Sometimes, it seems like I’m one of the few people in my circles that actually enjoys listening to the radio. Sometimes, sources can be limited if you’re a Mac user. My favorite radio station, CBC Radio One (similar to something like NPR) is not available on iTunes radio, and CBC’s radio portal does not support the Mac as it is Windows Media based. However, Radium is to the rescue for this issue.
Radium is a quiet app that makes a lot of noise. It hides up in the top status bar, inconspicuously. It doesn’t take much in the way of CPU resources, typically under 1%. It plays back a variety of internet radio sources, without taking up large amounts of CPU, RAM, or internet usage. When you first launch it, it will automatically search for radio networks. Within a few minutes, it completes adding thousands of networks. I searched immediately for CBC Calgary and found it, and within a few minutes, I was up listening to CBC Radio One, which is good, because I can’t receive the actual radio signals in my house.
Upon further inspection, Radium offers a great selection of American, Canadian, and International selections. No matter what, Radium probably has a default channel with something like that. Plus, in the preferences panel, you can add new channels.
Along with an enormous library, radium also has growl notifications, volume slider, hot keys and more. You can “star” / favorite your top listened stations and then listen to just those if you’d like. Radium also features a live search much like Spotlight on the mac. You can quickly search for the stations you have added. Very good stuff!
Radium is offered for free on a 30-day unlimited feature trial, and to unlock it, it is $16 USD. I think this is well worth it because of the great balance between simplicity and being very feature-rich. This small but very useful app gets 4.5/5 from me.
You can grab Radium here.
