(There are now over 500,000 apps available for download. Here’s a look at one of them. Welcome to App Spotlight.)

The App: This American Life

The Device: HTC Android Incredible

The Price: $2.99

What It Does: The official app for the long-running, acclaimed WBEZ radio show This American Life compiles all 400+ episodes into one package, allowing you to stream or download every episode of the show at your leisure (and to live stream new episodes as they air). The app also provides playlists divided up by various contributors, allowing you to seek out and listen to stories produced by your favorite voices without having to dig through the massive archive. In addition, there’s an entire section of extras, both audio and video, including behind-the-scenes looks at the production of the show, interviews with the writers and producers and early work from the crew. It’s definitely an ambitious package.

More after the JUMP…

The Examination: It should go without saying that This American Life is one of the best things to ever happen to radio (or, in this modern age, the best thing to happen to online streaming/podcasts). Thoughtful, intelligent, and always some combination of  heartbreaking, infuriating and hilarious, it’s the pinnacle of what can be accomplished with a non-visual show.

With that said: why did it take me so long to seek out the official app? Well, a quick perusal through the Android Market should provide sufficient evidence. Negative review after negative review, all complaining of frequent forced shut-downs, a poor layout, bizarre bugs and updates that do nothing to alleviate any of these issues. In short, when I finally bit the bullet and plunked down my three dollars, it was with bottom-of-the-barrel expectations.

Maybe that’s why I’ve had a generally positive experience with the app. Then again, to say “Well, it’s not that crummy!” is faint praise, indeed.

Since I already knew the content would not disappoint (even episodes I’ve heard before proved to have significant replay value), I spent a week with the app in constant use, trying to break it, so to speak. The first thing I noticed upon opening the app was the dull interface. It’s serviceable at best, but the deeper you dig into the content, the uglier and buggier it tends to get, with the “Extras” section being the worst offender. Rather than provide a master list of content like the main episode list, the extras section is text heavy and clunky, relying on spotty swiping to maneuver from post to post, making finding a specific item an absolute chore. The bulk of the app, the “Radio Shows” section is far more successful, providing a master list of every episode in the series in chronological order, which allows you to scroll through the list quickly and easily at your leisure. Especially useful is the ability to mark episodes as “heard,” which places a gray box around the episode in the list, letting you easily keep track of what you’ve already listened to. Although the list format is a major improvement over other sections in the app, scrolling through over 400 titles to find a specific episode was occasionally tedious, making my cry out for collapsing year-by-year breakdown.

As awkward as the interface and layout proved to be, I had very few problems with episode playback. The sound quality is nice and being able to minimize the current episode and explore the app (while being able to instantly recall it with a quick tap) proved incredibly useful, especially when I was trying to decide which episode to play next. In fact, as long as the episode was playing, I encountered few issues, listening to an episode as I hopped online, played games or ran other apps. The app also passed the road trip test: four hours in a car with only one — admittedly irritating — force stop. This leads me to believe that the app’s playback works fine on the HTC Incredible, with the numerous user reviews complaining of frequent streaming issues coming from people who use other devices (which you should definitely take as a warning). The only major issue I encountered with streaming was that the app would occasionally “lose” my episode if I paused it for too long, meaning I would have to use the overly sensitive timebar to search for where I left off.

Final Grade: B-. The content gets an A+. The audio playback gets a B. The interface gets a C. If you’re a fan of the show and your phone will actually play the audio with minimal problems, it’s worth the purchase.

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