News
Griffin debuts iFill Internet Radio recorder
By Jeremy Horwitz
Editor-in-Chief, iLounge
Published: Saturday, June 18, 2005
News Category: Mac Software
As first reported by German web site iPodfun.de, Griffin Technology has used MacExpo in Germany to publicly debut iFill ($19.99), new software that records Internet Radio broadcasts to an iPod - a concept described by Griffin as timeshifting of Internet Radio. “iFill is the perfect way to fill your 60 GB iPod with an incredible array of of music from thousands of Internet Radio stations around the world,” explained Paul Griffin, President, Griffin Technology. “iPod users have needed a way to sample a wide variety of music and programming. iFill ‘fills’ this need and also makes it a snap to purchase the music they like.”
Under development for some time, iFill is capable of recording multiple radio stations at once, automatically splitting each broadcast into tagged MP3 or AAC format songs. As its name suggests, it will continue to record until your iPod is filled with as much new music as you desire. iFill includes an easy-to-use interface that is independent from iTunes, yet incorporates all of its key features - including one surprise.
Concerned about the potential for music piracy, Griffin has incorporated music industry-friendly safeguards. iFill will not operate without an iPod attached to your computer, and will save songs only to the iPod, not your computer. Additionally, after automatically identifying a song’s artist and title, iFill’s “Songs on iPod” list will include a direct iTunes Music Store link (“little round arrows in the list view”) so that you can easily purchase a full, clean version to replace the imperfect one recorded from radio.
Currently available as a one-week demo for Mac OSX 10.3 and 10.4 users only, iFill will be released for Macs in July. A version is also under development for Windows PCs, and is planned for release in August.
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1
Seems like they haven’t heard of Podcasting at Grifins…
Posted by Karst on June 18, 2005 at 11:13 AM (PDT)
2
Or Replay.
Posted by stark23x on June 18, 2005 at 11:45 AM (PDT)
3
Podcasting does not make Internet Radio available on your iPod. Replay doesn’t capture the stream, only the audio - so it will only record in real time, and one station at a time.
Griffin have finally release what I have been waiting for! Nice one!
Posted by Magic Rabbits in Aberdeen, Scotland on June 18, 2005 at 11:55 AM (PDT)
4
I must say, I’m excited!
It sure works very good!
Posted by kayle12 on June 18, 2005 at 2:31 PM (PDT)
5
This would be a nice option for the iShuffle, especially with the refill option, BUT if the aim is to have you easily purchase a song you like using the interface, how would you do that without a display? (short of remembering the information just as you would a chance-heard broadcast). You’d have to try to identify this when the iPS is reconnected with iTunes.
Posted by moriond on June 18, 2005 at 2:32 PM (PDT)
6
Radiolover? This has been done already. Radiolover capturec several streams at once, only it saves them on the disk. I must admit, the interface for iFill is quite nice.
It’s not bug free. In my first toyings with it, I got it to crash by having it play a stream in record mode before the stream had started ripping. I think it was waiting for the next track to start, but I’m not sure. In any case, since it didn’t have anything to play, I got a beechball of death.
Posted by penguin on June 18, 2005 at 2:39 PM (PDT)
7
This is _exactly_ the tool I need for my iPod.
Now it’s so easy to try out new music (before spending my money.) I love latin music but have no clue when I’m looking at the sealed packages in the store. Even better then iTMS… lets me hear the whole song several times before I buy.
Posted by Steve Chance on June 18, 2005 at 2:42 PM (PDT)
8
Just tried it and won’t be using it for one reason: it puts my iPP into manual mode, meaning all my multi-layered Smart playlists that I use with “Sync to Selected Playlists only” don’t work. Ughhhh! I want to manage my music in iTunes, not on the iPod.
Maybe this would be good for an iPS…but without the display it would be hard to recognize the new music.
