Ootunes and TuneIn Pro: Recording and audio ads?

By knownoflove, 10 November, 2013

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi,

My husband and I have iOS7 on our iPhone 4s's, and we have both TuneIn Pro and Ootunes. We've been using TuneIn Pro more lately, because we previously had connection issues with Ootunes switching to our 4G when we were on our home Wifi, and when cell data for the app was turned off, it would simply disconnect from streams too many times to count. Through some experimentation and in-depth discussion with the Ootunes developer, we discovered it is an Apple issue along with possibly being an Ootunes issue.

All of this to say, we may be switching back to Ootunes again. While TuneIn Pro connects to streams just fine, we are unable to retrieve recordings made with the app and put them on our computer for future use. To add to this, there is an audio add that plays every time we open TuneIn Pro. If I paid for an app that claims to be add-free, I do not feel an add should be aired at the beginning of my stream.

The only issue with Ootunes if the stream consistently stays connected on Wifi is the fact that I cannot simply start and stop a recording whenever I wish. I do not always wish to record every radio station I listen to every time I listen to it. I feel it's too complicated to go into the settings and turn on recording every time I want to record, then go back into settings and turn it back off when I'm done. In my opinion, this could be a more streamlined process, and I may write the developer about this as he has been very helpful and willing to listen to feedback in the past.

Does anyone have any feedback or advice?

Thanks, and have a wonderful week!

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Comments

By Esther on Thursday, December 5, 2013 - 21:13

According to complaints at MacRumors and other web sites, the audio ads (even with the paid versions) in iTunes Radio Pro started with version 5.0 of iTunes Radio Pro (released November 8, 2013). The app store description of the current version 5.0.1 release of iTunes Radio Pro (dated November 14, 2013) states: "-We recently reduced the price of TuneIn Radio Pro because it now has display ads. Anyone who purchased TuneIn Radio Pro prior to version 5.0 will still be able to use it without display ads. 

-This version fixes a bug that caused a pre-roll audio ad to play for listeners who purchased TuneIn Radio Pro"

However, comments from users indicate that in order for the ad-free experience to work, you have to log in to TuneIn Radio Pro with an account, and that needs to be done in an earlier version of TuneIn Radio Pro, or possbly has to be created before the date of the November 8, 2013 release of version 5.0.  Anyone who purchases the Pro version starting with 5.0 and later is still stuck with ads.  A user who unistalled his ad-free version of this app that had been used for several years and then reinstalled it (a day after the 5.0 release) found ads in it. Another user reported being able to reach TuneIn's customer support with information/proof she had purchased the Pro version much earlier and still was forced to experience ads.  She posted a copy of their reply, which stated that in order to remove the ads she would have to create a TuneIn account, pass the information back to the customer rep, who would then be able to go in and disable the ads for her.  Most people apparently can't get responses from customer support, but you can try.

  1. To schedule a recording with ooTunes, first choose the station/stream that you wish to record on the "Now Playing" screen (tab 1 of 5 at the bottom of the screen), then double tap the "Stop" button.  
  2. Double tap "More…" (tab 5 of 5) at the bottom right corner of the screen (also the last element of the screen, if you want to use a four-finger tap in the bottom half of the screen to navigate to this tab)
  3. On the "More" screen, flick to "Alarm" and double tap
  4. Flick right on this screen.  Depending on whether you have previously used this screen to schedule alarms or the sleep timer, you may have  to double tap the "Edit" button in the top right corner.  Then flick right past the "Set Alarm", "Set Alarm w/iPod Track", and "Set Sleep Timer" buttons to the  "Schedule a Recording" button and double tap.
  5. If you flick right past the edit button, you'll now hear VO announce, "Schedule a recording of <your selected radio stream name" as a heading level 2.  
  6. Continue to flick right past the current time announcement, then past the "Record At:" to the pop-up buttons for Hour, Minute, and Duration. There's also a checkbox for "24H" just beyond these buttons, if you want ooTunes to use a 24-hour clock.
  7. Set the recording start time hour and minute by double tapping the appropriate button, and using the picker item.  You can either flick left from the picker item to the "Done" button and double tap, or flick further to the "Next" button and double tap if you automatically want to switch the next picker item (e.g., from "Hour" to "Minute" to "Duration").  The duration increments are 5 minuates, up to 1 hours, then .5 hours up to 5 hours , then 1 hour up to 12 hours, and then "Forever" -- or until you run out of space.
  8. Once you've double tapped "Done" on the Duration picker item, your focus will be on the "Schedule Recording" button. Just double tap to schedule the recording, which will start at the time you specified.
  9. There is also a list of recent scheduled recordings jsut past the "Schedule Recording" button.

HTH.  I don't know any way of setting up a complicated scheduled recording, such as a program that is exactly 27.3 minutes on a date and time 2 weeks and 3 days in the future.