All Articles Tagged Music

[This is an iPhone blog App vs. App review! Last week, we ran our Google Earth vs. Earthscape showdown, with Google Earth scoring the win. But which commenter won an iTunes gift certificate? Congratulations musicobsession! Want your chance to win the winning app this week? Comment below!]

Have you ever had a song running on infinite loop in your brain but can’t quite place the name or artist? What about those times you are in a store or in your car and you hear a song that you really like, but you have no idea what the name of the song or artist is? Fortunately, there are two excellent FREE apps for your iPhone, Shazam and Midomi, that can help you name the song and artist, watch the music video, and even buy the song. How do they compare? Read on for App vs. App, music tagging edition!

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Before you get excited, I realize that not all of you know what Sonos is. Sonos is a way to control all of the music in your home (including Internet radio such as Pandora and Last FM), room by room. 

Needless to say, the announcement from Sonos that you can now control all of this via your iPhone is really exciting! I personally don’t use Sonos, but I have a friend that does, and he filled me on on the scoop…

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Gizmodo brings word of what may be one of the higher profile, and more innovative Apps to hit the iTunes Store yet:

Developed by ambient pioneer Brian Eno and musician/software designer Peter Chilvers, Bloom explores uncharted territory in the realm of applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. Part instrument, part composition and part artwork, Bloom’s innovative controls allow anyone to create elaborate patterns and unique melodies by simply tapping the screen. A generative music player takes over when Bloom is left idle, creating an infinite selection of compositions and their accompanying visualisations.

I am the opposite of musical, so this one is beyond me, but if anyone out there gives this a whirl, please let us know how it goes!

One of the last “advantages” CDs had over music downloads (like iTunes or Amazon MP3) is the printed extras they could include in booklets, like photos, art, lyrics, and other assorted bonus material.

Well, get ready to kiss that goodbye. According to TechCrunch, who bills the story as “Apple Puts One More Nail Into the CD Coffin”:

Apple will make [an App Store application] available to users in tandem with the release of Snow Patrol’s upcoming album, A Hundred Million Suns. The app will add the extra features to more iTunes albums over time, but because it will be made available through the company’s App Store, it will only provide the extra content on the iPhone and iPod touch.

Release date is on or around October 27, and it sounds (and looks!) good to us! Now if only the woefully out-of-touch recording industry would stop punishing legitimate consumers and provide DRM-free, 256-bit MP3’s to iTunes the same way they give them to all its rivals, they might actually figure out a working 21st century business model!

Today’s Lightning Review comes from FoilTape, a review of Midomi, free on iTunes. Most people have been raving about Shazam for identifying music, but Midomi seems to work better with humming and the like. Let’s see what FoilTape thinks!

Midomi calls itself “the ultimate search and discovery.” It’s a FREE, cool and engaging app that definitely has scored ‘wow’ points with me. Midomi is a song recognition program that you can sing to, hum to, talk to, or type to. You can even hold your iPhone up to your car stereo to capture the sound. Midomi then searches its database and tries to decipher your best karaoke attempt and gives back likely matches.

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(Today’s Lightning Review comes from BaLLi5t1c, a full review of the awesome Pandora Radio app (available on iTunes for free!). BaLLi5t1c gets a 25% off coupon to the iPhone Blog Accessory store. Want one yourself? Post a review in our forums — full details here)

This is my first time writing a review for an iPhone app, partly because I just received my 16GB Black this past Friday and partly because I’ve been basking in the glory that is the App Store, and I couldn’t think of a more deserving app than Pandora Radio to review.

For those of you who have never heard of Pandora Radio, I’m sure you’re wondering what it is exactly and why I would make such a bold statement in my title. Allow me to enlighten you.

To put it lightly, Pandora Radio is a heaven-sent program/application that will allow you to stream music that you’ve never heard of but probably should have, music that you listened to many moons ago but somehow let slip into obscurity with those passing moons, music that is probably still in your current rotation in iTunes, and anything in between. Not too shabby, eh?

