TuneIn Radio: Music & Sports Reviews

by DomE080808008080808

Many users might not be big Audiobook listeners but I am, and considering the high monthly prices for every other audiobook app out there (like Audible or Audiobooks), TuneIn was the best option! I remember when I started using TuneInRadio, there were a few users and it clearly needed some app work, but I was positively surprised to find the vast collection of audiobooks in TuneInRadio (with the premium subscription). TuneIn didn’t require you to pay for every new audiobook you listen to but had free amount of audiobooks for the monthly subscription price, apart from all the other radio, news stations and podcasts available. Since I only listen to Audiobooks and Podcasts, there is really no reason for me to keep paying for TuneInRadio. This is a hue disappointment! I think that if TuneIn would have advertised their audiobook potential they would’ve received a vast amount of new users and a lot would have preferred it over the established Audible/Audiobooks app. If you decide to bring the audiobook section back let me know! I’ll be happy to pay for the subscription!

by Chrisloyd

I only use this because it’s the only app I can stream certain station through. Their ads are awful, cut off the middle of live broadcasts and sometimes get stuck repeating in a loop. At best, they sync their ads with the live broadcast schedule, at worst they randomly play, cutting off the middle of a show. They also play ads in the middle of podcasts and god forbid you press the pause buttons for you will surely hear another ad before play resumes. A month or so ago the repeatedly played a Carl’s junior ad where you could hear the producer speaking before the spot and the sound mix was hilarious. You can hear the “boop” where the ad begins on multiple ads as well. So amateur. I paid a one time $9.99 for TuneInRadio years ago but now they expect you to subscribe for some reason. Maybe the awful ads are their incentive? The mail channels are basic as well. There are so many better apps but, like I said, this one has some stations that none of the others do. They also didn’t ban certain broadcasters like all the other ‘woke’ apps have but I almost hesitate in saying that for fear they one day will.

Reply to dev:

You guys say you strive to make this a better app but, seriously, how hard can it be to not spam ads just for hitting the pause button or switching an audio output source?

by MTin2

I've exhausted my options with TuneInRadio. When it works, it works great. But every so often, it has a mind of its own where no matter how long I wait for a station to load, it simply doesn't start. It simply spins in place. Yes, I have strong WiFi. Yes I've tried on LTE. Yes I've tried on 5G. It's not a connectivity issue. I have an iPhone 12. The only way around it is to close TuneInRadio and restart it, but even that's not a guarantee. I have to try on average 3-5x before the station will load. It also seems to does it out of nowhere in the middle of when the station is working. I was listening to a particularly important news story (again, with full strength internet connectivity) and the station simply dropped. I closed TuneInRadio and reopened it and of course I had to listen to the 60 seconds of ads that are no longer relevant (today I heard ads about the "upcoming impeachment vote" which has already happened...but I digress) and the station still didn't load. Again, when it works, it goes on a long streak of being perfect, but when it decides to go on strike, a miracle is necessary for it to work again. That's usually when I forget about it for a few weeks and then come back.

by Mndylbrck

If you like commercials or have money to pay to remove ads from every app you use, TuneInRadio 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 TuneInRadio ; which amounts to about 35/65% programming vs. ads. Extremely unstable, especially if you’ve paused it - might as well just close TuneInRadio and reopen it if you did, because it will basically not work until you do - rendering the pause feature useless. TuneInRadio 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 TuneInRadio 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 TuneInRadio 1 star from me.

by DrumGuy6

Update: The buffering was fixed and worked for a period of months, however recently the ability to pause and playback was removed from TuneInRadio . 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 TuneInRadio would save about 30min before jumping to live. This is a huge setback in app performance and makes TuneInRadio 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, TuneInRadio content is great. However there are issues with buffering that need to be fixed. TuneInRadio offers pause and RW/FF functions, but if you pause for even a short time TuneInRadio 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, TuneInRadio needs to fix these issues to compete. If buffering was fixed this would be a 5 star review.

