Musika
Why I built an ad-free internet radio app
I built Musika because I couldn't find an internet radio app that did what I wanted. I tried nearly all the main ones, and none of them ticked every box. The thing that bothered me most was apps playing their own ads in front of radio stations they don't even run. So I made my own app, used it myself for a long time, and eventually put it on Google Play in case anyone else wanted the same thing.
The ad problem
Most radio apps are directories. They don't run the stations you listen to. Somebody else does that: they pay for the servers, the bandwidth and the music licences. Then you press play in the app, and before you hear a note, the app plays a pre-roll ad for itself.
In my experience TuneIn was the worst for this. You pick a stream that someone else is paying to run, and TuneIn puts its own ad in front of it. I just thought that sucked.
If a station runs ads, that's their call. They're paying the bills, and I can decide whether to listen and support them or not. An app squeezing its own ad in ahead of someone else's stream is different, and it's the one thing I was never going to put in Musika. There are no ads in Musika at all, on the free version or the paid one, and that won't change. (If you're weighing it up against TuneIn, here's a TuneIn comparison.)
What I actually listen to
I listen to a wide range of music, and a lot of different stations. SomaFM is a big one for me, in the office and in the car. Lush and Groove Salad are my background music when I'm working, and Folk Forward gets a lot of time on the road. They're listener-supported with no ads, just great music.
At home I branch out. Totally Radio Easy is on when I'm working around the house, and the 80s station comes out on a Friday night to get into a good mood.
That spread is exactly why I wanted something simple: find a station, save it, press play. No clutter, no feeds, nothing trying to sell me a subscription. You can see what's in the app on the features page.
Built for me first
Musika was built for me above all. For a long time I ran it as a plain install on my own phone, with no store listing and nobody else using it.
What changed was Google tightening the rules on apps installed outside the Play Store. Rather than lose my own app, I published it properly. And once it was going on the store anyway, I figured I'd go with the flow and see if anyone else liked it.
How it pays for itself (or doesn't)
Musika is free. The free version lets you save up to 5 favourite stations and add 2 custom stations of your own, which I suspect covers most people.
If you use it enough to hit those limits and you like it, there's an optional one-time purchase (A$3.49 in Australia) that removes them. No subscription, and no ads on either version. It's there to help cover the cost of keeping the app updated, and it's entirely optional.
The stations themselves come from Radio Browser, a free, community-run directory of internet radio stations from around the world. More on that in a future post. For anything else, the FAQ probably has it.
Try it
If that sounds like the radio app you've been looking for, Musika is free on Google Play.
Head back to the blog, or to the Musika home page.