WaitWaitDontTellMe
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Public Radio Player app redesigned in latest update
Some of my favorite radio programs are from National Public Radio here in the States, including Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Car Talk and A Prairie Home Companion. Fortunately, most of those shows are now available in podcast form, so that's primarily how I listen to them. And of course NPR stations broadcast terrestrially around the country, so if you want to listen to them the old-fashioned way, you can do that. But occasionally I need even more NPR. Sometimes I want to listen to classic stations in Boston or Chicago, or I just can't be bothered to scan around the dial and find my show. For those instances, the Public Radio Player app comes in very handy. It's just been updated with a brand-new design, and it allows you to tune in to more than 500 different NPR stations from around the US, wherever you happen to be. You can now also download your favorite shows (including some of those mentioned above), view news headlines from NPR, even follow stations on Twitter or donate directly to your favorite stations from within the app itself. It's a very impressive update to a really comprehensive app, and of course it's completely free. NPR consistently presents some of the best radio programming out there, and the new version of this app provides another great way to listen in.
"Wait Wait" goes after the iPad
We love Peter Sagal and the gang, but they certainly jumped ugly with the iPad on this week's episode of NPR's quiz show Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me. In a segment of fake confessions from public figures, announcer Carl Kasell stood in for Steve Jobs and admitted "It's just a big iPhone without the phone." Tell it to the NPR iPad app team, why don't you? They seem pretty excited about the new device... in fact, quite a few NPR listeners are potential iPad buyers, although you'd be hard-pressed to know it from the cranky comments on this post. The funny business continued as Sagal skewered the iPad: "Fans of the new device say it is just a little more expensive than other computers that do a lot more things. But it has the advantage of being slightly more difficult to use. See, in a regular laptop, sending an email is no big deal. But on the iPad, it's a personal triumph over adversity." Spoken like someone who hasn't used one yet. Just to put the icing on the cake, the contestant actually had an iPad in hand while she called into the show, leading Sagal to comment "Yeah, it's amazing; immediately we go from like, you know, posture of mockery to, ooh, you have one?" How quickly they turn. Of course, when he asked the contestant how she liked her iPad, she replied "I love it very much" -- but then when he pressed her on what she could do with it that she couldn't do before, she promptly admitted "Nothing." Oy. This week's WWDTM features panelists Luke Burbank, Kyrie O'Connor and Adam Felber (a personal favorite). You can read the transcript here or just listen to the opening "Who's Carl This Time" segment, but we recommend subscribing to the weekly podcast. P.S. Did you know that NPR listeners, compared to the average US citizen, are twice as likely to be Mac users? Intriguing.
