How to Develop an Audio Streaming App

Why do users choose streaming services?

Because they don’t have to download gigabytes of music or other audio tracks onto their device — one little app provides it all. Another advantage is that they can easily connect with people in any part of the world: whether it’s listening to an online lecture or meeting new people in audio dating apps.

We will look at the elements that make up these types of apps. So if you have a great idea of your own streaming app, read this article till the end!

🤔 Key Points to Consider in Building Audio Streaming App

Before you start to create an audio streaming app, there are some things worth your attention.

Audio storage and streaming protocol 📳

Before developing the streaming app, you have to decide how to store and transit tracks to your listener.

You can use a physical server to organize storage, and the distribution server will spread your content to other devices. The physical server is better for sites with a consistently high load. This option is more secure and reliable, but it is also more expensive.

Another option is cloud services like Amazon S3, Cloud CDN, or any other with a Content Delivery Network. Cloud storage enables faster data transfer by distributing its storage across multiple geographical locations.

Also, Spotify and SoundCloud allow broadcasting from their catalogs using API.

To give listeners a perfect seamless broadcasting experience, choose an appropriate streaming protocol. These are the most commonly used ones:

• WebRTC protocols are used to transfer audio in real-time. They are useful for live streaming and audio chat apps like Clubhouse.
• UDP protocol would be ideal for radio streaming. Unlike WebRTC, apps with UDP protocol don’t require listener registration to reach a wider audience.
• TCP protocol is used for storing and serial data transmission. It is the best solution for music streaming app like Apple Music, podcast app, and audiobooks.

📱 Essential Features of the Audio Streaming App

The list of app features can be quite long. This is affected by your purpose, your niche, and the needs of your users. Yet, the better you adjust your streaming app to the needs of your users, the more people will continue to use the app.

User profile 👥

It’s not a compulsory part, but it will improve app usability. Listeners will be able to subscribe to their favorite artists, save tracks and see their listening history. The app becomes more personalized, and recommendations are selected better. With personal profiles, the owner will know more about the target audience and understand its interests.

Push notifications 🔔

Let people know about your next live stream or the release of a song by their favorite artists. You can also inform users about app updates during a short banner message.

🎧 Types & Special Features of Audio Streaming Apps

Audio streaming apps exist not just for listening to music –– their capabilities are much broader. There are many businesses and start-ups that could benefit from this kind of app.

Podcasts 🎙

More than 40% of Americans actively listen to podcasts every month. This is an increase of 3% compared to 2020. The industry is actively growing, so the number of podcasts is also rising.

If you want to build a podcast app, here are some special features that will improve the experience of your users:

• An offline listening feature might be added to podcast apps. This is especially needed in countries with poor mobile internet speed.
• Invite users to rate podcasts and update your list of top episodes for the day or week. But to make it even more interesting, add a social media sharing feature and create a top list of podcasts shared by your users.
• You can also add push notifications when new podcast episodes are released so that listeners know when they need to download the latest one.

Here are just some examples, but if your business is not on this list and you want to create a voice chat, an online lecture app, or anything else, please email us!

✅ Case Study: Feel amazing

At Stormotion, we have implemented audio streaming functionality in the Feel Amazing app. This is a project by a British hypnotherapist and motivational speaker Ailsa Frank that provides people with online audio courses.

The app replaced the bulky process of getting access to the tracks via the website and Dropbox. Now, users are able to listen to online courses just in the app, using a built-in player.

We also implemented different categories based on the type of content. For example, users can browse Sleep & Relaxation or Motivation categories as well as jump in to continue already started tracks.

Another interesting detail about the app is that users can choose a nature sound they’d like to put on the background while listening to the track.

Finally, the app features some content on topics like taking control of alcohol. Yet, since some content may still be highly relevant and useful to a younger audience, we introduced the Child Lock feature that hides courses for adults.

🖥 Admin Panel Functionality

It is necessary for you to control media content and users in the system at any time. You can manage the app by yourself or create roles (content maker, customer support, etc.) for your team members to help you provide the best user experience.

For the admin panel is available this set of features:

• Adding, editing, or deleting audio tracks.
• Adding new artists or podcasters.
• Change users’ status.
• Schedule live streaming.
• Updating pricing (for paid subscriptions).
• Statistics.

This is only a sample set of features. You can always ask developers to extend it with whatever you need.

💡 Takeaways

We hope this article helped you understand more about streaming app development. It's an excellent opportunity to get into the streaming world and establish yourself there.

We have some tips to help you attract to your app as many customers as possible:

• Be guided by the needs of your target audience. Research what features they really need.
• Your app must be user-friendly. For your listener, it has to be intuitive how everything works.
• Work out the recommendations section.

If you are searching for an experienced Development Team to build your streaming app, feel free to contact us! We will be happy to help you with your idea’s realization.