Usable web radio streaming app

1

Hello, for playing web radio stations on my phone I’d like something else than a full browser. There are a few entries, but each have its own crippling flaws. That’s almost the worst thing that can happen to me :cry: it sends me into a loop trying one after another and rejecting them in turn, then repeating.

There’s radiodroid, but:

  • there seems to be no way to just enter a stream URL, to play a station it has to already be known to the app, am I wrong?
  • if the URL of a known station happens to be a playlist (ie. an *.m3u link or similar) my phone insists on opening it with … the youtube app. Nooooooo!!!
  • if connection fails for any reason and I try again, it crashes.

And then there’s transistor. This one claims to allow entering URLs directly. But when I open that entry box and start typing like “https://radio.foo” an error message pops up, saying something like “Invalid station”, and that message is directly on top of the entry box. So I can’t tap to give focus back to the entry to continue typing (and correct whatever the temporary problem was with the incomplete entry). WTF?? Has the author bothered to test this feature?

There is one or two others, but they also have similar problems.

So: am I asking for something unreasonable here, are these apps just abandoned and everyone uses a browser? Or else what do people use?

Thanks and sorry for the rant.

2

All these don’t do that? F-Droid Search: radio

3

Well, in fact no, they don’t. If I omit the ones I mentioned, the rest is a mixed bag, but consists of:

  • real (i.e. analog) radio players, including HAM,
  • specialized apps for single sites / stations (Radio Romania is top of the list),
  • “intent radio”, I don’t even know what that is,

I’m looking for a FOSS app like the famous but non-free TuneIn, with a searchable list of known web stations (that is, URLs of audio streams), but also with the ability to add my own to the list if needed. Normal web stations like (in my area) KQED and KPFA.

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4

These allow.

5

I mentioned Transistor in my OP. Have you read it?

I just tried WebRadio now. It says I can add “Custom channels” but I see no way to do that.

6

Yup I did. I tried both and was able to get them to work, so I mentioned again.
I tried on an Android 15 phone.
In Web Radio. Settings > long press channel - will show add channel option.

1 Like
7

With Transistor ist worked to add custom streams…

8

Ok, I see. Now would you call that discoverable? I would not. Why not a click on the Custom channels heading??

Thanks anyway.

9

I get your point, but that is something that needs to be raised to the developer. If you know how to improve the code, feel free to raise a PR or if the project is old, fork and update and add via RFP.
I do not know how to get these stuff done, else would have helped myself.

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