Best Radio App for Android, With or Without Internet
FM costs no data but needs a receiver in the phone and wired earphones as the aerial. Streaming a station at 128 kbps uses about 58 MB an hour.
The name on the store rarely tells you which kind of radio app you are getting. An internet radio app plays a station’s online stream. It works wherever you have Wi-Fi or mobile data, and it can reach stations in other countries. An FM radio app switches on a receiver inside the phone. It costs no data and only picks up the stations broadcasting near you.
TuneIn Radio puts stations, news, sport and podcasts in one app, and Radio Garden is for browsing the world for something new. With an FM radio in the phone and wired earphones, the Radio app that came with it uses no data at all.
Radio with no internet: FM and a wired aerial
Listening with no data takes hardware: an FM receiver in the phone, and a wire to act as the aerial. The phone makers all describe it the same way. Samsung’s support site in India says compatible Galaxy phones come with a Radio app for listening to local stations without an internet connection. You plug in wired headphones and the wire serves as the aerial. You can send the sound to the speaker, but the headphones have to stay plugged in, and pulling them out turns the radio off.
Motorola’s support page for the moto g04 says listening to the radio does not use mobile data, and that the wired headphones are still needed as the aerial when the sound goes to the speaker or to Bluetooth headphones. HMD’s user guide for the Nokia C30 says the headset is the aerial, and that it may be sold separately. Xiaomi’s spec page for the Redmi 15C lists FM radio support and ties it to the headphone jack.
To find out whether your phone has it, look in the app drawer for an app called Radio or FM Radio, then read the phone’s spec page on the maker’s website. The receiver is a part inside the phone. If the phone was built without one, an app cannot supply it.
Motorola’s FM Radio is the only phone maker’s FM app we found on Google Play. Its listing says it is designed for Motorola phones with an enabled FM chipset. It scans for stations, keeps a favourites list, records and has a sleep timer. It is free and carries a “Contains ads” label. On other brands, the FM app is the one that came with the phone. NextRadio, which older guides recommend for this, is no longer on Google Play, and the apps using that name now come from other developers.
Be careful with store apps named “Radio FM Without Internet” or “FM Radio Without Earphone”. Several of those listings describe internet radio under the title: stations from around the world, streamed. They need data like any other streaming app.
The big station directories
TuneIn, Radio Garden, myTuner and Simple Radio are all free with ads and in-app purchases on Google Play.
TuneIn Radio carries the most besides music. Its listing counts more than 100,000 AM and FM stations from 197 countries, next to podcasts, news channels, live sport and audiobooks. TuneIn Premium is a subscription that cuts the adverts down and adds commercial-free music stations. There is also a separate paid app, TuneIn Radio Pro, where a one-time fee removes the display ads and the adverts that play before a stream starts.
Open Radio Garden when you do not know what you want to hear. The screen is a globe covered in green dots. Each dot is a city or town, and tapping it tunes you to the stations broadcasting from there, thousands of them in all. The listing says the radio keeps playing when the phone goes to sleep, and that you can save favourites.
myTuner Radio and Simple Radio are plain station lists. myTuner’s listing gives more than 50,000 stations from over 200 countries and territories, with an alarm, a sleep timer and a search by country, city or genre. Simple Radio, from Streema, counts over 90,000 stations, searched by country, state or city, and keeps your favourites one tap away. Both listings say plainly that an internet connection is required.
XiiaLive no longer turns up in a search of the store. AccuRadio is still on Google Play, free with ads, and plays its own music channels, not broadcast stations.
How much data streaming uses
That depends on the stream. A station that streams at 128 kbps uses about 58 MB an hour, and one at 64 kbps about 29 MB. An hour a day at the higher rate comes to roughly 1.7 GB over a 30-day month. The directories do not publish each station’s rate, so treat those figures as a guide. FM costs nothing, which is the whole case for it.
Replaio Radio, free with ads and in-app purchases and with over 50,000 stations, has two settings worth having on a tight data plan. Its listing says you can choose the stream quality separately for mobile data and Wi-Fi, and have playback stop when the phone is on mobile data. You can also add a station yourself if you know its stream address.
Radio apps with fewer ads
Radi-oh!, from Benjamin Laws, has thousands of stations and no “Contains ads” label on Google Play. The developer says the app shows no banners and no videos, and sells a one-time unlock for extras such as widgets, casting and unlimited favourites. Replaio’s ads go away for good with a single payment, with no subscription. Stations still play their own adverts inside the stream, as they do in every app here.
Recording a programme to hear later
Audials Play does one thing the others do not: it records. Its listing, which counts 110,000 stations, says it can save a whole programme, or split a stream into separate songs, and play them back later with no connection. It also shows what a station is playing before you tune in. It is free with ads and in-app purchases. Only keep recordings you have the right to keep.
Nigerian and Indian stations
A country app puts local stations on the first screen. Radio Nigeria – Online Radio lists more than 150 Nigerian stations, and its listing names Cool 96.9 FM, Wazobia FM 95.1 Lagos, Nigeria Info FM 99.3 Lagos and BBC Hausa among them. It is free with ads and in-app purchases. The same developer publishes FM Radio – all India radio, with more than 500 Indian stations including Radio Mirchi, Red FM and Vividh Bharti. Both stream over the internet, despite the FM in their names. If your phone has an FM radio, that is the cheapest way to hear local stations.
Some stations have an app of their own as well. Cool FM Nigeria’s is on Google Play from Steam Broadcasting & Communications Ltd, free with ads.
The BBC, iHeart and the US-only services
For the BBC, use the BBC app, free with ads. Its listing says you can listen live to the World Service and Radio 4, including in the background while you use another app, and it carries BBC podcasts. BBC Sounds is closed to listeners outside the UK, and where everything moved to is explained under BBC podcasts.
iHeart, free with ads and in-app purchases, has live stations, playlists and podcasts, and is a regional service. iHeart’s help site says it is available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. Pandora’s listing says it is available to US customers only, and SiriusXM’s says use of its app is limited to the United States and certain US territories.
Radio apps for Android Auto
The listings of myTuner Radio, Simple Radio, Replaio Radio, Audials Play and Radi-oh! all name Android Auto. Google’s help pages do not include Nigeria among the countries where Android Auto is offered.
If the sound needs work, Replaio and Audials have an equaliser built in, and the rest is under equalizer apps for Android. To play any of this through an older car stereo, see what works in place of an FM transmitter app.
