Payphone Radio vs usrm wave
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Payphone Radio
Experience a unique audio stream featuring hundreds of calls made from New York City payphones. This collection includes spoken commentary, pre-recorded messages, and subway musician performances, preserving the soundscape of a bygone era.
- Hundreds of NYC payphone calls
- Spoken commentary
- Pre-recorded payphone messages
- Subway musician recordings
- Archive of 1600 calls
- Over 63 hours of content
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Payphone Radio is an online radio stream comprising hundreds of calls made from New York City public pay telephones. Most of the audio is spoken commentary by Mark Thomas, but other sounds float through as well. Other audio includes some of the pre-recorded messages heard when calling disconnected payphones. There are also sounds of musicians performing in the New York City subway system, recorded using nearby subway payphones. Virtually all of New York City's payphones are gone. On account of that inevitable reality Payphone Radio, containing 1600 calls and over 63 hours of content recorded from 2010 until the pandemic struck in 2020, is not expected to update with new content. This project had many aims but keeping the grey, monochrome, sometimes poor-quality sound world of the public pay telephone alive for posterity was high among them. Payphone Radio is a spinoff of The Payphone Project, the Internet's original payphone website, online since 1995. The Payphone Project has been featured by The New York Times, CBS Sunday Morning, LA Times and numerous other media outlets.
usrm wave
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usrm wave is a simple recording app that lets you see sound and save the moments you need as WAV files. The app visualizes microphone input with a central dot and waveforms. You can export either the most recent 5-minute capture or a direct recording as a WAV file. Capture stops when the app moves to the background. Main Features - Real-time microphone input visualization - Export the most recent 5-minute capture - Direct recording and WAV file export - Microphone on/off status display - Capture stops when the app moves to the background
Screenshots
Verdict
Payphone Radio and usrm wave are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
| Parameter | Payphone Radio | usrm wave |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 36 months | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 29 MB | 18 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Paul Henshaw | YOUNGSAN CHANG |
In-app purchases
Payphone Radio
No in-app purchases
usrm wave
No in-app purchases









