The radio industry is rapidly doing their best to have their stations streaming on the iPhone. This, of course, makes a lot of sense, but their method is decidedly not very consumer friendly. In essence, the goal is to have each station have its own streaming app, which users would have on their iPhone home screen. Consumers, on the other hand, want their phone to be like a radio–with many stations accessible via one app, which would integrate presets.Clear Channel has a common sense strategy–consolidating their station streams under the IHeartRadio application, but even that app requires a user of non-Clear Channel stations to have another app available.

The empowered consumer will always win, and in this instance, station apps are being wasted when used for just streams. An integrated radio streaming app will rise to the top, and it will be the de facto “radio” on the iPhone.