Google Play / music_and_audio / IHEART: MUSIC, RADIO, PODCASTS
REVIEW
iHeart still owns terrestrial radio on Android, ads and all.
The free tier is the deepest live-radio bench any streaming app offers, and Talk Back keeps the call-in alive. The trade is an ad load that would embarrass a 1990s FM drive shift.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 10, 2026 · 5 MIN READ
iHeart: Music, Radio, Podcasts
IHEARTMEDIA, INC.
OUR SCORE
7.2
GOOGLE PLAY
★ 4.6
PRICE
Free
In-app purchases
iHeart’s Android app is the rare streaming product that knows exactly what it is. It is not trying to out-catalogue Spotify or out-recommend Pandora. It is the live AM/FM dial, plus the country’s largest commercial podcast network, ported into a phone — and on that narrower brief, it has no real peer on Google Play.
The 2024 redesign sharpened that focus. Fifteen presets and a scan button bring the muscle memory of a car stereo into the app, Talk Back keeps the call-in tradition alive in a way nothing else does, and Android Auto integration makes the daily commute case obvious. The 4.6-star average across 687,000 ratings is not an accident — listeners who came for live radio mostly got it.
The catch is the same catch terrestrial radio has always had: ads, and a lot of them. The free tier interrupts often, the video pre-rolls cost mobile data, and station-change ads punish the very behaviour the new scan button encourages. Pay $9.99 a month for All Access and most of that goes away — but at that price you’re choosing iHeart over Spotify on principle, not on catalogue.
iHeart's pitch isn't a Spotify killer — it's the AM dial in your pocket, and on that brief it still wins.
FEATURES
The free tier streams thousands of US AM/FM stations live, plus iHeart's own genre-curated artist stations and the full iHeartPodcasts network. The 2024 redesign — pitched as the biggest update since 2011 — added up to 15 custom presets and a scan button that flips between live stations the way a car radio does. It's a small idea executed well.
Talk Back, the voice-memo button that lets listeners send up-to-30-second clips straight to participating shows and podcasts, is still the most distinctive thing here. No competitor has shipped an equivalent. Pair it with Android Auto, Wear OS, Cast, and a sleep timer and the app earns its place on the home screen for anyone who actually listens to live radio.
The two paid tiers split familiar ground. iHeart Plus removes most ads and unlocks unlimited skips and replay; iHeart All Access adds full on-demand streaming, offline downloads, and playlist creation, priced at $9.99/month through the Play Store ($12.99 on iOS thanks to Apple's cut) with a $14.99 family plan for up to six.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
As a live-radio aggregator, iHeart is uncontested. Spotify and Apple Music will sell you on-demand catalogues; Pandora will build you a station from one song; only iHeart hands you your hometown morning show, the local sports affiliate, and a national talk feed in the same tab. The 4.6-star average across 687,000 Play Store ratings reflects an audience that knows what it came for.
The Android build itself is solid. Playback survives backgrounding, Auto handover is clean, presets sync across devices, and the podcast player handles variable speed and skip-silence without drama. Talk Back remains a genuinely interesting bet on radio's two-way past.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
The free-tier ad load is the loudest complaint in recent Play Store reviews, and it's earned. Pre-roll video before a station starts, mid-stream interruptions that cut into host audio, and ads that fire on every station change all show up in user reports — and unskippable video on mobile data is a real grievance, not a stylistic one. The app's own talk programming already runs heavy commercial breaks; the app then layers more on top.
Recommendations beyond live radio are weaker than the competition. The "For You" feed leans on broad genre buckets where Pandora's Music Genome and Spotify's collaborative-filtering models would surface something specific. And users continue to report being charged for subscriptions while still seeing ads, with customer-service follow-up that ranges from slow to invisible.
CONCLUSION
Install this if live AM/FM and a deep US podcast bench are why you're here — nothing else on Android does that job as well, and the free tier is genuinely free. Skip it if you want a music-first on-demand library; Spotify and Apple Music are better and cheaper for that. Watch whether iHeart can dial back the ad density on free playback before the one-star reviews calcify into a reputation problem.