Review Insights · App Store
LiveATC Air Radio
Dave Pascoe · 634 ratings · ★ 3.6
3.6
★★★★★
634 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 23 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"money"
7 negative reviews mention this · 30% of all complaints
★★★★★ "It’s OK when it works. Channels are down too often and stay down too long. Don’t waste your money on this app. There are better options out there." - Snoopdc123
2
"channel"
7 negative reviews mention this · 30% of all complaints
★★★★★ "It’s OK when it works. Channels are down too often and stay down too long. Don’t waste your money on this app. There are better options out there." - Snoopdc123
3
"quality"
5 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Not worth the pay for app. I’ve been using the app ATC which is phenomenal, but it didn’t have one small airport I was flying to (Cleveland Hopkins) and saw that liveatc provides coverage however the quality and speed is absolutely horrible compared to ATC app which …" - Fayssal1997
4
"down"
5 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "It’s OK when it works. Channels are down too often and stay down too long. Don’t waste your money on this app. There are better options out there." - Snoopdc123
5
"waste"
5 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "It’s OK when it works. Channels are down too often and stay down too long. Don’t waste your money on this app. There are better options out there." - Snoopdc123
6
"waste money"
5 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
7
"work"
5 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "It’s OK when it works. Channels are down too often and stay down too long. Don’t waste your money on this app. There are better options out there." - Snoopdc123
8
"been"
4 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Not worth the pay for app. I’ve been using the app ATC which is phenomenal, but it didn’t have one small airport I was flying to (Cleveland Hopkins) and saw that liveatc provides coverage however the quality and speed is absolutely horrible compared to ATC app which …" - Fayssal1997
9
"channels"
4 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "It’s OK when it works. Channels are down too often and stay down too long. Don’t waste your money on this app. There are better options out there." - Snoopdc123
10
"frequency"
4 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "SUPER Unreliable. 2026 Update: Besides the expected inconsistent quality of volunteer-provided streams (mostly bad), the LiveATC servers themselves can’t seem to provide a consistent connection. Constant drops and buffering delays and disconnections. Funny …" - Q4242
11
"does"
4 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Terrible. It’s really sad that this app essentially has a monopoly on what it does because it’s really poorly designed. Awful UI. Audio frequently loops. Really annoying to find a channel based on the frequency." - EG1451
12
"audio"
4 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Terrible. It’s really sad that this app essentially has a monopoly on what it does because it’s really poorly designed. Awful UI. Audio frequently loops. Really annoying to find a channel based on the frequency." - EG1451
📋 All 23 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Not worth the pay for app
I’ve been using the app ATC which is phenomenal, but it didn’t have one small airport I was flying to (Cleveland Hopkins) and saw that liveatc provides coverage however the quality and speed is absolutely horrible compared to ATC app which provides a very user friendly interface with captions and live flight points on map. I’d highly not recommend buying this app for anyone
Terrible
It’s really sad that this app essentially has a monopoly on what it does because it’s really poorly designed. Awful UI. Audio frequently loops. Really annoying to find a channel based on the frequency.
Local ATC down
KTMB has been down for weeks
KMIA
Fix your Miami Tower feed. Horrible!
Buy a cup of coffee instead
Poor build quality, with no explanation provided for why certain channels are down or whether they will return.
Dsan56
Disappointing audio quality, hit and miss communications. Not what I expected.
DOES NOT STREAM FEEDS
I suspect the app may no longer be maintained or supported. It’s nicely featured and layed out, it just does not deliver the feeds. Worse, it stopped my device’s ability to stream ANY video from any source such as Prime, Hulu, etc. That’s pretty serious. Had to uninstall.
I read the critical reviews and gambled five bucks on this anyway. Duh! Lost my money. Next time I’m heeding the warnings.
I read the critical reviews and gambled five bucks on this anyway. Duh! Lost my money. Next time I’m heeding the warnings.
Not working on iPad
Not working on iPad
Disappointing
Definitely could be a better layout especially that the app isn’t free but the website is…
Don’t buy
Doesn’t work have the time.
Not the best
Constantly stopping and freezing, leave the channel running for a couple minutes then it pauses itself and you have to close the app to restart. A lot of frequencies don’t work fully and the ones that do have there issues as well. Not worth it.
Don’t waste your money!!
I just downloaded this app, nothing works. I’ve tried a few channels and they all say connection error. I’ve tried clicking on diagrams and things and nothing comes up. My Internet is working just fine. It took about 10 seconds to take my money and upload the app, I’ve been waiting to connect to a channel for 20 minutes now. Not happening.
