Simple. So easy to say out loud but so hard to actually accomplish in applications. Perhaps it’s all the possibilites with development that is the reason for bloated UI’s and applications that do one million things instead of the basics. Just recently I stumbled upon an app that was so simple yet it did what it was meant to do.
I was listening to web radio on the radiostations website and found myself getting a little bit annoyed that had to have a browser window open just to play the radio and as soon as I needed to turn the radio on or off I had to find the browser tab and stop the player and change to the other tab I was browsing with. It was really not a good experience for me, so I went to the Mac App Store to search for an radio app that could be external from the browser. My criteria was that it needed to play a couple of different radiostations and an easy way to mute, pause or stop playing.
I actually did find an app that seemed to suit my needs, and it would only cost me $0.99. The app that I bought was svensk radio (“Swedish radio”). It’s an app that lets you toggle a few options like choosing between 7 radiostations (the most commons stations in Sweden) and set the channel on and off. No more than that!
Available from the Menu bar, it’s so easy to use and I don’t need to start an app because there is no gui to talk about. The player is just in the background doing what it’s supposed to – stream radio to my speakers.
Just look at the settings window – It’s not full with functions as you would normally see in the settings, you can only switch the “Start on login” function on or off. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.
Apps like this makes me really happy and I wish that the app world will become more of the mentality that keeping it simple is often the best option.
