Sometimes you want to listen to music curated by a person instead of an algorithm, in which case radio can be a delightful alternative to music streaming services. There's no dearth of internet radio apps for your iPhone, but the recently launched BMBX (like boombox) is everything I like about indie apps—simple, fast, and a joy to use. Before BMBX, I didn't really go out of my way to seek out new internet radio stations, but that's all changed now.
Install and setup
BMBX's setup is as simple as installing the app, searching for your favorite radio stations, and hitting the play button. The app doesn't require an account, but BMBX will still sync your favorite radio stations across devices (if you want it to) using your iCloud account.
Once you've got the app running, hit the rectangular Library icon to the left of the Play/Pause button and tap the + button in the top-right corner to look for radio stations. The built-in search feature, which is powered by the community-driven Radio Browser catalog, is great at surfacing radio stations. I found pretty much every radio station I searched for, but for some unknown reason, it couldn't locate the Portland Radio Project—a community radio station I like from Portland, Oregon.
For situations like this, the app lets you manually add the radio station's streaming URL. Once I did that, I was able to listen without issue. I do wish BMBX would allow me to directly add artwork for stations right from the internet. Right now, it asks you to download the art to your photo library and imports it from there.
Save the songs and stations you love
BMBX lets you easily keep track of your favorite songs and radio stations. The app's library is divided into three sections—Stations, Favorites, and History. If you love the song that's playing, open the app and hit the Heart button. This will save it to the Favorites tab in the app's library. You can tap any song from this list to go to it in Apple Music. You can also go to the History tab and tap any song to open it in Apple Music.
The Stations tab is where you'll probably spend most of your time when you're not actively listening. To add a station to your favorites, swipe left on it, tap the Pencil icon, and select Show in Favorites. Hit the Save button in the top-right corner to complete the process.
That's pretty much everything there is to BMBX, which I appreciate. The app's beauty is in its simplicity. This makes it easy to use for all kinds of people. BMBX is free to download and has no ads, which means that if you pair it with your friendly neighborhood community radio station, you could have a totally ad-free music experience at your hands whenever you want.