Radium ~ Perfect Internet Radio App Reviews

I’m new to being a Mac user, and new to Radium. I like having internet radio in the menu bar, but I can see why users have commented on preferring the app to operate with a menu UI instead of the new breakaway method (even though I’ve not seen it). I’d prefer it that way too, but I’m fine with the way it is. I’ve noticed if you position the pop-up right under the Radium icon on the menu bar, it remembers its’ position — sort of like a menu. Only an issue when those menu bar icons shift around after a restart... Really liking the Wish List and how you can see the price for a track in the iTunes store. Album art in the Notification Center is a nice touch as well. I wish it had TuneIn as one of the service options as TuneIn doesn’t offer a Mac app. I initially installed the trial, but after 5 minutes of using it, I purchased the app :-)

Just read the title.

Is it possible to download and install an older version of Radium for Mac OS? I much prefer the 3.0.10 version that is locked to the menu bar, than the 3.1.2 floating window version (I personally find it confusing and distracting). The important thing is I love your product. I would just love to go back to 3.0.10

Company WILL NOT respond to problem reports. Some Live365 stations will not recognize members. It will continue to ask you to login with your Live365 member info. Stations that I reported as not working still not working after months. Are they still in business?

I used to love this app, but now it pops a window out when I want to play a radio station. What gives? Ugly ugly ugly terrible change. Whats worse, if I play the same station I listened too the day prior it has a cache and start playing yesterday’s stream. I have to switch back and forth between stations to get the latest. Most recently I’m getting a real metalic sound out of my stations as well. This used to be my go-too app for radio (mostly for morning shows - otherwise radio is irrelevant) but now I’m switching. The authors of this app obviously don’t listen.

I love their iPhone app but not in love with this update. It’s nice looking but a lot of little annoyances that are bad UX. It’s great they’re trying new things but I much prefer parts of the old app back as it was more functional. Far as Subscriptions, live365 must of did something on their end to block Radium as live365 has an app for their Premium. Far as K-Pig, that’s not working either and I wonder if it’s the same thing, they can’t hit those services anymore.

This was a great app when it first came out. But nearly every subsequent upgrade has introduced UI abomination after UI abomination. It works, but it’s really ugly now.

I’ve e-mailed the support address multiple times over the course of a week or so, but with no responses. I wanted to use this radio primarily for listening to DI.FM radio stations, but after linking my account, I found that none of the stations would work. Upon unlinking the account the music DOES play, but with all the ads of a guest account. I’d really like to get this resolved...

I used to love this app and supported it when it very first came out. I was a Beta tester back then. The user interface has now changed into somethng unusably abhorrent. Example: Perhaps the thing you do most with your radio app is pause and play the stream? Well you can not do that with your mouse in this release (darned if I can find that if it exists) . You apparently must assign a user key and use that - meanwhile the ghost of Steve Jobs had to be … SHOULD BE haunting these people. Click on the app icon and you must then click through a fancy user screen that looks like an album cover identifying the staton you are listening. I KNOW the station I am listening to thank you - I am listening to it. I’d like to pause it because the phone rang thank you very much. :( A program that used to be great but sadly can no longer recommend.

Well it’s been months since folks started complaining about the intrusive and less than full functional ‘new’ and ‘improved’ version, but nothing has changed. You always wonder if anyone’s there anymore or what it is they’re working on that could be more important than fixing what is a very obvious and annoying bug: the program window just opens up randomly and needs to be manually closed (stop what you’re doing, move your cursor, close the box, wait, repeat, repeat, repeat). I know they know about the bug because I have emailed them about it and received a reply. Nice folks, generally responsive, but on this matter less than forthcoming. Have not had any problem with replay quality. Stations seem to fall out of access, but they will fix if you request (sometimes have to nag and remind, but I imagine they have a lot to keep track of). A decent UI would make a great Christmas present, guys.

I’m finding it works well, so my experience isn’t reflected in some of the reviews. The app is simple and effective. I was able to enter my SiriusXM credentials and start streaming within minutes. It is quicker and easier to start than the SiriusXM web player, and it doesn’t get lost among all my browser windows during the day. I guess I don’t need much — launch, connect, play/pause, quit — so I’m not missing anything with the minimal UI. Frankly, this is exactly the level of complexity I was hoping to find: something I could turn on and off as easily as a radio and have it just start playing music without needing lots of clicking and fiddling. This does that. I’m happy.

I got this app because it lived in the task bar. Now it’s this weird pop out window. Bring back the old UI!

I was looking for a desktop app to listen to SiriusXM Internet Radio and this one does the trick. I like that I can just use this app for that purpose instead of having to open my web browser (note that a subscription to SiriusXM is still required). Two features that would make this app even more awesome is if you could have a button to play the current song from the beginning as well as a Live button to immediately synch back to the live stream at any time -- both of which are available on the SiriusXM web player and iOS app. I dont know if this is something third-party developers have access to, though. Some tabletop internet radios with SiriusXM support (from manufactures such as Marantz and Grace Digital), I believe have these functions, so it might be possible for Radium to incorporate them as well. The developers at CatPig Studios should definitely look into this!

Radium was great at one point. A simple radio player that sat in your taskbar. Now the user intrface and experience is horrible. A floating box sits on your screen with an album cover. You can close the window, but when you switch between windows (command-tab), it’s in the mix. It also doesn’t play nice with apps in full screen mode. The actual radio streams work great and I love having Sirius/XM in there too. Improve the UI guys. You should know better.

