Radium ~ Perfect Internet Radio App Reviews

The floating window is extremely obtrusive. Please provide a menu-bar only option, as it was before the update. Otherwise the app works very well.

While trying out the free trial I realized that I was leaving this app on all day long, replacing all the other radio apps that I had tried and quickly abandoned. The floating window that others seem obsessed by can be closed with a single click in the windows corner or on the icon in the menubar. Click once to show the window and make your station selection, click one more time to close it. $9.99 seems a little pricey for what it is, but like I said I tend to leave it on all day long while working, so Ill probably get my moneys worth.

Awesome app, before… Hate the interface change. We don’t like re-learning.

Suddenly the most ill-behaved menubar utility in my long list. The previous behavior was significantly better. It’s so annoying to have to close the selection window every time I choose a new station, or even worse, as the first thing I have to do after logging in, that I’m going to avoid using it alltogether. “It sits in your menubar,” except when it doesn’t, which is as soon as you try to use it…

This application used to be great (despite being a memory hog)… Sadly, the latest update renders it barely usuable at best and actually more of a nuisance. None of the navigation is left or even standard with what is expected from any music player. Please, get back to a descent version and harmonize your players between iOS and OS X, maybe with a dash of beta testing and user acceptence because this release is garbage. Latest “Bug Fix” did not address any of the concerns posted by most of the users and their support is simply non existent.. Sigh…

The functionality of the old version was far better. Simple, stayed out of your way, didn’t take multiple clicks to do simple things. This update utterly fails to explain through it’s design why such drastic changes were needed. For those who are sad, maybe you have TimeMachine or another backup system where you can recover the old version - that’s what I did, hopefully that keeps working for years to come.

I’ve used Radium for years. It was simply perfect. Was. Why does CatPig insist on fixing things that don’t need to be fixed? ... remember the great ‘older’ menu icon which was replaced by a chocolate square? Really? With the latest update of this app, the functionality is just gone! No pause button… yup gone! Gone! Not only that… it just doesn’t work. I tried everything… rebooting, deleting the app and restarting it… nothing. It’s just a shame since this WAS a great app. It was solid, functional and it just plain worked. Now? It’s junk.

Crappy new interface in version 3 missing basic features like pausing - app is now stuck on the dock where it used to sit nicely on the menubar. Was arguably worth the asking price at v2, and these changes make it not even worth using at an asking price of Free. Back to iTunes for me.

If you’re put off by the the low average rating for the current version, please consider this context. Catpig is a very active and supportive developer, and Radium is a rapidly evolving application. There are highs and lows. People seem less than enamored of the current version. I like it fine. But the key thing is — this is an actively supported app that plays just about any radio station you would want to hear. And this is my favorite part: if there is a radio station that’s not in the app, they will add it, through their feedback function, within days. The communication is solid and the follow-through is consistent. Thanks to Radium, I listen to classical music from Moscow and London, while working in the office. It’s fun.

This is the UI that I would have built, had I built a radio app like this. I like having a floating cover art that can be hidden if I want. And speaking of, my stations have phenomenal success at finding the correct album art. Also, I believe this is the only app for OS X that can stream SiriusXM content, which I have been hurting for ever since Rogue Amoeba had to discontinue Pulsar. KEXP streams wonderfully with great metadata and album art. The folks complaining seem to miss the old Radium UI, which was frankly pretty ugly, if functional. This version’s UI is really, really nice. And I’m not even mentioning that it can scrobble to last.fm, has a nice EQ, lets you choose multiple audio output options at once (including Airplay devices), and lets you track and store “wish list” songs so you remember them later. This is the best audio app I’ve had the pleasure of using in OS X. The only thing I can’t comment on is station discoverability. I already knew what I wanted to listen to, so I just went right in. The app does allow you to specify an arbitrary radio URL, but I haven’t tried that yet.

I agree with the negative reviews of latest version. Floating window is obstrusive and pause button needs to be brought back. But still good app. Five stars if they address those two issues.

Can’t connect to SiriusXM account no matter what I try. Complete waste of money!!

