I’ve been using Scriptable to display a “Now Playing” widget for RP on iOS. I cobbled it together from some random code bits I picked up from the web, then customized it. It lets you see the album covers and song title/artist for the currently playing song on any RP channel.

To use it:

1. Install the Scriptable app on your iOS device if it’s not there already
2. Launch the Scriptable app, then create and save a new script using the code at the end of this post
3. Create a new widget (or widget stack) on your iOS device, choosing “Scriptable” as the type and any of the Run Script widgets it can make
4. Specify the newly-made script from step 2 above, adding the parameter for the channel you’d like the widget to display (main, mellow, rock, world). If you don’t add a parameter, “main” will default

If you put 4 calls to your widget in a widget stack, you can just scroll through all the channels and see covers.

The only thing I can’t control is how quickly the screen updates, since iOS doesn’t apparently let you have too much control over that. But it’ll always refresh if you tap it (but it launches the Scriptable app to show it). 

Here’s the code:
let stationName = "main"
let stationID = 0
stationId = getConfiguredStationId()
let nowPlaying = await loadNowPlaying(stationId)
let widget = await createWidget(nowPlaying, stationName)

if (config.runsInWidget) {
Script.setWidget(widget)
Script.complete()
} else await widget.presentLarge()

async function createWidget(nowPlaying,stationName) {

let widget = new ListWidget()
widget.setPadding(8, 10, 12, 10)

// set gradient background with transparency
let gradient = new LinearGradient()
gradient.colors =
gradient.locations = <0.0, 1>
widget.backgroundGradient = gradient
widget.backgroundColor = new Color("#1c1c1c")

// load image
let coverArt = await loadImage(nowPlaying.cover)
widget.backgroundImage = coverArt

//Set refresh time unless this song is almost over
//Only mess with this if we have more than "enough" seconds left
const enough = 4
if (nowPlaying.time > enough) {
const n = new Date(Date.now())
widget.refreshAfterDate = new Date((Number(n) + 1000 * Math.max(1, nowPlaying.time-enough)))
} else widget.refreshAfterDate = null


widget.addSpacer()

//add channel
let channelTxt = widget.addText("RP " + stationName)
channelTxt.font = Font.semiboldRoundedSystemFont(12)
channelTxt.textColor = Color.red()

// add title and artist
let titleTxt = widget.addText(nowPlaying.title)
titleTxt.font = Font.boldRoundedSystemFont(15)
titleTxt.textColor = Color.white()
widget.addSpacer(2)

let artistTxt = widget.addText(nowPlaying.artist)
artistTxt.font = Font.boldRoundedSystemFont(14)
artistTxt.textColor = Color.yellow()
//widget.url = "vlc-x-callback://x-callback-url/stream?url=https://stream.radioparadise.com/" + stationName

return widget

}

// verify the configured flac stream
function getConfiguredStationId() {
let param = args.widgetParameter
let stationID
//if(param != null) {
switch (param) {
case 'main':
stationId = 0
stationName = "Main"
break
case 'mellow':
stationId = 1
stationName = "Mellow"
break
case 'rock':
stationId = 2
stationName = "Rock"
break
case 'world':
stationId = 3
stationName = "World"
break
default:
stationId = 0
stationName = "Main"
}
return stationId
}

// helper function to load and parse a restful json api
async function loadNowPlaying(stationId) {
const url = "https://api.radioparadise.com/api/now_playing?chan=" + stationId
let req = new Request(url)
let json = await req.loadJSON()
return json
}

// helper function to download an image from a given url
async function loadImage(imgUrl) {
let req = new Request(imgUrl)
let image = await req.loadImage()
return image
}