ESPN Radio on iPad

[ecschwarz]

Just a quick question - I loaded the somewhat outdated ESPN Radio app on my iPad and the background option does not seem to work (it's an iPhone app, and on the iPhone, it loads the radio stream into Safari - kind of a 'hack' of sorts mostly because it was made before iOS 4). While I'd love for them to update to iOS 4, I was wondering if anyone found a way to get it to work with Safari on the iPad.

 

[ecschwarz]

I thought I'd post a follow-up for those who care...ESPN is updating their radio app tomorrow (not sure if it will resolve the issues), but I recent started using TuneIn Radio, a 99¢ universal app that can also record, time-shift, and quite a bit more. I am in no way affiliated with the makers of it—I just bought it and thought I'd share my experiences.

 

[benhollberg]

Could you update this thread after the ESPN Radio app is updated, I have been wanting it but always heard bad things from friends. Maybe after the update I'll buy.

 

[MarkG21]

I can't wait for the new ESPN App tomorrow!

Could you update this thread after the ESPN Radio app is updated, I have been wanting it but always heard bad things from friends. Maybe after the update I'll buy.

WHat have you heard bad about it? It works just fine for me. Anyways, I'm updating as soon as I can tomorrow. Unless someone beats me to it, I'll update tomorrow. I know it's supposed to have better audio and other features. Hopefully it does "True" multitasking.

 

[Cha]

Wow I am glad to hear they are finally updating the app. The app always works great for me too... except for the background aspect... By the way, how did you find out the app was being updated tomorrow? Does Apple release some info on the approval of apps/updates?

 

[ecschwarz]

Wow I am glad to hear they are finally updating the app. The app always works great for me too... except for the background aspect... By the way, how did you find out the app was being updated tomorrow? Does Apple release some info on the approval of apps/updates?

ESPN's been teasing "VERSION 3.0!" on their streaming feed for awhile now and said it will be available 1/31. I'd agree with everyone else that the backgrounding feature is the one area that's lacking, especially if you're running the iPhone app on an iPad (it doesn't work at all), but other than that it streams just fine.

 

[ecschwarz]

Just grabbed it (sorry for beating you to it, MarkG21) - so far a pretty good update - complete overhaul of the app and here's what the iTunes Store said:

The #1 selling paid sports app now has a totally new look with improved navigation -- making it easier for fans to find new audio features. Listen Live and now On-Demand to your teams, your shows, your podcasts, your stations. This is ESPN Radio YOUR Way.

New Features:

- myESPN integration. Once setup...audio of fans favorite teams (up to 3 days) will automatically be pulled into the app.
- My Favorites (allows fans to create their own collection of their favorite stations, shows, podcasts). Includes local and national shows.
- More live streams (24) and Better Quality Audio
- Vertical orientation
- Now with Background Play!
- Searchable audio (users can now search tens of thousands of audio clips, podcasts and shows)
- Social media integration (share on facebook/twitter)
- Access to 40+ podcasts
- ESPN local.com integration with local video SportsCenters for NY, Boston, Chicago, LA & Dallas
- 24x7 ESPN Radio SC updates every 20 minutes
- ESPN bottomline
- Access to select play-by-play events such as College Football and every Bowl Game.

That being said, I bet the select play-by-play events will be an added cost like the World Cup was last summer, and the "vertical orientation" feature means vertical orientation only. I couldn't care less about the social media features or adding my info into the myESPN functions, but I guess those are cool if they're your thing.

Background play works as expected, and we have Retina Display-compatible graphics.

This is still an iPhone-only application, rather than a universal one, but, as I started this thread with, background play now does work on the iPad, since it doesn't load a funky Safari page with version detecting to prevent the iPad.

Overall, a good update, but ESPN should've done this months ago.

 

[Cha]

The app's text on some of the screens do not seem to display correctly until I touch the different sections on the screen. Hmm... I wonder if the developers meant to do that.

 

[ecschwarz]

I just discovered the best new feature - the "shows" function - it's entire shows archived commercial-free (kinda like the podcasts, but not just excerpts). They also have it divided by hours, so you can catch up on things you missed. I'm pretty stoked about being able to rearrange The Herd for later in the afternoon when I have meetings at work in the morning.

 

[MarkG21]

I just discovered the best new feature - the "shows" function - it's entire shows archived commercial-free (kinda like the podcasts, but not just excerpts). They also have it divided by hours, so you can catch up on things you missed. I'm pretty stoked about being able to rearrange The Herd for later in the afternoon when I have meetings at work in the morning.

Yeah, I just discovered that today but I couldn't get the herd to work today. Said audio stream failed. Probably my error, I didn't try to hard to get it to work. I'll try later.