The Radio industry believes the iPod is a serious competitor. As iPods of every size and shape fly off the shelves of Apple retail stores, Radio sees listeners opting for non-RF choices, and that is worrying. The industry is responding by making its content available on the iPod and iPhone, trying to get a foot in the door of the new technology. And, for the most part, it’s effective.

When Steve Jobs previewed the iPhone’s ability to download applications in January of 2008 at his MacWorld Keynote speech, one of the programs he showed off was one from AOL that streamed CBS owned radio stations. The iPhones geo-location feature is used to find a user’s local CBS stations. That’s a killer feature. Sure, it turns a $299 hi tech device into an $8 transistor radio, but that’s not the point. Having radio content available on an already powerful device is  a wonderful application of the technology.

More and more, stations and networks are creating iPhone apps that allow users to receive their content via the iPhone. Clear Channel is working on this, as well.

One application I absolutely love is Minnesota Public Radio’s iPhone app. It’s free, and gives an iPhone user the ability to tune into one of three streams, News, Classical (music) or Current. It’s wonderful.

Expect this trend to continue.