KEXP's new Apple TV experience

I love KEXP. It’s a listener-supported radio station in Seattle. It streams all around the world on its website and mobile app. And they’ve had a really good app for the Apple TV for some time - great to stream in the house at a high volume!

And I’ve reviewed them before here. Oh, and also here.

They recently released an excellent new version of the app for Apple TV. And although it doesn’t introduce a lot of new features, it’s way more visually engaging and maximizes the screen real estate much better than before.

Here are some of the major changes...

Additional, prominent functionality- Archive (stream any show from the past) and streaming Settings
The old version had a lot of wasted, unused screen real estate while the new version makes more efficient use of the screen
New, large, colorful tiles along the bottom represent each song played in chronological order
- You can scroll left and right to see history of songs played (much further back in history than before)
- Larger album art brings color and life to the experience
- More useful information like the year released and label (they removed the date played)

Other features on the website or mobile app I’d love to see added in the future include:

DJ notes from the Playlist which give important context around the artist and in some cases a link to a Youtube video, KEXP live session, or the artist Bandcamp page

Ability to favorite songs to look up or explore later
Ability to request a song from the DJ (though without a keyboard, typing is usually a major headache on the TV)

Great job, KEXP!

Comments

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