iPhone App Review: Wunder Radio

I've only just recently started paying for apps on my iPhone. I had always previously trended towards the free sections of the App Store and for the most part always found something that suited my needs. In that vein, I've tried a number of free radio applications on the iPhone, and still love the streaming music of Pandora (who wouldn't?), but the features of Weather Underground's Wunder Radio application actually make this app worth the $5.99 price tag. You might wonder why a weather website has released a radio application, it seems as though they initially wanted an application that provided streaming weather to as many areas of the country as possible. What they ended up with was a portal to 60,000 radio stations and other content feeds. The app is available now in the App Store and has an efficient and well organized interface. You can find radio stations by way of category, region, or even stations close to you. The application offers you "station like this" in the "now playing" screen, and also often allows you a choice of stream type and bit rates along with their respective reliability. This comes in handy if you find your stream dropping in a certain location, there may be a lower quality one available that is more reliable. One of my favorite features is the police, fire, and emergency scanners available inside the application. You can listen to basically any metro police scanner in the country, including my hometown of Davenport. The Chicago scanner is riveting, and provides a lot of entertainment. You can also plug-in to Dallas' air traffic control stream which is also quite interesting. The bottom line is that this is a really great radio application with features warranting the $6 price tag...Oh yeah, it also gives you the weather.