Frequently asked questions

Ridio can automatically identify the song playing even when the station doesn't broadcast the title or artist.

Manual recognition. Tap the Shazam button on the "Now Playing" screen. Ridio listens for a few seconds and shows title, artist, and album art. You can open the song directly in Apple Music.

Automatic recognition. When the station sends incomplete information (e.g. only the title without the artist, or no album art), Ridio briefly listens in the background to identify the song and update all the info — no action needed from you.

During recognition you'll see iOS's orange privacy indicator appear: it's normal, it shows the microphone is active for a few seconds.

How often does automatic recognition run?

You can choose in the app's Settings:

• Normal — up to 5 times per hour (recommended, low battery use)
• High — up to 10 times per hour (moderate battery use)
• Maximum — up to 30 times per hour (high battery use)

You can turn off automatic recognition at any time from Settings, without affecting manual recognition — you can still use it whenever you want.

Song recognition is a Ridio Premium feature.

Many radio stations broadcast song info incompletely — sometimes there's no album art, other times no title or artist. In those cases Ridio uses ShazamKit, Apple's audio recognition engine, to complete the information automatically without interrupting playback.

During recognition iOS briefly activates the microphone, and the operating system signals this with the orange privacy indicator — it's a protection Apple applies to all apps accessing the microphone, even when use is legitimate and time-limited.

What happens to the audio?

It's processed exclusively on your iPhone by ShazamKit. Ridio doesn't record, store, or transmit any audio. Nobody listens — not even us, since we have no servers.

If you change station from the Lock Screen controls (next/previous), the Live Activity updates immediately with the new station's info.

But if you keep your phone in your pocket and the station broadcasts a new song, the metadata stays the same until you reopen the app.

To update with the screen off, we'd need our own server receiving and forwarding push updates. We chose not to have a server: this way nobody (not even us) can track what you listen to. As soon as you reopen the app, all metadata syncs.

Song info is broadcast by the radio stations themselves, not by Ridio. Often stations don't update metadata accurately — for example they don't signal the end of a song, so the previous title remains even when the DJ is talking or when a new track has started.

Without an explicit "song ended" signal from the station, the app cannot empirically tell when a track is over, so the previous song's metadata stays until the new one arrives.

Ridio faithfully shows what the radio broadcasts. When enabled, automatic recognition helps fill these gaps by identifying the song directly from the audio.

Some radio servers (especially smaller stations or those with older infrastructure) automatically close the connection after a fixed time, usually 2 minutes. It's a server-side configuration of the station, not a Ridio issue. Cellular networks (4G/5G) can also interrupt long streaming connections for reasons related to the mobile network.

Ridio detects the disconnection and automatically reconnects within a few seconds. There are usually no alternative streams for these stations: it's a technical limitation of the broadcasting service, independent of the app you use.