KCRW

I hadn’t opened the KCRW app in a while, but when I used it in the past, I always loved the experience and thought it was one of the most well-designed apps available on iOS. Imagine my disappointment when I opened the app today and it was entirely different. The first time I opened it, I couldn’t even find the Eclectic24 show. When I finally did locate it upon my second use of the app, I was dismayed to realize that all the functionality I loved in the previous app had disappeared. I can’t even figure out how to get a track ID. I went to the KCRW website to see if I could find the track information, and the website is not updating in real time the way it used to. I looked at the Eclectic24 playlist at 1:45pm, and the most recent track information was from 8:45am. I refreshed the page, but it’s still showing the wrong track info. So I can’t get the track ID from the app or the website. Like many people, discovering new music is one of the main reasons I listen to KCRW, and now it feels impossible to do that. I love KCRW, but I don’t understand why they would throw away a beautifully-designed app and replace it with this terrible experience. I am absolutely heartbroken.

“Best enjoyed from the KCRW app.” Not really ya’ll… Before you do anything, an ad for KCRW plays. We all know “ad free” actually means only KCRW ads and generally it’s fine, but I really hate that one plays every single time you start listening, live or recorded content, ad comes first. Sometimes I use the app to listen to shows I missed. It does work, but not well. If you pause and then come back to it later, it may or may not save your place. This is in addition to the shows being a little hard to find in the search, I would prefer a tab for the DJs, and then I can select the one I want. Live radio is a disaster. I can’t be sure if the connection issues are related to my devices / cell service / wifi, or KCRW, though I’m kinda leaning towards KCRW cause I’ve experienced this on website too. Most annoying of all, if you pause for too long, it will just go back to live rather than stay where you were and play from that point. What is the point of having a pause button if it’s not going to “play” from where you left off? Love you KCRW, but please.

Works for the most part in CarPlay except with Google maps. With Apple Maps and Waze I’ve now been successful having your app running and not stopping at every spoken direction. Not so with Google Maps, the only mapping program that really works for me. Hope you are able to fix it so that the KCRW app continues playing with spoken directions on Google maps in CarPlay. The only other big feature that would be helpful on CarPlay is resume or being able to fast forward. If I’m listening to an archived episode of Metropolis in the car for an hour, it doesn’t always pick up where I left off when I restart the car and the phone. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. If it were possible to use the fast forward and rewind button on the large display it would be much easier than what I have to do now which is wait until a red light or just pull over and forward or rewind to the part I want. Overall, this is a great app.