by 4th Doctor Fan

*To those reviews about subscription or trial period.. you DON'T need to sign up for the Premium service, nor do you need to sign up for Trial period (which does roll into a Premium paid service if you don't cancel, so just DON'T sign up for Trial period, you can just skip past anything regarding signing up). You can listen for FREE, without having to signup for anything.
Too bad that CBS pulled all their CBS Sports and CBS Local News stations off from Tunein (but that is not Tunein's fault).
And other censorship concerns would only apply if this were a government run service, which it is not. Those commentators have the right to free speech (with their own broadcast antenna, their own newspaper, their own website, etc) for their views, but other companies such as this can not be compelled to distribute such speech if they choose not to carry it.

---orig---
**Everyone needs to complain directly to CBS Radio (and their Entercom owner)... So evidently CBS Radio (and Entercom, who merged with them) is who forced all of their stations off of Tunein as of July/August, requiring you to use their own radio app instead (which is highly inferior to Tunein).
Also, that CBS/Entercom app is not supported by Roku and other services (the way Tunein app was used by Roku).
First CBS forces you onto their own subscription service for streaming TV, now they do the same thing for radio. Sad !!

by Tamegravity

This was by far the best streaming app. Then they added ads…. I quit using iHeart after the streaming service made it impossible to listen to. I understand that they needed more revenue so they added ads. Once they added ads, TuneInRadio froze every 10 minutes. That has been fixed, kudos. Now, I want to listen to a podcast that has 8 minute segments…. There is an ad between every segment. Ok, it is a lot but I can live with it. However, the player stops after every ad and doesn’t advance to the next podcast without…. opening the player and yes, having to listen to yet another ad…. In addition, if you leave and come back, it plays an ad (after you have already listened to the ad) and then proceeds to forget your progress so you need to remember where you were in the podcast. Plus, TuneInRadio crashes more frequently now and that, of course, leads you to have to listen to another ad, and lose your place in the podcast again. Rince, repeat. There are infrequent updates that fix some of the usability but unless they fix these things soon, I will be finding another app.

by Donny From Queens

TuneInRadio 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 TuneInRadio 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.

by Cool Jey

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 TuneInRadio 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.

by ModPodGal

I realize Tune In Radio has to make money somehow but there are just so many commercials now. Every time you switch to another station, you get the obligatory 30 second advertisement. Tune In was not always like that. I know if you get a premium account, there are no commercials but I personally think the monthly fee is too high.

I also am still angry that when Tune In Radio removed their “record” feature, they also went into to people’s libraries without warning and removed anything they had recorded. Users should have been informed that that was going to happen. All I ever recorded were occasional radio shows if they were featuring an interesting topic. I had six years worth of the special JFK show that was done by “Coast to Coast AM” every November 22nd. I used to enjoy re-listening to those shows once in a while but Tune In saw fit to remove them from my library. Ditto for a few shows I had recorded about the making of the Mercury Theatre’s historic 1938 broadcast “War of the Worlds”.

There are always people who bend the rules and I have no doubt that there were people who might have profited from the record feature and violated copyright infringements. I was not one of those people. I still maintain that it was wrong for Tune In to go in and wipe out their customers’ libraries.

Tune In Radio is indeed a wonderful app but all the commercial advertising now is really tiresome. I live in hope that one day my library will be restored.

by Superquinho

I wrote a really bad review before (read it below), and to be fair, I’m back to update.
They seem to improve TuneInRadio.
- 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” TuneInRadio is getting worse!
I listen to a Brazilian radio station, and when they are talking TuneInRadio 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 TuneInRadio 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 :/

by InternetBarb

TuneInRadio has been pretty good, and I considered purchasing the pro version—but not with simple things getting messed up. Specifically, I created multiple categories to organize my favorites by the genres and ordered each station by frequency of use. Last year the order was getting changed by itself. Recently ALL of my stations are listed together in each of my categories. I worked to curate stations to make it convenient to find what I want, when I want it. Now it takes forever to find what I’m looking for. Also, the description of what is currently playing live fails to be accurate at all and/or update as programs change (specifically, shows on old time radio stations). This has regularly occurred which is another reason I have not yet paid for the pro version. TuneInRadio is useful and fun/interesting, so it is disappointing that glitches continue to happen instead of getting better.

