CatPig Studios recently updated their Radium Internet radio app for the Mac, and I thought I’d take a look at it. I’ll admit, I had never tried Radium, but after giving it a try, I’ll be a steady listener.
From the Radium App Store page:
Radium’s 8000+ high quality stations, full AirPlay support, Smart Equalizer and built-in Wish List make listening to your favourite radio a breeze.
First off, I absolutely love Radium’s minimal interface. The design is easy to understand, and even easier to use. I love how it sits up in the menu bar, and stays out of your way until you want to change the station, or adjust a setting.
Most functions of the app can be controlled via hotkey, which you can customize if you don’t like the default settings.
It’s totally a breeze to find new stations, as you can easily search by genre, the name of the station, the region the station is in, or any combination of search terms from over 8,000 stations. I searched for all my favorite stations in areas I’ve lived in previous lives, (Indianapolis, IN, Los Angeles, CA, and Phoenix, AZ to name a few), and was able to find most of the stations I had listened to and make them favorites. (It’s easy to add a favorite too, just click the station’s heart icon, and it’s added to your favorites. Click the heart again to remove it from your favorites list.)
Your favorites list can be reordered by dragging and dropping a station anywhere in the list you want it to reside.
I like the ability to glance up at the toolbar and see the name of the song that’s playing, along with the artist. (Well, usually. Sometimes it seemed to lag a song or two behind. I don’t know for sure if that’s the fault of Radium, or the radio station itself.)
I found the equalizer function did a fair job of auto selecting presets for what I was listening to, and very seldom had to make any changes.
The app has the now standard set of social network sharing functions built in, with the ability to share the track you’re listening to via Twitter or Last.fm
As I had also downloaded Radium for the iPhone, I found the iCloud syncing feature VERY handy. All the stations I favorited on the Mac were right there on my iPhone when I started up the app.
The iOS app is just as easy to use, and the iCloud syncing feature made it easy to keep my favorites all together, no matter which version I was using.
I would highly recommend Radium for the Mac and the iPhone to anyone who enjoys listening to their favorite Internet radio stations. I would easily rate both apps with at least 4 out of 5 stars. They’re great apps, easy to use, and I can see myself making use of them regularly.
Radium is available now in the Mac App Store and iOS App Store for all your Apple devices.