Very poor Don’t waste your money
This app basically gives you the impression that it can will work at any airport . IT DOESN’T !!!!! I live about 1 mile MDT Harrisburg International airport and although this app has what looks like the frequencies loaded up on this app those airport frequency are always down . What a joke I can see the commercial jets taking off and you know they are talking to the tower and see them on radar on another app. It’s just I can’t listen to the tower talking to the planes, because this app seems to not be function correctly . I feel like I got ripped off of $3.99 . What a joke ! Like I said don’t waste your money !! I would rate them a zero if I could …..
No archive access in the app
Was very disappointed I couldn’t find archived recordings from today.
Very Upset!
I bought this app thinking you guys would have SeaTac listened at a live Atc channel and it’s not there…you guys have a lot of other major airports besides this… I know it would not be hard to add at all. Please fix this😁
DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY
Sat at Founders Plaza in KDFW and downloaded this app. Not one channel would come through. Then got back to hotel and tried to try any near by airports and channels.. nothing! Just says “unable to load stream”.
This app is pure garbage
This app is pure garbage
Does not work
I purchased the app to listen to the frequency and you do not get the conversation. You only get partial at best. I would not waste your money on this app.
It’s OK when it works
Channels are down too often and stay down too long. Don’t waste your money on this app. There are better options out there.
SUPER Unreliable
2026 Update:
Besides the expected inconsistent quality of volunteer-provided streams (mostly bad), the LiveATC servers themselves can’t seem to provide a consistent connection. Constant drops and buffering delays and disconnections. Funny enough the app seems to work slightly better than the website now, but overall I wouldn’t recommend anyone spending actual money on this service.
Original review (2022):
I much prefer the website to the app.
First, on the website it clearly lists the frequency alongside the description. On the app it will just provide the name (i.e. KSEA Ground) without a frequency. To find the freq you have to select the channel and then select “view frequency.” There is ample room on all pages to show freqs, requiring extra click-throughs is just bad UI.
Second, there is SIGNIFICANT delay on the app vs. the website. The website is typically within a few seconds of real-time, whereas the app takes a very long time to load a channel and consistently has delays of 30 seconds or more. If you’re listening to ATC in conjunction with plane spotting, such a delay makes the app practically unusable. I’m still a huge LiveATC supporter and the website is still an excellent resource, unfortunately this app is poorly built with too much lag to be useful.
Besides the expected inconsistent quality of volunteer-provided streams (mostly bad), the LiveATC servers themselves can’t seem to provide a consistent connection. Constant drops and buffering delays and disconnections. Funny enough the app seems to work slightly better than the website now, but overall I wouldn’t recommend anyone spending actual money on this service.
Original review (2022):
I much prefer the website to the app.
First, on the website it clearly lists the frequency alongside the description. On the app it will just provide the name (i.e. KSEA Ground) without a frequency. To find the freq you have to select the channel and then select “view frequency.” There is ample room on all pages to show freqs, requiring extra click-throughs is just bad UI.
Second, there is SIGNIFICANT delay on the app vs. the website. The website is typically within a few seconds of real-time, whereas the app takes a very long time to load a channel and consistently has delays of 30 seconds or more. If you’re listening to ATC in conjunction with plane spotting, such a delay makes the app practically unusable. I’m still a huge LiveATC supporter and the website is still an excellent resource, unfortunately this app is poorly built with too much lag to be useful.
Thumbs down
I paid the $4.99 plus tax and have changed from one channel to another at Major airports that I know stay busy and surely have plenty of radio traffic in the towers. So far after 20 minutes I cannot hear one word. The app buffers over and over with no transmissions. Thumbs down.
Delayed audio
LiveATC is a great service, but the app itself seems very underdeveloped. It does have some cool things like the ability to mix audio on top of other audio sources, although I wish it would attenuate or mute other audio sources whenever the radio stream goes active so you can actually tell what they’re saying. The biggest dealbreaker though is the large delay compared to the website
Terrible transmission.
Full of static and terrible audio. Most airports don't even have many of the frequencies working. So far it's been useless
Price misrepresented
I just downloaded the app and it was listed at $3.99 in my feed. When I clicked on the $3.99 button and downloaded it, I was charged $9.99 through Apple Pay immediately. I haven’t opened it yet, so I can’t report to the quality of the app, but I’m very disappointed in the additional charge that wasn’t stated.
Sentiment summary
62%
Positive (4-5★)
9%
Neutral (3★)
29%
Negative (1-2★)