by Nickolodeamus

Have long used and enjoyed TuneInRadio on my iPhone and iPad mini. I recently bought an Apple Watch, and TuneInRadio is really finicky on the watch, especially when trying to start music or change channels. Once music gets going, the start, stop, rewind/forward, and volume controls work fine, but the Watch’s own audio software allows for that with any audio/video source in use at the time...so nothing gained by having a separate Tuned In app on the watch. Because of the unreliability on the Watch, I end up gravitating back to my phone to get music started and, occasionally, to switch channels. Customer Service told me the Watch app is only a remote control for the phone app....but it is not yet an effective one. Will remove TuneInRadio from my Watch if the functionality doesn’t improve.

Aside from being limited in its ability to function as designed, that design only allows the Watch to display a list (no graphics) of recently listened to stations...cannot bring up favorites or browse or do anything else.

by Write2diaz

Been listening to cnn, npr, msnbc, and college football and more for over 2 yrs or so. Ended my SiriusXM subscription I had since 2006 because of TuneIn. It’s been my go to app for streaming all. Was very happy with it...
LATELY, HOWEVER it’s been very glitchy. Since I listen up to 8 hours a day... I no longer find the most updated podcast- MarketPlace for example stopped updating since late Sept. or I can’t always find past shows-it only shows other radio companies that are currently playing the show. What happened?
This happens to other podcast too.
The UI is still a little confusing- I still can’t place my favorite channels in the order I want -top to bottom. I rearrange them in edit mode, save it and it just reverts to what was all along. For now-
3/5 stars. Make this easy to use.

by Illuminer

So far, this is my favorite radio internet tuner. It covers so many fine stations, and allows you to buffer or store a station's past minutes if you put it on hold.

It has tendency to go into a buffer mode erratically and repeats several previous seconds every so often. Actually, a bit too often for comfort. Otherwise, it works flawlessly. As it does store buffered sections, I wish there was a way to know when I'm listening to buffered sections and how many minutes it has buffered, or is in its "live" radio mode , as well being able to optionally go back and rehear previous sections of the broadcast. An update button to shift to live or shift to the buffered sections would be nice.

One other needed fix is that quite often, the banner naming the program doesn't match. "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" is listed as "Car Talk"

by Wetpaint86

I listen to sports events while working and it was awesome when I first got TuneInRadio . All the major sports has games here now only a few do and when listening I have to stop working ans restart TuneInRadio literally every 1-2 minutes because it will just turn itself off and there’s nothing more frustrating than something exciting happening and in the middle of the announcers excitement TuneInRadio stops so I turn it back on to not even know what happened because it takes forever to restart TuneInRadio is when it does start it pays a commercial I have heard 1000 times then returns to the game and then shuts off again in a few seconds. I have messaged to cancel my plan and they won’t respond so I’m going to have to cancel my debit card and set up everything I use auto bill on the get this over. If TuneInRadio was free it would still be too much to pay.

by Rabbi BenHaAdam

WUNC is wonderful at reporting general mews reports AND medical information. By choosing carefully, one can benefit from SOME of their podcasts, like People’s Pharmacy.
UNFORTUNATELY, they feel called upon to slant SOME ISSUES to their liking.

Ex: Politics: Be careful here! They push a liberal/socialist agenda and CHOOSE to report almost solely in support of this “worldview.”

Ex: Climate Change: No matter what happens with weather, their fertile imaginations report it as due to climate change.

Ex: Politics: They report ONLY about pre-born children as blobs of tissue to be murdered at the mother’s CONVENIENCE. They ate EXTREME in this ignorant view. After decades of listening, this is just one example of REPORTING their opinion as “news.”

