We checked out Radial (@radialtt), an Android-only music streaming app from Yabil Ltd. in Trinidad & Tobago, available for free in the Google Play store.
First things first, we were impressed with the clean user interface and the overall elegance of the app itself. And at under 2MB, it’s a lightweight download that doesn’t hog resources.
When Radial’s developers claimed that they would redefine the way you listen to music from Trinidad & Tobago, it wasn’t a cliché slogan. While soca music has the largest number of tracks (we counted 660) in the Radial library, there’s also a growing library of all-Trinidad Hip-Hop, Jazz, Reggae and Chutney music that we didn’t know existed.
Radial is practical. The app works worldwide with no geographic restrictions (unlike YouTube), and it has an in-built social element where you can see what other users are listening to and, if you’re picky, it can even suggest songs that fit your taste. Radial even allows you to build a playlist, just like you’d expect with your native music app.
Generally we thought the user experience was good. You can expect load times of 4-5 seconds for full-length, high quality tracks on WiFi and – even better than YouTube – your music stays on in the background even after you minimize or navigate away from the app.
Put simply, this is a well-developed and exciting app, both for end-users who will struggle to find the genres and artists in Radial’s library elsewhere – and for Trinidad & Tobago’s underexposed artistes who now have an exciting avenue into the growing number of users on Android’s massive ecosystem.
Hopefully the app’s growth plans will include music offerings from other Caribbean territories to extend its scalability outside of Trinidad & Tobago. We also look forward to the app’s roll out into the iOS and Windows Phone ecosystems as well.
