An unofficial iOS app for The Lot Radio
The Lot Radio is NYC’s premiere independent radio station — a non-profit broadcasting out of a repurposed shipping container in Greenpoint since 2016. Incredible DJs, all over the map musically, the kind of place where you discover new artists every time you tune in. If you don’t know it: fix that.
The official iOS app exists but was missing a bunch of things I wanted, so I built my own.
github.com/jamiew/thelot-ios — open source, MIT, on TestFlight via GitHub releases.
Stuff it does that I wanted
- Background audio — keeps playing when you lock your phone or switch apps
- Audio-only mode — kill the video to save battery, the music’s the point anyway
- Schedule — Today / Tomorrow / Week with show details, tap through to who’s on
- Chat — Discord chat embedded in-app so you can talk to other listeners without bouncing to a browser
- Chromecast — cast to speakers or screens (this one was annoying to get working with Livepeer’s HLS, more on that below)
- AirPlay — obvious but the official app doesn’t do it cleanly
- Lock-screen / Control Center controls — play/pause + show info on the lock screen
- Siri Shortcuts — “Hey Siri, play The Lot Radio”
- Auto-play on launch — toggleable, but on by default since that’s why you opened the app
- iPad + macOS — Split View, Stage Manager, runs on Apple Silicon Macs via “Designed for iPad”
- Dark / light / system theme
- Full-screen landscape for video
Tech notes
SwiftUI, single shared AVPlayer for both audio and video so the stream doesn’t double up when you switch tabs. Google Cast SDK via SPM (the SRGSSR fork) — the Cast Default Receiver can’t handle Livepeer’s master HLS playlist, so the app parses it and sends a single variant URL to the receiver instead. Avoids needing a custom receiver, which would mean Google’s $5 fee and a registration process. Public service config (Google Calendar key, Discord widget key) is checked in — same keys are already exposed on thelotradio.com, no secrets there.
Caveats
Not affiliated with The Lot Radio. All content belongs to the station and the DJs. If you like the app, donate to The Lot — they’re listener-supported and the whole thing only exists because of that.
PRs welcome at jamiew/thelot-ios.