Posts tagged with "music"

iPod Eclipse→

Benedict Evans:

As music has moved on from the iPod, it has actually become much less important to the tech industry. With streaming and the decline of ownership, there are fewer barriers to switching service, and every device has a choice of music services, both from the platform owner (i.e. Apple/Google/Microsoft/Nokia etc) and as third-party apps. In effect,  music has become a commodity.

Compare this to dedicated eBook readers, which still have a feature that smartphones haven’t replicated (E Ink). The iPod didn’t have exclusive features that tied music (and customers) to the device; the built-in WiFi and cellular options of iPhones facilitated the rise of streaming services and access over ownership. The only iPod-only feature I can think about is storage in the 160 GB iPod Classic; millions of people just don’t need an iPod anymore.

For further evidence, look at Apple’s upcoming launches: iTunes Radio can be used on iPod touches connected to WiFi, but iPhones (and cellular iPads) can use it all the time.

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Apple Airs New iPhone 5 Commercial: “Music Every Day”

Following the “Photos Every Day” commercial first aired last month, Apple today posted a new iPhone 5 ad called “Music Every Day”. As the name suggests, it is a follow-up to the previous commercial, this time with a focus on music.

Music Every Day doesn’t show music apps – instead it puts the spotlight on people enjoying music with their iPhones and Apple’s distinctive white earbuds. The commercial includes a variety of everyday situations – from exercising and waiting in line to a DJ set and a group of friends listening to music in their car. It’s not about the playback feature itself, it’s about music as a life companion.

Apple only briefly shows the iOS Music app in the commercial. The spotlight, unlike the Photos commercial, isn’t strictly on the iPhone’s display itself – rather, it emphasizes how music can seamlessly fit in our lives thanks to a device that’s often carried in a pocket, put on a table or outside of the shower, or shared with friends. The protagonist of the ad isn’t the iPhone per se: it’s people relying on it to enjoy their music.

The iPhone qualities that Apple subtly implies (intuitiveness of the interface, sound quality, portability) are important, but secondary. The voiceover sums it up at the end: “Every day, more people enjoy their music on the iPhone than any other phone”. With an elegant juxtaposition, the ad fades to black.

Apple hasn’t uploaded the new commercial to its website yet, but you can watch the official YouTube version below.

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Thoughts On Twitter #music

Music

Music

Earlier today, Twitter released its official #music app.[1] This first release, like Vine before, is iPhone-only with a web counterpart. I believe that Music, more than Vine, can give an indication of the direction Twitter may take in regards to its media strategy. But first, I’d like to highlight two excerpts from Twitter’s blog post announcing Music:

Twitter and music go great together. People share and discover new songs and albums every day. Many of the most-followed accounts on Twitter are musicians, and half of all users follow at least one musician. This is why artists turn to Twitter first to connect with their fans — and why we wanted to find a way to surface songs people are tweeting about.

Today, we’re releasing Twitter #music, a new service that will change the way people find music, based on Twitter. It uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists. It also brings artists’ music-related Twitter activity front and center: go to their profiles to see which music artists they follow and listen to songs by those artists. And, of course, you can tweet songs right from the app.

“Tweets and engagement” are key factors of the algorithm Twitter is using to “detect and surface” tracks, both popular and emerging. The fact that half of all users (active or not) follow at least one musician on Twitter is an important metric to keep in mind. Read more

Twitter Announces #music App→

From the Twitter blog:

Today, we’re releasing Twitter #music, a new service that will change the way people find music, based on Twitter. It uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists. It also brings artists’ music-related Twitter activity front and center: go to their profiles to see which music artists they follow and listen to songs by those artists. And, of course, you can tweet songs right from the app.

The new app isn’t available on the App Store yet (tip: to check, refresh Twitter’s page in iTunes using CMD+R). Twitter #music will launch with direct support for iTunes previews, plus Rdio and Spotify streaming for users who have accounts on those service. I’m interested to see how Twitter will handle the login process for Rdio and Spotify, but based on what I’m reading, it sounds like a good idea. Maybe Twitter does have the network infrastructure and willingness to do social music right.

I’ll leave more thoughts for a review. In the meantime, check out Twitter’s official #music landing page, and Joanna Stern’s preview of the app at ABC News.

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Status Board’s Samba de Setup→

Cabel Sasser:

One of the things we wanted to make truly excellent in our brand-new Status Board iPad app was the setup process. Setup assistants are never fun, always annoying, and kill that “new app” buzz faster than anything. The only thing worse is that giant overlay some apps do that draw arrows all over your screen pointing to all the buttons and things like some demented football coach.

In my review, I likened the illustrations and tone of the QuickGuide Manual to Portal’s GLaDOS, but I forgot to mention the music. Now you can listen to it on Cabel’s blog. I want to make this my new iPhone ringtone.

