressed in this latest release. You can now search local stations using GPS, station call letters, or search by state. Once you find a station, you can just click on the star icon to make it a favorite… This is the application I’ve been wanting for so long and it’s finally here. Easily a five star application.

You can read over 1300 user reviews for the Public Radio Tuner at the iTunes App Store.

And JT left this comment on the website:

I live in a rural area and work in a building with a lot of RF interference from electronic equipment. So needless to say, I am going to use this app a lot. The only immediate suggestion would be a link to the station’s program guide to find out what you are listening to. Thanks for publishing what I consider one of the top 10 apps for the iPhone.

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to provide us your feedback – and thanks for the kind words about the Public Radio Tuner. If you haven’t yet had the chance to give us a piece of your mind, leave your questions and comments on our Give Feedback page.

For those who have left comments about connection issues with station streams, lead developer Matt MacDonald left the following comment on the Give Feedback page:

A note to those who are encountering problems listening to streams – there are a number of factors and variables involved in getting the radio stream over the internet delivered to your phone and very few of them are within our control.

I’m also having problems listening to streams here in Harvard Square, but when I walk home the streams magically start working again. Some things to consider; AT&T network reliability, internet stream availability and saturation.

My check to see if it’s Public Radio Tuner or the network that is having issues is to open another streaming radio app and see if they are also having problems. Most of the times if I can’t use Public Radio Tuner then Pandora or Wunder Radio also aren’t working.

Keep the comments coming – user feedback is a vital part of this project. We are in the midst of finalizing the scope of version 2.0, and many user suggestions for new functionality will be included. I’ll be giving you a peek behind the development curtain later this week.

Public Radio Tuner front page news!

What do Grammy Awards trivia, the Gym Buddy, and the Public Radio Tuner have in common? These iPhone Apps all landed a featured slot on the App Store homepage today. The Public Radio Tuner is listed front and center in the New & Noteworthy category. If this is how you found this Web site and the Public Radio Tuner, welcome! You can read up on the Public Radio Tuner (and the collaboration of public radio organizations behind it) on the About Page, and by scrolling through the posts below.

Local news from around the country

I continue to spin the dial on the Public Radio Tuner to hear local news from around the nation. I have family in Michigan and like to listen to Blue Lake Public Radio before I call them up. I’ve found that starting a family phone call with, “So I heard about [insert local story here]” often distracts relatives from the topics they have ready for you.

When you hear a local or regional story on the national news programs, you can count on the local public radio station in the area to provide full details and additional coverage. Last week, I was listening to WFPL in Louisville to hear about the severe ice storm that caused power outages across the region. I have been selecting Minnesota Public Radio on the Tuner to hear the latest chatter about the never ending MN Senate recount. And WBEZ Chicago has been a great source for all the details of the Rod Blagojevich impeachment. And with all the cold winter in my part of the world, I insist on torturing myself by dialing in warm weather stations just to hear the morning weather forecasts. Interested? Allow me to recommend WUSF Tampa, KUAZ Tucson, KSTX San Antonio, and my old hometown station of KUSP Santa Cruz.

Are you reuniting with any former hometown stations or listening to stations outside your area? We want to hear how you’re using the Public Radio Tuner.

Life Beyond the iPhone

We are hearing from some public radio fans that love the idea of the Public Radio Tuner, but are not iPhone or iTouch users. They want to know if the Public Radio Tuner will ever be device independent. The short answer is, we hope so. 

One of the goals of this project is to help the public radio industry as a whole take advantage of the emerging mobile market. The collaboration of organizations working on the Public Radio Tuner allows us to share resources in building the app, but it’s also meant to shares the benefits and experiences gained from this project. 

We think it would be a great idea to bring the Public Radio Tuner to more mobile devices.  For this phase of the project, the iPhone was chosen as the initial platform because of the availability of the SDK (software development kit) and the ubiquity of the iTunes music store as a distribution point. Simply put, it had the greatest potential to reach the most users right away.

While the iPhone was the first to make a big splash in the market, there are plenty of great smart phone options available. Android, the mobile platform from Google, shows a lot of potential for developers, phone makers, and mobile users. And we see continuing improvements to Windows Mobile and Blackberry phones as well. So there is clearly growth potential for the Public Radio Tuner beyond the iPhone. With this in mind, we are building version 2.0 of the iPhone app using Webkit, an open source application framework. This will allow the code that drives the Public Radio Tuner to be readily transferable to the Google Android platform. 

When the current phase of the collaboration is completed with the release of version 2.0, the plan is to evaluate the success of the Public Radio Tuner iPhone project. We’ll look at how widely the app was adopted and how it was received by public radio audiences. At that point, we will examine the potential to extend the development cycle of the app and port it to new platforms. 

We want to keep the conversation going about these issues (and many more) here on this blog. So keep your comments and suggestions coming in, and be sure to take advantage of our new Give Feedback page.

The new shortwave

The holidays brought an iPod docking radio to our house, and I’ve found it to be the perfect pairing for the Public Radio Tuner. It reminds me of when I was a kid and would stay up late with my shortwave radio trying to fine tune stations from far away lands. Today, all I need to do is pop my iPhone into the dock and launch the Public Radio Tuner, giving me a nationwide choice of public radio stations right at my fingertips. For the inauguration on Tuesday, I launched the stream for KIPO, Hawaii Public Radio to hear how they were covering their native son as he takes the oath of office. The Public Radio Tuner is great for listening to your local station while you’re on the go, but it’s also fun to sample stations from across the country. Have you tried out any new stations or reunited with old favorites using the Public Radio Tuner? Let us know your discoveries in the comments.

Where’s my favorite station?

That’s a question occasionally rolling in from users of the Public Radio Tuner (for reference, here’s the current list of participating stations). Our goal is for the Public Radio Tuner to offer each and every public radio station in the country. But the public radio system is a loose confederation of hundreds of stations, and we have made the Public Radio Tuner an opt in project. One reason is that additional listeners from the iPhone may increase bandwidth costs for stations, and we all know money is tight these days. Additionally, the iPhone app can’t handle all audio formats – so a station with a Windows Media stream, for example, won’t be compatible with the Public Radio Tuner. And finally, we’ve been working hard to get the word out to stations about the opportunity to join the project. If you’re a listener and don’t see your favorite station on the app, you can contact the station directly and politely suggest they join the project so you can enjoy their great programming on the iPhone. If you’re at a station and would like to join the Public Radio Tuner, it’s easy to do so – check out our submission guide for stations .