I, like many others listen to a bunch of podcasts. I generally listen to podcasts from two podcast networks, TWiT.tv and 5by5. The areas of interest range from Android, Macs, and Windows to programming, Getting things done, and just current technology news. Since most of these podcasts are recorded during the week I am at work. Sometimes I am able to listen live, sometimes I cannot. If I am able to listen live, the podcast apps for these two networks come in handy, I'm going to look at the 5by5 Radio application today.
5by5 is run by Dan Benjamin and was started in 2009 to organize the shows that he was recording. 5by5 has a live stream of the broadcasts as well as downloadable versions. Along the way Dan added the ability to listen to the live stream via your iOS web browser by going to the 5by5.fm website. By going to 5by5.fm Safari would automatically launch the live stream. This method works well unless you needed to use mobile Safari. You would have to make a choice of using Safari or listening to the stream. This has all changed with the new 5by5 Radio iOS app.
As of right now the 5by5 Radio app has a limited feature set. Don't think that a limited feature set is a bad thing. This application works quite well. Within the 5by5 Radio app you can listen to the live stream, check out the broadcast schedule, and set up push notifications for the shows you wish to listen to live.
The push notifications are the best part of the application. You may be asking yourself why is this the best part? It's quite simple, sometimes broadcasts do not always start on time and it's great to know when a broadcast is starting. Secondly, sometimes you forget that a show is going to go live and getting that little nudge to remind you is a great feature.
While the 5by5 Radio app may be sparse, it is far from a bad purchase, unless you don't listen to the 5by5 podcasts. Dan has mentioned a few times about features that he would like to add in the future. I'll be interested to see what additional items that Dan decides to add in the future.
You can download the 5by5 Radio app from the iOS store for $2.99.
[…] 5by5 Radio App Review […]