Still searching for that perfect online music streaming application for your iPhone? Spotify may be exactly what you are looking for.
Spotify is a online streaming music service that gives you access to over-the-air streaming of their entire music library, as well as playlist access. Where this application has a leg up on the competition is that you’ll be able to cache playlists locally on your iPhone while in WiFi areas so that you’ll be able to play them back at any time without any data connection. Spotify will be available as a free app download but will only be available to premium customers who pay £9.99 a month for the service.
Now comes the disappointing part of the story — Spotify is not available here in the United States or Canada due to licensing restrictions. Sorry folks, we will have to make do with Pandora, Pocket Tunes, etc…
How many of you, our valued readers, think Apple will let this one slip into the App Store? Will it get rejected for “duplicating functionality”? Or will it mysteriously disappear into the abyss like so many applications before it?
iTunes 8.1 brought us some snazzy improvements to Party ShuffleiTunes DJ and the iPhone’s Remote app. That wasn’t the only iPhone-related improvement, however, as Ars Techica notes, there’s a new feature that used to be reserved for the iPod Shuffle that you can now use for the iPhone: Autofill.
Autofill essentially lets you just fill up the empty space on your iPhone with some randomly chosen music (you can choose to leave some space open for installing apps and the like later on). As somebody who’s not really into constantly creating playlists and managing albums, it’s a nice option. A nice option that’s squirreled away in a pretty difficult to find place.
After the break, we walk you through the steps (courtesy of the Ars Article) screenshot-by-screenshot.
Read the rest of this entry »
Well Tap Tap Revenge 2 is now available in the App Store and for a great low price: Free!
Right off the bat, Tap Tap Revenge 2 comes with more than 150 free
downloadable tracks, and we’ll continue to add great new tracks every
week. The three bundled tracks in the game are some of our favorites.
Death Cab for Cutie’s “The Sound of Settling“ is supremely catchy and
super fun to play.Stroke 9 went into the studio to write and record
Tap Tap DomiNation, the hot new title track for Tap Tap Revenge 2.
Tap Tap Revenge 2 has the same addictive gameplay as the first game but add a completely new look and feel to it with some additional new features. Some of these new features are: a online multiplayer mode, 3-D experience where the feedback and the colors get crazier the better you do in the game, multi-tap – tap & hold and instant tap feedback make
the game more challenging and fun at the higher levels, a career mode, and finally a kids mode.
Once again, you can download this game for free in the App Store today. And don’t forget to keep an eye out for free and paid music track downloads in the near future!
CNet takes a look, 6 years later, at Steve Jobs’ 2003 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine and the checklist of predictions — make that accomplishments — is impressive. Then again, Steve Jobs did make his name, and Apple’s, with just that kind of market savvy:
iPod (and now iPhone) could be more important to Apple than the Mac
Big media doesn’t understand technology
iTunes would be non-trivial for others to copy in 6 months (make that 6 years?)
Copyright is important. Theft corrodes the soul. Apple will provide a legal alternative
iTunes could sell 1 billion songs a year (now selling 1 billion in 6 months)
What’s even more interesting is seeing how Steve Jobs’ insight not only helped change the face of computers (Apple, Mac), Music (iPod, iTunes), retail (Apple Store), movies (Pixar) but now also cell phones (iPhone). Mostly linked together (Pixar more tangentially), but with the same focus on premium quality, unsurpassed user experience, and utter simplicity of execution.
Makes me even more eager for the iPhone 2,1 (iPhone HD?) to really bring it all together…
During his Macworld Keynote (see our MASSIVE Live blog!), Phil Schiller today announced the death of the iPhone (and iPod Touch) WiFi Music Store — and the birth of the WiFi and 3G Music Store!
Yup, iPhone 3G users can now browser and directly download music over the data network for anywhere, anytime access to new music.
UPDATE: Daring Fireball says downloads work over 2G/EDGE as well!
It seems to already be working, and working in multiple countries (including Canada! Yay!)
Have you downloaded any music directly to your iPhone yet? How did it work for you?
Sonos is a “multi-room music system” that lets you wirelessly stream music to any “zone” in your house either independently or synchronized together using a centralized controller. And, oh yeah, that centralized controller can be an iPhone or iPod Touch.
Chad, with the help of his friend, gave us a first look at using Sonos with the iPhone in lieu of its traditional controller, and raised some great pros (total iPhone control of all music, in every room, of your Sonos-enabled home) and cons (iPhone relegated merely to control, and not leveraged for the media-powerhouse it is in its own right as well) about the experience. So great, in fact, that when Sonos offered TiPb a limited-time demo to test it out, I jumped at the chance.
Since I’m not a Sonos user, not an audiophile, and not particularly interested in struggling anymore with complicated setup procedures, I thought it would be ideal to approach this from a new-user perspective, and one used to the iPhone ecosystem where things (often) “just work”.
Apple has put up a special iTunes page showing off the top free and top paid apps of 2008. In addition to the overall standings, Apps are also broken out according to categories like Games, Entertainment, Music, Utilities, and Social Networks.
Koi Pond leads the paid apps while Facebook owns the free. To see the complete list, head on over to iTunes.
For more, also check out Top Music, Movies, Podcasts, and Audiobooks for iTunes 2008. (And while you’re at it, consider adding Phone different and iPhone Live! to your feeds for 2009 )
[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!
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…
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!
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