TUAW Review: Griffin Technology's iFill

We've written about Griffin Technology's iFill a few times over the past summer. Essentially, it's an application that lets you record internet radio, and sends those recordings directly to you iPod. The most recent beta was released on September 22nd, and today it's finally out of beta and ready to rock. Here is our "first look" review of iFill. More after the jump.

Installation and Initial Setup

Before you begin,
you've got to enable disk use on your iPod. If you haven't done this yet, just plug your 'Pod into your Mac, launch iTunes and click the
"General" tab in the iPod preferences. From there, select "Enable Disk Use."

Installation is a simple drag and drop into your Applications folder. When launched for the first time, iFill requests a registration code. If you want to try before you buy, you may request up to four demo codes that will each expire after one week. Finally,
connect the iPod you intend to use and iFill sets it as the default recipient. Now you're ready to go.

Interface

The layout of the application's main window is tidy and unobtrusive, and isn't the typical toolbar-across-the-top type of thing we've all seen a million times.
Instead, four main points radiate from a central circle (more on the circle later). First, quickly view how many songs are currently on your iPod, iFill songs vs. non-iFill songs (note: this works differently on an iPod shuffle, which is what I used for testing. With a shuffle,
there is no differentiation made between iFill vs. non-iFill tunes).

Next, you can designate how much space you wish to allocate for iFill tunes on your iPod, and remove previously collected music with a single click (helpful for shuffle owners like me).

In the center of the window is a status circle that provides a lot of information at a glance. Depending on the lengths of the multi-colored status indicators in the circle, you can view the amount of music on your iPod (iFill vs. non-iFill), as well as the amount of data files and space available for non-music files. It's really quite nice, and you get used to reading it in a snap. Finally, you can select the radio stations you wish to record (yes, you can record more than one at a time!). Now the fun begins.

Real World Use: Recording and Playback

To select a radio station(s) for recording, click the "Choose" button at the bottom of the window for a list of suggested stations. Lucky, the station I was after, WOXY, was in the list. You can add the address you're after manually if you don't see it here. Next, it's simply a matter of clicking the "Record" button, and you're off.

When recording, iFill switches to the Record window. From here, you can see a list of the stations you're currently streaming, view the currently playing song and either listen along or mute the sound. A green status ring gradually fills in as your iPod collects music. Like I've said before, I think that iFill and the iPod shuffle were made for each other. I set iFill to fill my shuffle to the brim overnight, and the next morning I have a radio station that I would not otherwise be able to listen to in my pocket all day. Nice.

My only complaint is something that really can't be fixed. Because you're recording an audio stream in real time (as opposed to downloading an Mp3 file), it can take a while to fill your iPod with a decent amount of music (which is partly why I set mine to work overnight). Like I said, there's nothing you can do unless you have power over the very nature of space and time, but don't expect to grab a whole lot of music during your morning shower and breakfast. Griffin suggests taking advantage of the simultaneous recording feature to combat this: record five stations over the course of an hour and you've grabbed five hours of music. True, but I only want to listen to one station.

Once your iPod is full, listening is just as enjoyable as any iPod experience is. My morning and afternoon commutes are so much better now that I'm free of terrestrial radio, as well as the same, old playlists I tend to obsessively listen to on my 'Pod.

Real World Use: Manage your Music

Now that you've got all that new music, you've got to keep track of what's what. iFill incorporates a very iTunes-like browser for searching, sorting and basically managing all of your iFill music. Its functionality is very much like that of iTunes, so it's instantly familiar to any iPod owner.

The Bottom Line

iFill is an example of a simple application that does a single task well. I do wish I could somehow speed up the data transfer, but I know that's not possible. Other than that, this app is a winner. iFill requires Mac OS 10.3 or 10.4 or better, and a single license will cost you $19.99 US.