Guess I’ll keep looking for some software solutions…
Posted by taffinito on June 18, 2005 at 2:51 PM (PDT)
9
Well I’ve been giving it a try, and it seems to work fine for a first release. However, it desperately needs an ‘Open Stream’ menu item (like iTunes) for those radio stations that don’t happen to appear in the list.
Posted by Magic Rabbits in Aberdeen, Scotland on June 18, 2005 at 3:22 PM (PDT)
10
Magic Rabbits>
You can manually input streams by holding option when you click the “Add Station” button.
This seems nice. I’m still playing around with it. The interface is good, although I don’t see what makes it twenty dollars better than programs like StreamRipperX.
Posted by idiosyncratic on June 18, 2005 at 3:40 PM (PDT)
11
“iFill will not operate without an iPod attached to your computer”
Does this mean I cant listen to the music i donwloaded via Ifill in my Car or away from my PC?
Posted by Jason on June 19, 2005 at 5:18 AM (PDT)
12
Jason: I guess it means that you would use iFill mainly to load music onto your iPod which at that time needs to be connected to your computer. iFill itself can be used to listen live to a radio station - even without an iPod attached. And you can also listen to your iFill music on your iPod anywhere at any time.
Btw nice app - just what the doctor ordered
Posted by A on June 19, 2005 at 8:14 AM (PDT)
13
Geez if only they could make the RadioShark software look that nice!!
Posted by Jeremy Summers on June 19, 2005 at 10:52 AM (PDT)
14
Interesting… but Audio Hijack is about 200 times more useful and doesn’t have these silly restrictions about going right to the iPod.
I’ll still with that. I got it with Roxio’s Boom Box for not much more than the price of this iFill. Buy.com is selling Boom Box for $30.
Posted by Chris Styles on June 19, 2005 at 12:25 PM (PDT)
15
I was toying with iFill. I think it would be great for recording NPR and other public radio shows, but there is no timer for it. I would rather not have to sit and wait at my computer while recording shows. Pretty much, I want it to be like a dvr or tivo for streaming radio. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case.
Posted by steve on June 19, 2005 at 1:31 PM (PDT)
16
“Radiolover? This has been done already. Radiolover capturec several streams at once, only it saves them on the disk.”
——- Thanks for the heads up tried both, I’m going with radiolover, lets me still use itunes to autosync my ipod.
Posted by b.w. on June 19, 2005 at 1:49 PM (PDT)
17
It doesn’t work for me. Have they shut it down already? All I can get is silence, and the preview button brings up a “no streams available” message for all the stations.
Posted by Jorge on June 19, 2005 at 4:57 PM (PDT)
18
Shoulda commented earlier…
As someone else pointed out, Radiolover? This certainly isn’t anything new. I’ve been using radiolover for a couple years now, when it was still called StreamRipperX.
It’s definitely a great way to fill up larger iPods though. You can set up 2 or 3 stations before you go to work, when you get back you’ve got a huge new collection of stuff.
For anyone that doesn’t use internet radio much, check you shoutcast.com to find stations.
Posted by LilAlienD in Maryland on June 19, 2005 at 7:26 PM (PDT)
19
Radiolover looks good… but it seems to be only for Mac. Is there anything like this for Windows, that will split and tag the songs from the stream?
Posted by freebird on June 19, 2005 at 8:12 PM (PDT)
20
All of you who just point to Radiolover/StreamRipper: this isn’t a one click solution and I don’t have the time fiddling with syncing and the extra time it takes before I can unplug my iPod. It gets worse with a shuffle (more manual actions and also longer copy times) so I love the extra comfort that iFill gives me.
Plus, and that’s a bigger issue for me: I can get rid of all the junk in my computers iTunes library every time I want something on my iPod. I hate it when I need to put extra time onto cleaning out old stuff from iTunes that was just placed there to be able to sync it to my iPod.
Posted by Andreas on June 19, 2005 at 11:07 PM (PDT)
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