Test Drive

Test Drive: Aud.io offers hi-fi Internet radio on mobile, but buzzwords aren’t enough

Posted on by Anna Washenko

The hi-fi streaming club has another member. Aud.io bills itself as the world’s first high-fidelity Internet radio service. It offers ad-free listening to stations grouped by genre for $7.99 a month. The service uses a Pandora-like system of personalization based on likes and skips. But unlike the online radio standard, there’s no way to add other seeds or artist preferences or new stations. Here’s what I thought. Continue Reading →

Test Drive: Dash Radio revives radio’s heyday online

Posted on by Anna Washenko

The goal with Dash Radio is to return to FM radio’s original music discovery roots, presenting playlists and personalities that felt they were being squeezed out by the dominant media companies taking control of the airwaves. These stations are on the digital air 24/7 and without commercial breaks, all for free. It also has a mobile component, with apps for both iOS and Android. It’s a bold plan and so far it’s bearing out well. Continue Reading →

Test Drive: How does Amazon’s Prime Music iOS radio feature hold up?

Posted on by Anna Washenko

Amazon has updated its Prime Music iOS app with a set of lean-back radio stations. The feature arrived a few months back on the web version, but with mobile listening continuing to rise, bring the fullest service possible to phones is likely to become more and more crucial to a music service’s success. The listening experience is very reminiscent of Pandora, but is it more than a copycat? Continue Reading →

Test Drive: Spotify’s My Year in Music

Posted on by Anna Washenko

Following on the release of its global year-in-review earlier this week, Spotify has also added a tool so that individuals can check out their 2014 listening data. The feature breaks down your song choices over the past 12 months into very detailed genres. The data is interesting on its own, but Spotify took things a step further with Play it Forward, where the streaming platform can create a personalized playlist of songs based on what you liked most in 2014. Continue Reading →