radioSHARK a great addition to the digital hub
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Nov 22, 2004 at 12:20am
Griffin Technology has long made cool products, but their coolest one ever is the radioSHARK, a S$69.99 device that adds an AM/FM radio to any Mac or PC. It can record an AM or FM radio broadcast in real time and be programmed to record a scheduled show and to “pause” live radio.
I’m not sure how I lived without this baby. I work for hours at my Mac and love the whole concept of the “digital hub.” With the radioSHARK, I can tune into my favorite radio programs (mainly, Gerry House and the House Foundations on WSIX Nashville from 6-10 a.m.) without having to have a standalone radio or stereo system. This makes sense since I already use my Mac as my stereo. Since I can work, create, watch TV and more on my Mac, it appeals to my sense of aesthetics that I can now listen to the radio (and record if I wish) on my Apple system.
Think of the radioSHARK as TiVO for audio. It includes software that controls all radio and recording functions. You can set your favorite station presets with the click of a mouse; scanning and tuning new stations is a breeze.
The ability to pause radio thanks to the ability to program Time-Shift Recording is very sweet. If Steve Jobs calls me while I’m listening to the House Foundation (and it happens al the time),time-shift recording lets me pause a live broadcast and return to it moments or hours later and continue exactly where I left off. You hit Pause to stop, then hit Play to restart, and it picks up where it left off. The radioSHARK does this by caching the live radio that’s currently broadcasting.
The time-shifting panel can be toggled from the main screen and radioSHARK records a rolling timeframe of audio. You can specify the length of that timeframe (30, 60, or 90 minutes, etc.); you’re only limited by the size of your hard drive.
However, you have to be a bit careful with time-shifting. When I exited the software, a cached audio file was deleted for good. If you want to records something to save, click the instant record button. radioSHARK will create a permanent file and store it in the folder of your choice.
You can also schedule the recording of radio broadcasts, as you can with television broadcasts and a VCR. Showing how well the folks at Griffin understand Mac users, the radioSHARK hardware-software integrates with iTunes. Recordings are automatically synced into the iApp.
The RadioSHARK connects to and is powered by USB. The fin-shaped device acts as an antenna and can be positioned for the best reception. Any recorded broadcast can be transferred to an iPod or any other AIFF-compatible digital music player to replay on the go.
Not only does the RadioSHARK work well, but it also looks good with its snow white design and glowing blue backlit “gills.” I only wish there were an “aluminum flavored” version that matched the PowerBook and Power Mac G5 systems.
My only true complaint is that version 1.0 of the RadioSHARK software was a bit buggy and actually “hung” on more than one occasion. Software updates seems to have fixed the problem so make sure you have the latest version from Griffin Technology.
Macsimum rating: 8 out of 10
Have a product you’d like us to review? Drop us an e-mail at daseller@earthlink.net
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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Posted on May 24, 2005