iRadio

These days on the web one can find a huge number of radio stations broadcasting all genres of music, from the primitive ethnic to the ultimately brutal porn-gore and from the one-summer hits to immortal classic oeuvres. The traditional radio has its never-ending fun and charm and lots of stations have decided to get a broader reach by emitting in the cyberworld's ether.

Thus, no matter if you're in Tanzania and your fav show is being aired on a Romanian station, you can still enjoy it - should that specific station be broadcasted online. For some people who are waiting just for a couple of programs on 2 or 3 stations, common music playback softwares might suffice; but for those who are constantly looking for new music or just to hear new emerging bands this is not enough. That's why softwares like iRadio have been created and developed.

iRadio scans the web for emitting radio stations and displays them on your screen, letting you choose or search further, until you find your favorite content and when you find something you like - be this something a song or a show - it even allows you to record for safekeeping and later playback on your PC.

The Looks

iRadio has by far the simplest and at the same time the nicest and most sober GUI I have met in such a software; and this is good. I felt a real pleasure working with iRadio, because its appearance is really professional: the largest area is dedicated to listing various radio stations along with bitrate and currently playing information. It's clear that its designers knew very well that in such a software the most important thing is the data it produces and not a fancy look.

Nevertheless, as if to compensate for the soberness of the listing-pane, the main icons of iRadio have been exceptionally designed. A blue "mist" dulls a bit of their shine but doesn't wipe away the elegance: they are large, but not exaggerated, and are as intuitive as it can be. Instead of common icons, the designers opted for a hi-def set of images perfectly fitting in the general look of the command-pane. Sleek and silky-looking, these icons really make you wanna use the program.

As you play a station, a small VU-meter is displayed in the lower left corner, as well as the functional and handy EQ. In the lower region of the iRadio window, additional information on the station and track is displayed thus enhancing the overall experience. Even the Options pane has a very stylish header in the same fashion as the rest of the graphic elements. The iRadio is not skinnable, but I think I can say it does not need any skins or color schemes, as the way it is now is just OK.

The menus are very simple and will guide even the inexperienced user to a satisfactory use of the program, without headaches and too much time spent wandering around. The transport control buttons are quite few (Stop, Play and Record) and I guess this is just enough. The Library sports a file splitter, so you can briefly edit recorded media (and not only) while in the lower part of the library screen the user has direct access to the stations he bookmarked. Fast and easy, just as things should be!

The Works

Little will I say at this chapter, since the iRadio has been developed for one simple purpose only and is not an all-in-one application. Besides allowing you to hear the music and showing a certain station of your choice that is broadcasting, the iRadio will let you record this content whether you are near your PC or not. By means of a very convenient scheduler, the iRadio will automatically start recording a preset station at a specified time and save the resulting file on your HDD. You can decide whether you will listen and edit this new file in the iRadio dedicated area or do the same thing but by means of another application.

The Navigator is another handy tool for the web radio enthusiast as it provides access to web sites in the same way as any browser would. You can use this special feature to perform some further search for your favorite content, and this content consist in music tracks, news sites, or radios that iRadio did not index in past searches.

No need to say what the Scheduler does, except for the fact that is has one nice thing: you can choose between Record, Play and Play and Record modes to react at a specific time while tuning into a pre-defined station.

Searching is very easy and you can do this according to filters like Genre or Keyword, combined with bitrates, thus obtaining very accurate results. If radio stations the iRadio has found fill more than one page, you can easily jump directly to any of the remaining pages with just some mouse clicks, as a dropdown menu will indicate and help.

Simple in design and works, highly efficient and good looking, the iRadio has made a very nice impression on me.

The Good

The best thing about iRadio is that it can gather info on a multitude of online radio stations, at the same time allowing you to record and even schedule recordings.

The Bad

Really nothing bad to be said on this version of iRadio. If I were a little mean, I'd say that for this price, some more options could be bundled in.

The Truth

Overall, after testing the iRadio even in a completely chaotic manner I can say it is highly stable (from what I have seen so far) and it is definitely a software you can rely on. Considering it as a software tuner, I'd say the price is fair, especially when thinking of the numerous stations you'll be able to listen to.

Take a look at the snapshots below if you want to get a better picture on iRadio: