The cold, cracking sound that you can hear is ice, slowly enveloping the kingdom of Hades. Yes, hell has frozen over: for this morning marked the low-key launch of BBC iPlayer Radio for Android, promised at the launch of the iOS version on October 8 last year.
BBC iPlayer Radio for Android's delay was mainly due to the removal of Flash from the Android platform, which required a re-engineering of the BBC's streaming infrastructure. It now uses HLS, which is natively supported in Android v4; but this does mean that on-demand audio from local and regional stations isn't, yet, available.
So, what has the extra 6 months and 16 days - not that anyone's counting - given us Android users?
A proper, decent, thoughtful Android app, that's what.
BBC iPlayer Radio for Android isn't an iOS port - this is a real Android app, using the Holo UX design patterns, and working excellently. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say that this is the best Android radio tuner app I've seen.
Users are greeted with the much-lauded "radio dial", which allows you to swipe between stations (while, smoothly, 'on-now' graphics slide in above - which, holo-style, are also swipeable). On selecting a station, you're given a nicely branded set of pages containing live audio (including songs currently being played); on-demand programmes, video and audio clips - all accompanied with crisp photos and rich data. The app also includes the BBC podcasts, too. And they're called "podcasts". Someone didn't get the memo.
The last three songs played are in the music station view. (I'm surprised that they don't click through to the BBC Music website, to allow us to find more about the artists playing). You can mark tracks as 'favourites' as you listen - and share each track, too. Turn your phone on its side, and you get a stripped EPG (like the one you might see on your telly).
Expanded Android notifications are used properly, offering a way to stop the live stream (or pause a listen-again or a podcast). This is exactly how radio apps should be: something that neither the Absolute Radio nor Global Radio apps currently do.
Sharing the current programme, or a track, correctly opens the Android share dialog - so I can share great radio to Google+, for example. (By contrast, the Global Radio apps have no social media sharing facility at all; while the Absolute Radio and Radioplayer apps have reinvented the wheel and built their own sharing facility for Twitter and Facebook only - much like you had to do with iOS).
The Action Bar has been used to good effect (though perhaps more buttons could show on the tablet version). Coloured separately for each station, it offers search and more details.
Really nicely, there's also a menu item saying "More UK Radio", which opens the Radioplayer app. The BBC linking to their competition. What a good idea.
The audio (while listening on wifi, as most users will do) is of excellent quality on headphones, and starts to play quickly. It's rebuffered on me once - even though I have a 40Mb connection at home - though much of TuneIn rebuffers like crazy too. Of note - the audio is LOUD, unlike many radio apps (I suspect this is the audio encoding configuration); and appears to be moderately highly dynamically-processed.
This is the first iPlayer Radio app to work on a tablet, too: it works well on the best-selling Nexus 7 and looks just as crisp and clean as the phone interface. My hunch is that radio listening is considerably longer when done on a speaker rather than headphones - which means tablets should deliver much longer listen sessions than phones. It would be interesting to see whether this is the case.
A wise man took me aside during my first week at the BBC (in 2007 - I left in 2009) and told me that "the BBC doesn't do things first: they do things properly." While the Android version of the iPlayer Radio app has taken its time to appear, what's nice to notice is that the BBC have spent the time to do things properly. And that's an excellent thing.
See some screenshots of the BBC iPlayer Radio, on phone and tablet, in this Flickr set.
Review: BBC iPlayer Radio for Android
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It's been a while coming - but is the iPlayer Radio app for Android any good?
James Cridland is the Managing Director of Media UK, and a radio futurologist: a consultant, writer and public speaker who concentrates on the effect that new platforms and technology are having on the radio business.
E-mail James Cridland | Visit James Cridland's website
13 comments
Nick Bewes posted on Thursday 25th April at 11:26
The BBC seem to be getting ready to drop the Music website. They don’t do reviews any more and the extra content has been getting less and less for ages. Maybe that’s why they don’t link through to the site from this new app.
Brian Christopher Winter posted on Saturday 27th April at 17:56
James, nice little article. OK so I have downloaded this to my Galaxy Tab 2 and my S3 phone and I have not found any significant problems with it. However, if you read through some of the reviews on the Google Play Store there are a few gripes about it not streaming, freezing and in one review crashing. Now, I am not about to say these people are wrong but there may have been som initial teething troubles with the services which these, obviously early users, may have bumped into. If I have one minor niggle it is the fact that BBC Local Radio, for me, has defaulted to BBC York, which although I am in North Yorkshire, does not editorially cover Richmiond as well as BBC Tees. And there does not seem to be a way to force it to use the local you want. But, I am sure that there may be good reasons for that.
James Cridland posted on Sunday 28th April at 09:39
There is a way to force it – turn the dial to “find local radio”, and then press the little label at the bottom of the screen that says “All local stations” – which, it turns out, is actually a button. Even though it looks like a bit of help text.
I had a few issues streaming the News Quiz last night to my Nexus 7; reported to them, but a little disappointing. Otherwise it’s been pretty good.
Michael Cook posted on Sunday 28th April at 22:17
It won’t work on my Samsung Galaxy S3, but I’m guessing this is the issue the BBC have talked about with my network (Three).
It seems odd to me to wait so long to launch this after the iPhone app, and it still to be unavailable on a popular phone on (I think) three major phone networks.
James Cridland posted on Monday 29th April at 13:01
The difficulty is that the Samsung’s firmware update broke HLS, the streaming protocol that this app uses. If the BBC hadn’t launched, it wouldn’t work on anyone’s Android phone, because there wouldn’t be an app to work – and, of course, there’d be no pressure on the networks to get that dodgy firmware fixed. So, they’re damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
Richard Berry posted on Wednesday 1st May at 12:32
Have to say it works well enough on my S3. I spent a good hour on a train yesterday listening to on-demand programmes from Radio 4 and it worked brilliantly. Whether or not I’ll soon get an update that will completely wreck that remains to be seen. I’ll be most unhappy if that is the case, as it’s a lovely looking app. It would be great to get podcast working as podcasts, as Android users don’t get the directory that IOS users do the podcast app.
James Cridland posted on Wednesday 1st May at 20:29
For podcasts, might I recommend the excellent (but paid-for) Pocket Casts?
If you want a free podcast catcher, “Player FM” is getting good reviews, though I’m happy enough with PocketCasts not to try.
Ronald Stewart posted on Sunday 12th May at 12:58
I’ve just installed the App. on my tablet, an Archos 80 Cobalt, and everything looks fine. However, there’s no audio (something of a drawback!). No problems with other Players, YouTube etc. Is the version of Android on the tablet incapable, and can I do anything about it?
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Fantastic to see some common sense with Podcasts.