Ex: “GUESTS/fellow REPORTERS: Almost ALWAYS, they ONLY interview those who hold THEIR opinion.
PROOF: The podcasts.
PROOF: LOTS of apostate church (main line, Rev. B, pro-abortion Catholics, etc. leaders glorified, interviewed. But given the high % of Christians/Messianic Jews in the area, WHEN do they EVER include REAL (Bible believers, Southern Baptist LEADERS, those preachers on WRAL, Messianic Rabbi, etc.

FOR THE VERY EDUCATED, they have really good reporting WHEN they stick to the facts. So, IF YOU KNOW HOW to DISREGARD the junk, they are an excellent source of information.

by TradeWorthy ITunes

I’ve been using Tunein for several years. I use it to listen to favorite radio stations from places I used to live. Tunein used to be much simpler and smoother to operate. I have an older iPhone 6, so maybe it’s the phone, but this is my first iPhone, so my comments are based on my experience with Tunein running on the same device. One problem is Tunein stops now when I access a web site. Once the site loads, if I go back to Tunein and hit play, it resumes, but it seems like that should be automatic. Tunein in used to resume on its own when it hit a glitch. If it can play, why do I have to ask it to? This problem may be the station (HFS), but the Tunein screen used to show the name of the song the station was playing, but it no longer does. Tunein just seems more sluggish and awkward than it used to, and over time, it ought to get smoother and more efficient.

by Oli And Jacq

Somehow tune in has cured TuneInRadio of the bleed through ads and the redundant “you may have missed” problem. Thanks for making the changes and fixing this really useful app! —what I wrote previously for your information and comparing: I could’ve written the summer 2020 review! Exact issues regarding trying to enjoy msnbc commercial free by subscribing via premium. I had many back and forths with friendly help clerks. Never solved the problem. Commercials bled through, five minutes of inanity between segments of news, long, repetitive “something you may not have heard from earlier today”, left us frustrated and finally we are giving up on TuneInRadio. Wish there was a logical explanation for why they couldn’t deliver what I bought—commercial free. Let me know if you worked it out for real.

by Serval1948

How can I enjoy listening to 702 today, this is Election Day in South Africa and you are spoiling my listening with numerous advertising. (Cutting into talks, news etc). You assured me recently that ads from your side only come on at the beginning-“never during the talks otherwise people will be disillusioned just like me”, you lied! You told me ads during are done by the radio stations. These are all Americans ads 702 talk radio would use to interrupt their news? Come on, You could do better, don’t lie! What use do I have to tell you all this quite a few times. -nothing gets done on your side - you need to make changes in order for your listeners to stay with you.
Can you put me in touch with your customer service before I leave your radio service with a bitter taste in my mouth. Thank you,
Beate Hammonds
Boerne, Texas, USA

by Papa Smurf 05-07

In theory, I should love TuneIn. Pay for the premium package...get all of my favorite sports teams on audio (minus Liverpool who I at least get to see on TV a fair bit). Reality doesn’t always match with theory, however, thusly the two-star rating. Why? Often, the streams are spotty, which is to say that sometimes they don’t come in at all, break-up into a spotty mess, or like I’ve been experiencing lately with the Red Sox games, completely not connecting at all. In order to listen, I’ve had to delete TuneInRadio , reload it, log back in and then re-try the audio for the game. Sometimes it works...other times it stops the feed and I have to repeat the whole process to get it to work again, and hope the same failing doesn’t re-emerge. I’m giving it another week of baseball season. If a new update doesn’t fix it, I’ll head back to paying for sports audio on parents apps. At least there I’ll get a largely uninterrupted stream.

