14 DAY TRIAL // In my avid search for the perfect music player, I came across Radio Lover and stopped a bit to see what it's all about. If some are thinking "why search for the perfect music player?" let me just get this out in the open. I don't like iTunes. Is it a crime? It is far too simplistic for my taste and until now, I haven't really found something that would suit my needs, but I am not going to express my frustration about this issue now; this article is about Radio Lover and hasn't got anything to do with that problem.
Radio Lover is the type of application that I would usually not even bother to check out because I am not a great fan of radios in the first place. If you would ask me why I checked it out, I couldn't really provide a good answer. Something about it just attracted me and sincerely, I am not sorry I gave it a try.
Now, the main thing I like about this application is its practicality. It is not a matter of what it really does, cause it certainly does not launch rockets to the Sun, it is a matter of how was this software first planned and the professional way it was developed based on those plans.
This is not some application made in a garage by some kid that tried to play with code and discovered he made an application that works. No... Radio Lover is made by pros that knew exactly what they wanted to and how to do it.
This is not a case of "I wrote the code that will actually record, what now? Let's put that and that and make it feature that..." No, they sat at a table, and discussed. They had in their heads what a software needs to be a good one.
They listed all of the features that such a software needs to have and they analyzed every one in particular. After that, they disposed of those that were not really necessary and searched for alternatives of implementation for those that could have been made to work based on other popular applications (like iTunes). After they simplified everything as much as they could while still offering absolutely everything this kind of software needs to be practical and to give its potential customers something that would make them love to use it, they released it in the purest form possible.
There is no long list of bug fixes, there is no history of problems that occurred after the application's release and they haven't thought of before they made it public. No, they made a nice, fully functional version that did not need more than some minor fixes that came along with the OS and technology changes, fixes that are almost inevitable as no developer really knows what the OS-makers will do in the future.
That is how you make something good, you test it until you drop so that a customer won't have the chance to be disappointed and won't need to wait for updates. It is really frustrating when one buys a software that needs improving, has bugs and even if the idea is good, the functionality is close to zero because of all the problems the software has.
To give something of quality to the world, one does not have to develop its software the "Microsoft way" as I like to call it. "The Microsoft way" means that one makes a software, sells it, and then waits for the customers to tell him what is wrong with it so that it may fix it. This is not the way to get things done as even if one fixes all the problems as they come along, this reduces from the application's functionality.
It's like buying a car. At first, it looks good, it's safe, it performs and at a first glance, it has everything it needs. After a while though, the dashboard starts making a strange noise and the gear lever starts to loose its colors turning the beautiful "chick magnet" you bought into another stress factor. Why didn't the makers think of that awful noise? Because they did not test it properly and when they built it, they did not care about how the customer will live with it, they cared about making it look good or giving it a lot of horse power so that they could sell it at very high prices.
All right, enough of this and let's see what RadioLover is really about.
The Looks
The interface is as simple as possible. Only the toolbar and the list of streams. Trough this, the user has access to all the information and the facilities it needs at no more than one click. So, everything one needs to know so that it could manage his recordings is right there. The stream list offers the names of the streams, bit rate, comments and a flag that shows all the streams one has been recording from. Also, three simple columns provide the information needed about the status of the recordings. It shows if the stream is on a recording schedule, if the recording stopped unexpectedly, if it's connecting or if it is being recorded at the moment.
Information about the selected stream is also displayed in text form at the bottom of the window. If one selects an active recording, one is provided with the time Radio Lover has been recording, the bandwidth and details of the track that is being recorded if provided by the stream. That's about it concerning the GUI. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing more that one needs. It blends with the GUI of the Mac OS and, in the end, it does not really need anything else.
This is why I am going to rate it 4 out of 5. It certainly is not ugly and it is as practical as possible. Judging by how it does its job, a simple interface is a strong point as this is not an application that requires special graphics. This is an application that you set up and leave it in your dock knowing that it does what is meant to do properly. The fact of the matter though is that all of the browsing and playing could have been integrated directly into the application although this would have meant that it would have been a little more ... heavy, if I may say so. In this case, RadioLover would have lost from its basic quality that I loved the most in the first place: the simplification of the code as much as it was permitted.