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Nasturtium Player→

Nasturtium Player

I first mentioned the public beta of Nasturtium Player back in November 2012. Nasturtium is an interesting take on an “iTunes mini player” mixed with a queuing system and a way to play videos from YouTube within a single interface. I wrote:

The concept of combining local music with YouTube videos resonates with my music workflow. While I tend to listen to music on Rdio, there are some older albums and songs that I need to keep locally either in iTunes or, most recently, Plex with PlexSync; similarly, there are YouTube videos of older demoes or live concerts of my favorite bands that I want to access every once in a while. I like how Nasturtium unifies search of local media and YouTube videos in a single interface.

Nasturtium has been out on the App Store for a few weeks now, and I like the improvements that went into the final version. There are keyboard shortcuts to control playback and playlists, and YouTube videos (while not resizable) now have preview thumbnails. Adding items to the queue is still as easy as hitting Enter, but you can also drag a song (from either iTunes or YouTube search results) into the main playlist interface, or use a “+” button. I particularly appreciate the possibility to collapse headers in search results to filter down results to Tracks or Albums (sorting options are also available).

As usual when trying new apps, it’s the care about small details that stands out to me. I like the thinking process that went into Nasturtium. The amount of minutes “remaining” in a playlist is available in the status bar at the bottom, but you can click it to show total minutes; similarly, while you can click the Play/Pause buttons to trigger playback, you can double-click the Play one to skip a track. As detailed in the app’s Help page, you can search by rating and genre as well simply by typing the information you need. I recommend reading more about the design process of the app here.

Nasturtium Player is $5 on the App Store.

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Ecoute for iOS→

Ecoute for iOS

A while ago our Lukas Hermann published an in-depth review of Ecoute for iOS:

From now on, Ecoute for iOS is my new default music player for iOS. Its UI features every design decision I ever wanted to have on my iPod touch. Plus, it eases up changing and pausing tracks while browsing through your music library, something I often do while I’m on the go. I can’t wait to see this thing on the iPad as well. If you’re a music and design enthusiast like me, or just dislike the system music player on your iPhone or iPod touch, you have to try it out.

Last week, I saw Ecoute had been updated for the iPhone 5, and I decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did, because the app works perfectly for the way I think of browsing my music collection.

The thing I like about Ecoute is that it displays Artists using album thumbnails. The Music app does this only for the Albums view, and then again they’re small thumbnails arranged in a list view. Ecoute is more similar to iTunes’ grid view, which I use on my Mac. When you tap on an album, instead of going deeper into the level views, Ecoute brings up a modal popup that you can dismiss with a swipe – this is not too dissimilar from how the upcoming iTunes 11 will expand albums inline. If you tap on an artist that has multiple albums, a nice animation will “drill down” to show the album thumbnails. Last, when you tap on a song, it starts playing in a bottom bar without opening a new view in the foreground – and that’s exectly all I want from a music app.

Ecoute looks gorgeous on the iPhone 5. If you’re looking for a complete overview of all its features, check out Lukas’ review. For me, Ecoute works better than Apple’s Music app because it reflects the way I tend to browse my music collection.

Ecoute is available at $2.99 on the App Store.

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Review: Magellan Virtual Analog iPad Synthesizer

In my post about the current state of music-making and discovery on the iPad, I concluded with a roundup of the best, most sophisticated software to professionally create music on the iPad. As I did with shuffler.fm and discovery, I would today like to add a new app to the list of the best software synths available for the iPad. The app that I found worthy of being added is the newest product by music software company Yonac Inc, called Magellan.

Yonac made a name for itself by producing an extensive amount of music-related apps since early 2010. One of their most elaborate and popular efforts has been the Shredder guitar synth to create analog and digital synth leads or pads by playing guitar into the iPad through an interface like the IK Multimedia iRig or the Apogee JAM. The company was also right there when the iPad got unveiled. They developed and promoted one of the very first synth software for the iPad, the Yonac miniSynth.

Magellan is their new masterpiece. It’s a fully fleshed-out virtual analog synth with a lot of power. Let me sum up its basic feature set: two synthesizer engines running at the same time, each of them equipped with three oscillators for basic sound generation, frequency modulation, a step sequencer, and two filters plus eight effects. The app has got an easy to understand interface and produces an immense variety of sounds in very high audio quality. This review not only judges the quality and usability of Magellan, I will also give so detailed instructions and tricks so that you immediately can start making sophisticated music tracks with the app right after you’ve downloaded it. So, if you are curious, stay a while and let me explain you how Magellan works and why it may become a strong competitor to other high-end iPad synths like the KORG iMS-20 or the Sunrizer.

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Shuffler.fm Is The Perfect Tool For Genre-Specific Music Discovery

About a month and a half ago, I published a post about the current state of music making and discovery on the iPad. In the first part of that post I listed, described, and analyzed some prominent apps for discovering new music on the iPad. I concluded that these apps are state of the art when it comes to discovering music. Last week, while searching for music integration features for a music blog I run as a side project, I stumbled upon shuffler.fm. And after using it for some days now, I wish I could rewind time and add this service to the list in my music editorial, because it does something the other apps like Aweditorium or even radio apps like Tuner do not offer: it combines genre-specific music discovery with reviews and critical opinion. Read more