Productivity Sauce

It so happens that my favorite radio station is not available via the TuneIn app for Android, and the only way to listen to the station is to use an alternative SHOUTcast stream. The problem is that none of the media apps on my Android device support streaming via m3u files. A quick search through the Google Play Store yielded a few apps, including ServeStream, an open source app that can handle Internet streams with aplomb. ServeStream is decidedly a one-trick pony: it plays streams and nothing else. It does, however, support playlists in popular formats like m3u, pls, and asx, and can handle the HTTP, HTTPS, MMS and MMSH protocols.

The app also sports a couple of creature comforts like alarm clock and home screen widget. As you would expect, using the app is as easy as pie. Add the URL of stream, or open an existing playlist, and the app will play the stream. ServeStream also lets you organize the added URLs, and you can configure the app to fetch the available SHOUTCast metadata and cover art. All in all, despite its simplicity, ServeStream can prove a genuinely useful app for those looking for a simple solution to listen to Internet streams on Android devices.