by Point Of View 5

This is so annoying. You try to reach out at the time you need help but it has to be EMAIL of course you don’t get a response for hours. By that time you are off to work so you do nothing but email tag just to have a few questions answered. It takes days. FAQ area doesn’t help for anything. It just explains the things they want to talk about. So finally having a moment again to get on email that I’m waiting for and I see it was answered they ask for screenshots now (even though it is explain perfectly)stating they need to see what I am explaining which I believe it’s because the person that opened my email didn’t know how to fix it so it’s his way of passing it on for someone else to answer it. I send off screenshots attached to the reply and it’s been all day and now after midnight and nothing.
Customer service is a failure if you can’t just speak to a person especially taking their money

by RichardinMaine

I’ve used TuneIn for listening to news. TuneInRadio have very poor buffering performance. This means the stream is constantly pausing while it buffers. I understand this can happen occasionally when cell reception is marginal, but even with a strong cellular signal buffering happens every 10 minutes or so. The buffering period can last several minutes and often when it does start playing it will play 10 seconds then repeat those same 10 seconds two or three times in a row then continue with the stream. It doesn’t matter what station I stream the buffering issue always occurs. I haven’t found a setting for setting buffer size.

I would like to get premium service but TuneInRadio ’s performance to too poor. All other streaming services I use, such as direct streaming from radio stations or podcasts NEVER buffer.

by Jean In Tennesee

Update on review: None of these issues have been addressed. There should be something they could do to let TuneInRadio continue to play when I access a web page which has a SILENT video.

Original review: I have used TuneInRadio for a few years now and I love it! I can listen to music and talk programs which I like much better than what is broadcast on my local stations. However, TuneInRadio will often stop playing when I navigate to web pages. Usually I find that the page has a video ad which automatically but silently playing somewhere on the page. PLEASE fix this problem! There is no need for the radio to stop playing during a SILENT video.

I also like to use the sleep timer at night, but in recent versions TuneInRadio no longer shows how much time remains on the timer. Please fix this so we can see how much time is left.

I also wish the sound was louder. I use my iPad as a portable radio and need to keep it at maximum volume when I'm only a short distance from the iPad. When there is background noise in the room, such as water running, it's often hard to hear the programs unless I use an external amplified speaker. I know my iPad's speakers can handle more volume because some of the video ads on my games are a lot louder than TuneIn.

by C Of H

Update: I’m finding it does weird stuff like suddenly repeat the last several seconds or jump forward, especially bad if I have to pause a live stream, but even when I’m current. This has cause me to miss key moments I couldn’t retrieve. I demoted this by a star, hoping the developers pay attention to this annoyance.

I’ll keep it at 4 stars for now, but if it gets worse I’ll be back for a further demotion. If it gets better, I’ll be back to elevate it.

Original: I use TuneInRadio several times a week and always on long (5+ hour) trips. Except when I have cell access trouble, I've never had a problem with this. It may even have saved my life a couple of time when I got sleepy and couldn't pull off the road. Podcasts to the rescue!

The only (minor) issue I have is that it can take an annoyingly long time to buffer. This doesn't happen often and it may be more a function of wifi or Internet access. Though it happens on my strong home wifi. Can't complain, though.

I use this to access radio a send other broadcasts from all over the world. I especially like to get onto live NPR when I'm traveling or missed my local show.

Bottom line: Can't go wrong with a free app like this!

by Robbie Stanton

I love TuneInRadio , I hope one day to own TuneInRadio and own radio stations promoting them as TuneIn Radio station under the my own radio company “AJG Corporation “ witch is the sister affiliate company of West Virginia Radio Corp (WVRC)! Plus music and entertainment news, recently played songs, album art when a song is being played on a radio station, podcasts, playlist, artist radio and the ability to search and play any song/ album and/or artist thumb up or thumb down songs, current onair personality, WAZE traffic, replay any song from a radio station for free, rewind capability for any radio station, save the radio stations to your favorite list, go to artist profile button, lyrics button, add to Siri button and go to station button. I hope to make radio great again!

by New Orchid

I'm gonna say I like TuneInRadio because it's got plenty of options besides books. My other app was audible for five years but they have an egregious method of getting new books. Tune in app has all sorts of books and documentaries and music and a wide variety of interesting stuff! By egregious I mean you can't get new books on TuneInRadio but rather you go to the actual site and pick the book and download the book and then back out to TuneInRadio and "wait". It's just a dinosaur and I need books on demand because I'm a member of a book club. Your price is quite hefty but it's totally worth it. By the way why don't you offer "war brides"? I can't find it for book club