Life Beyond the iPhone

Posted: January 28th, 2009 | Author: Josh from Public Radio Player | Filed under: About the Project, Public Radio Tuner | 12 Comments »

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.

12 Comments on “Life Beyond the iPhone”

  1. 1 Jean Johnson said at 8:45 pm on January 31st, 2009:

    The Public Radio Tuner is a wonderful service and I am delighted to have it on my iPhone. I am a member of two public radio stations. What a super way to bring NPR to us anywhere. I also like that you are making the code available to all. Thanks.

  2. 2 Terry Langston said at 8:02 pm on February 3rd, 2009:

    I like the tuner. It is great for on the go when I am away from the radio. I am looking forward to the release of 2.0.

  3. 3 Ron May said at 10:58 pm on February 9th, 2009:

    Now I can listen to my beloved WDET-FM anywhere!

  4. 4 Rajeev Iyer said at 12:10 pm on February 13th, 2009:

    Need this for my Windows Mobile Device ->

  5. 5 bill c said at 5:47 pm on February 13th, 2009:

    Give us a TIVO function. Best app in a long time.

  6. 6 Ben said at 11:41 pm on February 22nd, 2009:

    Any plans for PalmOS / Treo or Palm Pre support? If not, I’m dumping my treo.. (by the way I support 2 NPR stations: kqed & kalw, and if you include my family add kcet and kcrw)

  7. 7 Ron said at 2:19 am on May 31st, 2009:

    Waiting patiently for an android version, but please hurry.

  8. 8 Dave Zgarrick said at 10:07 pm on November 7th, 2009:

    I just got a Motorola Droid. So far so good, but I would really like to see a public radio app for the Android? Do you have some sort of exclusivity agreement with AT&T?

  9. 9 Rekha from Public Radio Player said at 9:58 am on November 8th, 2009:

    @Dave Zgarrick Glad to hear you’d like a Droid version. We would love to make one. No exclusivities, just limited funds – public radio is non-profit, and the app is free of charge.

    When we set out to make a mobile app, the iTunes Store was by far the most effective app distribution mechanism, and iPhone/iPod users the most ardent app users. That’s still the case, for now. We recognize that could change, and we’re keeping an eye on things.

  10. 10 Jason said at 12:34 am on November 18th, 2009:

    Rekha, thanks for the update. At the same time, we humbly await the Android version. What I’d really like to see is an actual cost analysis and funding drive for an Android version. I’ve donated to specific projects (e.g. VLC) but I don’t want to donate to the organization in general to fund iPhone development. I’d rather specifically fund the Android app.

  11. 11 Emilio M Recio said at 10:38 pm on December 1st, 2009:

    I would like to develop the blackberry version of this application. The only thing I would really need is the list of radio stations and their URL’s. This can be done via XML or as you’re already doing it (JSON objects). Please let me know if the community can give back to public radio.

  12. 12 Steven Clift said at 9:55 am on December 6th, 2009:

    Yep, time for a Droid version.

    How much effort/cost is involved in porting something over?

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