NPR has launched a new version of its mobile radio app for Google Android. NPR News 2.0 has a new user interface, support for favorite stations, additional programs, and the whole thing just feels a little smoother to use. But one of the biggest changes is that you can now listen to an entire episode of a recent radio show without having to queue up segments one at a time.

You can still listen to radio stories one at a time, browsing by top stories or topic. But when you want to listen to a specific show such as Morning Edition, Fresh Air, RadioLab, or All Things Considered, you’ll find a new “Add all to playlist” button at the top of the screen.

NPR News 2.0 is available as a free download from the Android Market.

via reddit

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The NPR Music app for iOS is a great way to find new music, live performance, and information about upcoming and established musicians, as well as links to music streams from public radio stations and programs. NPR recently launched an updated version of the app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad with additional concerts and access to music blogs.

NPR also says that it’s working on a version of the NPR Music app for Android. It’s taking a little longer to build than planned, but the Android app is due out sometime “in the next few months.”

There’s currently an NPR News app for Android, which also provides links to some music-related news stories and streaming content from public radio programs and stations.

via reddit

NPR has released an updated version of its app for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. NPR News 3.0 brings a number of improvements, including support for the retina displays on the iPhone 4 and new iPod touch, support for the taskbar audio player controls when listening in the background, and the ability to refresh the story list by pulling down on the screen.

But the biggest change is that you can finally search the NPR archive from the app, using the little search icon located next to Newscast in the menu bar.

NPR News 3.0 also lets you swipe left or right to flip between stories in the News and Search sections (but not yet in Programs, so you can’t swipe between Morning Edition or All Things Considered segments, for instance.”

Overall, the new NPR News app is a big improvement over the old version — although the app crashed on me the first few times I tried to tap on a story. Hopefully version 3.0.1 will fix any stability issues.

Still, the price is right. NPR News 3.0 is available as a free download from the App Store.

You can check out a few more screenshots after the break.

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NPR has pushed out version 1.2 of its NPR Music app for iOS. The update adds support for the iPhone 4 retina display and some stability improvements and bug fixes. But the biggest change is support for video.

When you click on the Tiny Desk Concerts from the Programs menu, you can now watch videos of performances recorded at NPR. The current crop of concerts range from about 4 minutes to close to a half hour and include performances from artists including Jimmy Cliff, Bela Fleck, and Gogol Bordello. Videos aren’t available for every performance, but there many of the Tiny Desk concerts do have accompanying videos.

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NPR has released its second iPhone app. And while the first was understandably focused on NPR’s news programs and streaming audio from member stations, the new app is focused on music.

In a nutshell, the NPR Music app for iPhone makes it easy to access all of the content available on the NPR Music web site on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. And that’s an awful lot of content. As the New York Times notes, the NPR Music web site has grown substantially over the past few years, and while many of the exclusive concerts and other content available on the site never actually go out over the radio, you can find an awful lot of excellent live performances on the web — or on an iPhone.

The NPR Music app also provides you with easy access to NPR member stations that do stream music. Believe it or not, public radio isn’t just filled with news and information programming. There are still a number of stations that stream jazz and classical music, and a growing number that also provide rock, folk, alternative, and other music.

There are also links to music-related news stories from NPR. For instance, on the home screen of the app today I found a link to listen to an NPR story about the 1 year anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death.

What the NPR Music web site has become best known for is providing listeners with a chance to discover new music from artists they might not otherwise have heard about. And while there are recordings of live performances from mainstream acts like the Dave Mathews Band, odds are you’ll find an awful lot of music that you’re unfamiliar with if you spend some time browsing through the archive. And for the most part that’s a good thing, because while it might not be familiar, most of the songs and concerts available through the NPR Music app are definitely worth listening to.

The app supports multitasking in iOS 4 (if you have supported hardware), which means you can stream music in the background while doing other things with your phone. You can also create custom playlists out of stories, and programs.

The NPR Music app is available as a free download from iTunes.

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NPR has released the source code for its Android app. For now, that won’t mean much to most users. The app still lets you listen to reports from NPR programs and fine live streams from local NPR member stations. It was available as a free download yesterday and it’s still free today.

But NPR is hoping that by opening up the source code to the public, the app can grow in new and interesting ways.

What I didn’t realize until today was that a single NPR fan at Google was almost single-handedly responsible for building the original NPR Android app. He did it in his free time. NPR is hoping that contributions from other independent developers can make the app more useful, attractive, or just more interesting.

NPR is also taking suggestions for the app from Android users who don’t know how to code. You can reach out to the organization through its blog or Twitter account.

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The NPR News app for the iPhone does a pretty good job of helping you find live and on-demand content from public radio stations across the US. But there’s another app for public radio junkies that has a few extra features, including the ability to find stations that are streaming your favorite programs right now.

The Public Radio Player iPhone app lets you find live radio streams from almost 500 radio stations as well as access to a thousand on-demand public radio programs from NPR, American Public Media, Public Radio International, Public Interactive, and the Public Radio Exchange.

One of my favorite features is the ability to tune into live broadcasts of your favorite program. For instance, say you live in New York and you missed Morning Edition this morning. No problem. It’s probably still playing somewhere in the Midwest. Just fire up the app, select the Live tab, and then click on Program to find Morning Edition and the Public Radio Player will show you a list of stations that are currently playing that program so you can tune in live.

There’s also an excellent local station finder that lets you pull up a list of stations within 50, 250, or 500 miles of your current location.

Version 2.1 includes a sleep timer and wake-up alarm, although you’ll need to keep the app open to use these features. While the developers say that version 2.1 was rewritten to improve performance, the one complaint I have about the Public Radio Player is that it does tend to feel a little sluggish when pressing buttons or switching from one menu to another.

The Public Radio Player is available as a free download from the iTunes App Store.

You can find a few more screenshots after the break.

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