Funny how reactionary folks are about a little software trinket that still makes their lives better. No, I don’t like the new interface better after the update but I don’t spend more than a few seconds at a time and little more than a couple of times throughout the workday changing stations, so, i can close the window the coders didn’t need to put in and it’s not the end of me using this. Giving one star for this app says more about the reviewers than the app. The customer service is excellent and that’s hard to find. Stations were broken. I wrote tech support. They wrote back, fixed the break. All good. Hopefully they’ll consider moving back to the tidy menu style before the update. If not, I’ll still use it since I spend way more time listening to it than looking at it.

I have a very strong net connection yet there are bugs that cause this app to lose the connection with the stations. More trouble then its worth tune in through another app, iTunes or a browser. I’ve written a few times and no respnse. Don’t waste your money or TIME with this.

Please return the nice clean docked window, there is no new feature that is worth this floating window update. I have to spend an EXTRA click just to close the floating window even when activating another app. Very clumsy feeling. I’m surprised the developer pushed this update without a legacy menu option. I just can’t imagine he used user feedback during testing because most of the user feedback seems to be mostly negative. I’ll give this another month. UPDATE: I found an old version of RADIUM and it’s wonderful! I can’t believe CatPig is ignoring the user feedback. Oh well, the old version is great, I’ll be using it until there is an update.

It does everything it claims to. There are some small UX hiccups that need to be worked out but they’re minute.

This latest UI “upgrade” with the floating window…disaster. I have no other apps behaving like this. Awful idea. Please make it optional. There was nothing wrong with the dropdown…. For one it’s not obvious how you pause the sound. The new color scheme is ugly (doesn’t look like anything else on my mac for one). Please sort the stations…it’s a mess now. If it ain’t broken…. Much prefer the Soriko app for now to be honest...

Just updated this previously wonderful program, and without warning everything has changed. The pulldown menu is no longer in the menubar but is a separate miniwindow. Of course I can live with that, but what I can’t live with is that there seems to be no preset/favorites function any more. Just a window categories of radio programming that you can click on, preselected for you more or less like the comparable function in iTunes. Have all my presets disappeared? Is the function even in the app any more? If not, it’s really transformed itself into something significantly less useful. I have prowled the settings for anything that will allow me to restore previous functionality, but there’s nothing there. More astonishing, there’s no help feature (just a “tips and tricks” link that loads a Word file!) and no indication anywhere of what has changed, or how to access seemingly deleted features. For shame! (Thanks to Time Machine, I have gone back to the earlier version successfully — mentioned in case anyone else wishes to do this.) Update: As of version 3.1.2 I continue to be so disappointed that the developers have changed everything about this app for no apparent reason, and there is no sign that I can see of them returning it to what it once was: a functional, unobtrusive menubar app that did what it did very well, and got out of your way. I still use the earlier version, but of course someday it won’t work any more. Please, CatPig, please: restore the previous functionality and unobtrusiveness of this once great Mac app!

I have to say, I haven’t used prior versions of this app because I’ve always used a separate browser like FireFox (use Safari or Chrome as my primary browser) to listen to Sirius XM channels when I’m not in the office. In the office we have a dedicated Grace Internet radio, so it’s nice to have something equivalent on the road or at customers and Radium uses a lot less resources than FireFox or some alternative browser. So, I found out about Radium and decided to give it a try since it’s a native Mac app that addresses a need I have. Reasons I bought it after using the trial: 1. It works reliably while using office apps or games — never had it crash or act flaky. 2. It shows me a flash when the music changes while I’m in any app, which is a nice plus. 3. It keeps my most recent stations in the list window that comes up when I open it, which is all I need. A simple search for a channel I haven’t used in a while brings it up. The category and “nearby” options you see when you start to search are similar to our Grace Internet radio, which works fine. 4. It shows what’s playing in the menu bar, which is nice if I’m working and have a lot of windows open. Every reason I read to not buy it in past and current negative reviews either did not happen when I used the app, doesn’t apply to me, overly-demanding/picky, or a forgiveable mistake on the part of the developer. We need to support native Mac apps, especially like in this case when there have always been few to no apps available!

This used to be my favorite radio app. I loved it because it was unobtrusive and easy to use. Please just bring back the old version.