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Audials – Discover, Stream and Record Internet Radio

Posted Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 at 8:55 am by Paul Wilks 2 Comments

User Rating3.00/5

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Audials is a polished and ridiculously feature-rich Internet streaming radio app for Android. Providing access to over 50,000 Internet radio stations and some 80 genres to pick from, you’ll always have something to listen to. If that’s not enough, there’s a slew of superb additional features that might just blow your socks off…

Price: Free

Tested on: HTC Desire HD
Content Rating: Low Maturity

AndroidTapp.com Android App Review:

Pros & Cons:

Pros

• 50,000 or more stations!
• 80 genres to search through!
• Minimum bit rate search!
• Record feature!
• Album art for the song being played!
• Zapping feature (more below!)

Cons

• UI might be considered a little basic compared to the likes of Pandora or 8tracks.
• Lacks widget.

Features:

Audials is a comprehensive and very well designed Internet radio app for your Android device. As far as I’m aware, Pandora is considered pretty much one of the kings of Internet radio, and their Android app is massively popular. However, Audials has a lot under the bonnet and might just be a suitable alternative.

There are lots of cool little features included in this user-friendly app so I’ll try on touch upon those which tool out most for me.

Stations and genres. Audials gives you access to over 50,000 Internet radio stations from countries in every corner of the globe. Additionally, you can search for stations via genre, and there are 80 of these to choose from. So, whether you’re into reggae or discofox there will be something for you.

Minimum bit rate search. One acknowledged problem with Internet radio is finding stations that have decent sound quality. We might go from listening to our favourite mp3s and find Internet radio a bit let down in terms of quality. Audials helps to navigate this issue by allowing for searches based upon a minimum bit rate. The higher the bit rate, the better the audio quality.This means the only radio you have to listen to is a good quality.

Zapping is a cool way to discover new stations and new music. Simply enter the name of an artist, band or radio station and Audials will locate and play a new station for you. It feels a bit like a shuffle feature, with a massive database of radio stations!

Album Art. When a song is playing, Audials will endeavour to locate and display the album art for that particular track. It works mostly, although occasionally it misses or gets the art wrong. Still, considering this is on-the-fly album art discovery it’s a great addition to the app.

There’s more! Obviously there are all the usual features you would expect from a radio app too, such as being able to easily search for stations and save favourites. However you can also record content, view and playback previously listened to content via Audials ‘track history’ feature and finally you can collect the tracks you like most and play them back through the app whenever you like.

Comprehensive, easy to use and brilliantly functional, I think Audials is a superb app that’s more than enough to interest any user into Internet radio.

Usefulness:

Perfect for radio-enthusiasts, there is a smorgasbord of useful features including; record, track histories and zapping.

Ease of Use:

To find and play music you have to engage with a few simple and intuitive menus and multiple choice lists. I think anyone familiar with Android should be able to use the app to its full potential pretty easily.

Frequently Used:

This of course depends on the user. However the app is very user-friendly and stable so could be used as much or as little as you like.

Interface:

I think compared to the likes of Pandora or 8tracks, the UI on Audials is a little on the basic side, but this doesn’t really detract from the quality of the app. Surely it’s mostly about the music and Audials gives you a massive variety of easily-accessibly content. Trust me however, Audials still looks great and you will have frequently seen far worse.

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