Lumiappaday #5: TuneIn Radio demoed on Nokia Lumia 800

Rating: 8.75

Design: 8 –  This is fully into the metro experience with panoramic spaces utilised to the full. Station pages are clean and beautiful really well with clear information on currently playing (with big thumbnails), related, as well as listing other upcoming line up and twitter comments about that station. The experience is integrated into the music player and you can see thumbnails of stations you’ve been playing in your recent music history. I would though like some bread crumb style tabs when I’m searching within categories so I can quickly jump to go back.

Usability: 8 – Very simple to use and straight forward. Music discovery is easy, browsing by location, language and even option for podcasts (and more). You will need a mostly good 3G connection or WiFi to make this app work since it is streaming from the internet.  Most stations load after a couple of seconds buffering though some (more due to the station as I have problems accessing them in desktop browser) might take longer or may not load. The music player is fully integrated with the music experience. As mentioned, it appears in the music player history. Also, when you press the volume control keys, you can access the music controls. You can even see these controls on the lock screen as well as station info, so no unlocking even needed. You can favourite stations, and pin stations to your start screen. FM Radio is good, but I also like being able to listen to those stations when I’m no where near that location (e.g. Wales/Philippine stations when I’m in Manchester)

Performance: 9 Very fast. In mango completely works simultaneously with any other app. You don’t even have to have TuneIn Radio completely open. If you have a station tile, that station will instantly open, exiting goes straight back to home.

Price: 10 Free 😀 Yay. No ads. Install.

Conclusion: Add this app along side Nokia Music to pack your Lumia with more music on the go 🙂 All these apps just look so much more stunning on the Lumia 800 than any other WP.