The interface was derided in some other reviews. It is actually very clever and compact once you get used to it. * Star a station to put it in your favorites. If you are out of the search screens the favorites are what SHOW. Boom, one-click access. * Search lets you drill down, finding new stations to listen to on-the-fly or to add to your favorites. If they could add more faceted navigation for SiriusXM in a subsequent release it would be great. Otherwise the app performs great, the album clip-art is a great touch when available!

I used to love this app. Between my Sirius subscription and the local radio I love to listen to, this app did it all. One of there later releases introduced a silly floating window that was annoying, but I dealt with it. Now I’m having issues with the app not loading stations properly and I can’t get any support. I don’t even know if they’re in business anymore. Emails and tweets go unanswered so who knows. I expected a little more responsiveness from support. Buyer Beware.

Works fine with Sirius, although the interface is clunky and not very Apple-like. Does NOT work with Calm Radio - which we love as a family. All stations turn to garble eventually after a few songs. Need to reload station or change. I reported this one year ago to them, and have asked about it multiple times, and they’ve ignored my request to fix it - because it’s a “hard problem”. I bought the original Radium years ago, and when they relaunched, they forced me to buy it again (I was unhappy about that, but did it). So I’ve invested in the app twice, and have not received the support necessary. Do not buy this until they get it figured out.

A while back I made it a habit to backup every single app I purchase on the App Store. This allows me to revert to a previous version in case an app gets updated and the update proves to be a failure. I am so glad I did it. Radium has failed. The new UI is badly designed and the developers are not willing to acknowledge it. They run after their own head without listening to customer feedback. Well, fear not! I am running the 3.0.10 version which still has the great old UI! That works great. The only caveat in the 3.0.10 version is that it’s no longer keeping the specified number of notifications in the notification center. I set it to show only the last 5 notifications, but instead it shows ALL of them (which is 20 max). But it’s ok. I can live with it. I rather have this minor annoyance than switching to the new and failed UI version.

Who on earth decided to re-design the current UI?? this thing is a mess, I would like to see a list of all my subscribed stations. Instead of searching for my station everytime. Please revert to the old UI from 2011.

This was a poorly designed update from a visual/user interface standpoint. 1) Instead of the former drop-down “menu style” window the program opens a standalone window that must be closed again—it does not go away after you click away. This just adds clutter to my monitor for no good reason. I don’t need or want the window to stay open. I want to select something to listen to and have it go away. 2) The new window does not always show the list of stations to select from. Now it shows what I presume would be album art if I were listening to a stream that supported it. Instead it shows boring, repetitive clip art based on the stream’s genre (i.e. BBC World News is a newspaper icon repeated over and over, a local public radio station is a radio tower, a jazz station is a trumpet, etc.). Again, there’s no good reason for this except to make the app more visible—ironically, this is the LAST thing I want a basic streaming player to do. I want to select a station and have the app go away. 3) There is no obvious pause/stop button. You have to click on the currently playing stream to stop it. There is, however, an unlabeled “X” in the corner of the currently playing stream. This is actually a delete button. It also stops the current stream. I deleted three streaming channels before I figured out what was going on. For an update that’s supposed to have “tonnes of user interface improvements” they went completely the wrong way on this one. It’s harder to use and doesn’t do its job and get out of the way like it should. I’ve been using Radium for years (since before the App Store existed) but I’m very disappointed and I’ve begun looking for an alternative. I will say that being able to hide the dock icon is nice, but that’s not actually an update. I could do that with every prior version as well. Update - 3/30/15: They released an update and listed “user interface tweaks and fixes” as part of the release notes. That apparently still doesn’t include a stop button. You can pause the stream by clicking on the stream title a second time but it continues the streaming process and uses data/bandwidth/battery. To actually stop the playback, you have to Opt.-Click. This isn’t in the help file. I had to search for the answer. There’s still no way to make it auto-hide itself. You have to close it intentionally every time you open it. It also needs to be closed manually every time you start up your computer if you have it set to start on login. Finally, the developers’ social media strategy seems to be responding to criticisms with snark and sarcasm. The app has gone from 4.5 stars down to 2 and they don’t seem to notice it’s because they made a hamfisted attempt at making it look “sleek” or whatever and failed to actually ask users if that’s something they wanted or even beta test it with real users. This is seriously disappointing, especially since I’ve been using the app since before the app store even existed and bought it again when they released it on here. Update - 6/1/15: The newest update fixes missing album art. It does not address the issues brought up by a significant percentage of users in reviews. The dropdown-menu style is still missing and there’s no stop button. You still have to opt-click to actually stop a stream (otherwise it continues to run, using power and data) and there’s nothing to tell you this in-app. Their response to criticism on social media still seems to be to thumb their nose and blow a raspberry. Update - 8/26/15: So after MONTHS of radio silence (please excuse the pun), they finally release an update that addresses one bug (subscription services) and have done nothing to address any of the other issues that have been brought up by users and reviewers since they released this new version. The app is still confusing and poorly designed from a UX perspective and their communication is still incredibly lacking. Update - 4/20/16: It’s been 9 months since the last update. At this point, it just seems like they’ve abandoned the app. Especially so, since it’s been offered with the text “*** Introductory 33% off sale! ***” at the top of the description since this version was introduced.