You might ask, “BaLLi5t1c, how does it do all of that without me hand-picking all of the artists and songs that I want to hear?”

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With the super-fast new 3G iPhone Steve Jobs will all but certainly announce this June, it makes sense that Apple would want to provide services that exploit all that delicious bandwidth, like over-the-air (read: via cell as opposed to WiFi or local sync) ringtones, ringbacks (shudder!), and iTunes Music Store purchases. Sounds great! You’re on the road, away from your WiFi and your computer, and you hear a great song, and it’s available right there via 3G HSDPA download. More songs for us, more content for Apple, and more money for the artists, right?

Wrong. Enter the record labels, who reportedly think that if you buy a song over 3G as opposed to WiFi on your computer, it should somehow give them MORE money. That’s right, a bigger cut for them, meaning higher cost to Apple, meaning (unless Apple eats it like they are with movie sales right now), higher cost to us.

Makes, sense: be given a bigger, more convenient market… demand higher prices.

Where did these guys come from? Did I miss some late-night infomercial…?

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Looking for Internet radio on your iPhone? Tired of not having built-in FM like Zune owners? Look no further than Flytunes (http://www.flytunes.fm/) for the iPhone! Flytunes is a web-based media player for iPhone and iPod touch that allows you to stream music and talk channels for free!

Flytunes offers some decent features. When you navigate from the top of the screen, you can access a wide variety of channels including: Presets, Alternative, Artists, Classical, Country, Dance, Decades, Easy Listening, Eclectic, Jazz, Kids and Family, Local, Pop, R&B, Rock, Sports, Talk, Urban, Weather, and finally World. Some of these categories have as little as one sub-category, others have as many as twelve sub-categories. Regardless of what you are looking for, Flytunes is likely to have a musical flavor to suit your tastes.

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People don’t want to rent their music. So said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Of course, the Jobsinator also said people don’t want to watch video on tiny iPod screens, and we see how far that got him…

So, while 100% unsubstantiated rumor at the moment, The Financial Times (via Apple Insider) is reporting a “tip off” that says Apple is now considering an unlimited music program similar to Nokia’s “Comes With Music”.

Under the terms of that plan, manufacturers would pay the recording industry a per-device fee (passed on to the consumer, ‘natch) that would allow for “unlimited” music over the course of a year. When the year’s up, consumers could either renew the subscription themselves or let it lapse and keep “50-60″ songs they’ve already downloaded.

What the cost(s) will be (guesses range from $5 a month to $100 per device), what kind of DRM (digital rights management) will be in place, what quality compression (128-bit like standard iTunes or higher 256-bit like iTunes+ and Amazon MP3) will be used, and basically every and all other details remain to be announced.

It is noted that, because of it’s existing cell phone billing arrangement, a more traditional monthly subscription model may also be made available exclusively for the iPhone.

The parties (Apple and the music industry) are reportedly still far apart when it comes to terms, but revenue streams makes for strange bedfellows (hi, AT&T!) so we’ll have to wait for another Special Music Event (starring Paul McCartney, of course) to know for sure.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind a subscription service. If the music industry had any sense (please, hold your laughter ’til the end…), they would provide radio-like free streams of low bit-rate music with an easy “buy now” button for higher quality. It would allow people to discover music again, just like the iTunes/Starbucks initiative, and give the rapidly dehydrating recording industry their own little sip of water…

What do you think? Buy or die? Rent over spend? How do you want your iPhone music?

Industry insiders are questioning what impact Apple’s new iPhone could have on the nascent mobile music market (say that three times fast). Even though iPhone is destined for greatness, it still doesn’t change the model for music distribution by tethering users to a desktop rather than OTA (Over The Air) for purchasing and downloading content.

Some analysts, however, say mobile music sales will be dampened as long as users are limited to loading music on their phones via their PCs and Macintosh computers, and blocked from buying music wirelessly. “The whole idea of on-the-go instant gratification isn’t there,” said Ted Cohen, managing partner of media consulting firm Tag Strategic.

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