TuneIn Radio: Music & Sports

Update: The buffering was fixed and worked for a period of months, however recently the ability to pause and playback was removed from the app. Now hitting pause will only save data for a minute or so, then no additional steam is saved and the recording just jumps forward to live. Prior to this the app would save about 30min before jumping to live. This is a huge setback in app performance and makes the app almost useless, since even a short phone call will result in missing part of a broadcast. Hopefully this feature is restored, in the meantime I will unfortunately have to look for a new app. Too bad because I have used this for years and enjoyed it. First of all and probably most importantly, the app content is great. However there are issues with buffering that need to be fixed. The app offers pause and RW/FF functions, but if you pause for even a short time the app will skip ahead midstream once you are playing back the buffered content. Also when playing back buffered content it will randomly repeat a few second long portion several times. Buffering is a feature used on many apps these days and it usually works flawlessly, this app needs to fix these issues to compete. If buffering was fixed this would be a 5 star review.

The app does well for streaming live radio stations. Where it falls flat is podcasts. It doesn’t remember where I left off in a particular one. Instead, it starts me off at the very beginning 19 times out of 20. I have to take screen shots of the time (if I can remember) when I exit, and then I usually have to wait a minute for it to slowly buffer up to, say, minute 47 of an hour long podcast when I come back o finish ... SUPER annoying. They throttle the download rates to conserve bandwidth on their end for sure. Contrast this with iHeart radio, which remembers where I left off in ANY given podcast and starts me off there. Where this gets REALLY bad is if I exit the app for a minute. Unless I exit and come back within about 10 seconds, it will forget where I left off and I have to go through the whole thing again (except I didn’t screen shot it, so I don’t know the time). It’s garbage on this point, good for live radio, and I don’t use the rest of the functionality. Unfortunately, radio stations go for tunein or iHeart, so there isn’t a choice ... but I would use iHeart for podcasts EVERY TIME over tunein if I could.

I assume Tunein is made to do this on purpose but it’s far too sensitive....have used tunein for a few years but don’t remember being this bad- when I am listening to a news show live, like CNN, it will replay the same part not twice, but 3-5 times, I assume this is when the app detects a slower connection. I have tried numerous times to mess with settings and can’t get it to stop - it makes listening to anything live virtually impossible unless you want to be driven crazy. This happens over my Sonos which plays everything else perfectly in my home over WiFi (via fiber optic) so not sure why tunein is different. It is also happening more on my phone app. I love tunein for convenience but this repeating is so bad that it makes it not worth fooling with. Shouldn’t be this hard for a normal consumer - I shouldn’t have to adjust a bunch of settings when in a relatively normal and speedy WiFi environment (nor when when I’m on a cellular connection). Trying to listen to impeachment live! I have to install something else today.

If you like commercials or have money to pay to remove ads from every app you use, this app is almost useable (if I felt like paying for it, it would still only get two stars from me). You get all the commercials from whatever show you’re listening to, plus as many ads from the app; which amounts to about 35/65% programming vs. ads. Extremely unstable, especially if you’ve paused it - might as well just close the app and reopen it if you did, because it will basically not work until you do - rendering the pause feature useless. The app struggles to stay connected and fails to reconnect frequently when it loses its connection. The ads are intentionally significantly louder than the programming - obviously on purpose - making it something that wakes you up if you doze off or like falling asleep listening. The constant adjusting of the volume alone makes me tend to turn the app off. Overall: commercial overload with intentional annoyances to make you pay. It’s not a functional enough app to pay for as is, coupled with the intentionality of the annoyances earns this app 1 star from me.

I wrote a really bad review before (read it below), and to be fair, I’m back to update. They seem to improve this App. - The random Ads are gone, so no more paid ads during radio programs. - 30 seconds reward/forward function is back The loosing of the track once you receive a phone call, or a video/audio starts playing on another app, still an issue. So if you’d like to reward 30 seconds of missed radio stream, you’re with no luck! Well, hopefully they’ll hire back whoever developer was able to add that feature back in the days! DO NO PAY FOR THIS!!!! Use the free version and save some frustration at least. I’ve been using TuneIn for at least 4 years.... and every “upgrade” this app is getting worse! I listen to a Brazilian radio station, and when they are talking the app thinks its a commercial so a Lowe’s, Home Depot and another ad from TuneIn kicks in and I miss the interview or whatever is happening! And it’s always 2 or 3 ads only.... I don’t remember because all I do it’s curse on the 5th generation of the developers :/ The latest version they got rid of the 30seconds rewind/forward! C’mon developers..... really?!?!?! And the feature I miss the most is that if another audio/video comes up, like a phone call/FaceTime you lose the streaming, having to go back to the app and press play. Back in the days, this wasn’t necessary. Over all, it works, but on the pace this is going, in a near future, you’ll only be able to listen to their paid Ads :/