TuneIn Radio
Contributed by Joel Zimba, Special Projects Coordinator, MDTAP
Everyone has a favorite music app. You can stream random songs for free, or you can pay for an entire music library. Download it, share it–who can keep up?!?!
So, why write about the TuneIn App? Initially, TuneIn just seems to conveniently bring together thousands of radio stations. You can naturally find all the local ones, and then you can group them and sort them and even mark your favorite ones. There are also huge numbers of podcasts and other feeds included. The one great thing about TuneIn is that the interface remains the same across all of the stations. No longer do I find myself at the mercy of whoever coded the app for my favorite rock station. I don’t have to deal with unlabelled buttons or constant crashes just to listen to morning news and traffic.
While not unique, this does make TuneIn one of the apps I use daily. In the last week, the premium content section has been augmented to include audio books. The documentation says there are 40,000 books. I didn’t count, though there are plenty I haven’t read.
There is an audio book on demand service for a mere $7.99 a month directly through TuneIn. There’s even a free trial. To my knowledge, this is a first. Now audio books, like TV shows, movies, and music can be played on-demand. And that goes to show that content can be as important as assistive technology, especially when it’s fully accessible and user friendly. When a great resource like this appears, especially an affordable one, we do our best to highlight it.