The Works and the Features:
Talking about doing its job... Well, I did not expect all of this from an application that is meant only to record from a radio channel. If I think about it, it is not that big of a deal, but I like the way they thought about the customer. They had in mind that recording from a radio stream is an action that does not need to require but the minimum amount of the user's attention and deliver maximum productivity.
So, the basic functionality of the whole application is that it can split streaming mp3 radio into individual mp3 files. This is the first and basic principle that makes it extremely useful as it gives the possibility to listen to everything one might want to listen from his favorite radio station, not only as many times as he wants to, but it gives the opportunity that the song, program or whatever to be played on an iPod, for example.
The simple recording of a radio broadcast is possible with other "general recording applications" but this is just not enough. This would mean that one would have to record for a time, stop, use another application to split the songs individually, rename them and sort them. Sounds like pretty much of an ugly job for me. With Radio Lover, all of this means a single click and nothing more.
Radio Lover has a tight connection with iTunes. This is where all the "simplifying of the features" I was talking about comes in. All of the stations that are displayed at the time in iTunes can be imported by a click. This is a really nice thought as iTunes really has a nice collection of radio stations, but this means that one should have at least iTunes 4 installed... not really a problem these days.
The connection with iTunes is also shown by the listening of the radio station that is being recorded feature. This happens, again, with the push of a button, but it happens in iTunes. Also, every mp3 that one has recorded is automatically added to iTunes' library and to the playlist.
Now, I will point out what I meant when I said that the developers "were thinking of the customer" and his satisfaction when they made Radio Lover. The fact is that all of the mp3s recorded are sorted and named based on the information the radio station transmits. This means that, when possible, Radio Lover creates for every station a separate folder, in which every artist has its own folder and the mp3s are sorted by albums and named with the information provided by the ones that are broadcasting. These settings can be modified to suit everyone's needs and wishes, but having this as a default configuration impressed me because it means that Radio Lover's developers programmed it from a customer's point of view.
Another strong point of this application is that it can record based on a schedule. If one has a regular radio program that he does not want to miss, then he can specify if it should be recorded once, daily, weekly, only on weekdays or only on weekends, the time that it should start and the time that is should stop the recording. This schedule offers multiple choices and one can record as many broadcasts as he wants when he wants. He does not really need to be at home, in fact, he can be out of the country because Radio Lover offers the opportunity to wake up the computer so that it can respect its schedule. When the user comes home, all is sorted and organized, the only thing he needs to do is to decide what to listen first.
Let us see what more it has to offer. The customization of recording styles. This implies that the user can set up as he wishes the MP3 Tags, the playlist options, the way the tracks are split apart and the track information. It basically offers all of the possibilities so that one can literally create a huge database of broadcasts that has all the specifications he wants. Track info, Album, genre, how the names will appear, the radio they wore recorded from etc.
What also impressed me is that Bitcartel thought of the possibility that many radio streams do not offer information about the tracks they play and included detailed options in the software that would allow users to set up the way Radio Lover would handle such tracks.
Other options and configurations include the editing of the network connection settings, the separate organization of the download directory's layout for normal and scheduled recordings based on genre, stream, artist, album, day and time. One can also add the authentication data for protected streams and can view a history of all the recordings with detailed information.
The actual work in it is as easy and as fun as it gets with an application of this sort. It does not require any additional help or any additional documentation and it is responsive and accurate. It uses almost the same resources to record from one radio stream that it uses to record from ten and I haven't seen many such applications on the market.
The Good
It's easy to use, it offers everything one needs when recording from a stream and it does an amazing amount of work so that the user won't have to, plus everything above.
The Bad
I can not really ask more from it and I can't honestly find anything really bad about it. What I would like is that an internet searching feature for additional information about the tracks recorded would be added. The albums the tracks belong to are almost never provided by the radio streams and it would be nice to add a search feature, on the iTunes Store for example, so that additional information about them would be added.
The Truth
It is a remarkable piece of programming. This is how a software should look and feel like and many should take example from it. It does what it should and much more than that, in the most quiet and nice way possible.
Here are some print screens. Click to enlarge:
