Best Radio Apps for iPad

We have become spoilt with the convenience of music, radio and video through our iPods and iTouch. The new radio apps for iPad continue in that vein. There are iPad Radio apps that stream Internet radio broadcasts of music, talkback and news. There are all types of genres and from all over the world. There are many apps to choose from focusing on different styles and tastes. Here we look at the best radio apps for the iPad.

In selecting the best iPad apps for Radio the preference is one of choice. The five we have selected as the best are WunderRadio, NPR, Pandora Radio, Slacker Radio and the Deutsche Welle Radio iPad app. Each iPad app has certain strengths with regard to off line storage, music library and archive library. It should be noted that for the most part iPad radio apps do not run separately in the background. The new iOS4 will address this issue in the future. There are ways around this as with the WunderRadio solution.  What is clear is there are many options on the iPad for consumer’s music, news and other apps and all conveniently touch screen.

WunderRadio has become very popular since Rolling Stone magazine rated WunderRadio as the best radio app for iPad. Actually they rated the best place on the web for internet radio full stop. Hard to disagree with Rolling Stone here. There are so many features and such a huge database of over 60,000 streaming internet stations. You get music, news, talkback and sports. There is a twitter link up to interact with your favorite stations.

The WunderRadio search function works with a GPS to search for your local radio station. You can create your own lists and URLs. WunderRadio supports the mms, ASX, M3U, PLS and RTSP formats.

The biggest complaint with iPad radio apps is you can’t play your radio in the background and use another app however with WunderRadio you can enable background listening on some music streams. WunderRadio translates the music to a QuickTime movie to be opened in your Safari browser. This way you can access other iPad apps while you are listening to the radio. Simple create a home screen icon on your iPad and click that to access through the browser when you want to play that station.

WunderRadio is not just music you have all the BBC radio available. This includes BBC stations from the British Isles plus BBC World Service quite a lot. That is all the BBC stations.

You can download the WunderRadio iPad app for $6.99 from the Apple App Store.

When it comes to iPad radio apps it can be argued that Public Radio is way ahead of the commercial radio sector.

Many of us enjoy NPR with its more independent reporting and favorite shows throughout the country.

The NPR iPad app has been built for the iPad not just as an iPhone upgrade.

The app includes text and images on each news reports, more than just an audio radio app.

You have access to the great selection of NPR podcasts also.

Music selections as well as magazine like programming to stream to your iPad.

Download the NPR iPad app for free from the Apple app store

DW News Portal is the Deutsche Welle Radio iPad app.  German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle has a radio iPad app that includes live radio in a number of languages. It has live TV and a newsreader. You get access to the latest Deutsche Welle content.

Languages are English, Croatian, German, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish and Turkish

Access background information and “Video of the day"

The Radio iPad app lets you store the news on your iPad.

To download the DW iPad app for free go to the iPad app store.

The Slacker iPad app has a free component and a Slacker subscription option. With the subscription you can save stations for offline listening on your WiFi iPad.

Slacker Radio has a huge selection of free music that streams to your iPad.

There are over 100 programmed stations and genres on the Slacker Radio app.

Great for music fans with a tile on each song that when touched gives you access to reviews and biographies.

To avoid ads join the subscription version of Slacker Radio “Plus” which has no ads and complete song lyrics. Slacker Radio Plus is $3.99 per month.

Download the Slacker Radio iPad app for free from the iPad app store.

Pandora Radio app is popular for music fans from iPhone and android and is now available on iPad. Though until OS 04 is available on the new iPad you can’t listen to Pandora Radio in the background. Pandora Radio works only as a standalone app. With Pandora Radio you can personalize radio streams to your iPad.

You can sort by genre and artist. Pandora also has you sort a profile out so it can send you artists similar to what you like in the stream.

Utilize the Stitcher iPad app which accesses the Pandora radio program to create a playlist.

Download Pandora Radio for free from the iPad app store.

Other Radio apps for iPad include Tuner2 HiFi Radio App for iPad, Planet Radio app for iPad, Action Radio App for iPad and Radio Australia app for iPad.

Fell free to leave comments about your experience with radio apps on iPad and progress. I am sure there are other radio and iPad enthusiasts who would benefit from this type of information.