Posts tagged with "music"

iPhone To Play Nice With Ford Cars in 2011

If you have an iPhone and have a 2011 Ford Fiesta – or you’re considering a Ford car for your 2011 car fix – you’ll soon be able to control a couple of apps using your voice. As noted by Engadget, Ford has announced that it will extend of its Sync AppLink Platform to Apple’s smartphone sometime in 2011, allowing iPhone users to control music playing from Pandora vocally. Pandora Radio for iOS and Android is indeed one of the first apps to support Ford’s voice recognition technology in cars.

BlackBerry and Android phones are compatible with Ford’s Sync now, iPhone users will have to wait a little longer. I’ve always been interested in this kind of technologies that let users do stuff in the car without having to look at an additional display, but I do wonder how Ford’s solution will handle high music volume and voice control. I mean, I don’t want to scream to change songs.

Press release embedded below. Read more

NPR Calls Ping One of “The Worst Ideas Of 2010”

In spite of Apple’s numerous attempts to inject new features and 3rd party online integrations in it, Ping is struggling to take off. Not only does the service seem useless and too tied to iTunes to many, several publications are also calling it one of the biggest flops of 2010.

You can now add NPR to the list of Ping non-fans, as they have named Apple’s social network for music one of the “worst ideas of 2010”. Ouch.

The most popular services — the Facebooks, Twitters and MySpaces of the world — allow users to share links, thoughts, ideas, photos and music to connect with each other. Ping, run through iTunes, was supposed to be an evolution in musical connection. But iTunes, being a self-contained fortress requiring endless software upgrades and with more than a few frustrating quirks, isn’t conducive to the type of sharing Web-based networks enjoy across a variety of devices. I can access all three of the aforementioned sites from my Android phone, and I have a variety of apps that allow me to seamlessly integrate these applications into my life. To use Ping, I would have to be tethered to my iMac.

NPR also notes that Ping is a “weakened” version of Twitter only meant to drive sales to the iTunes Store. Looking at artists’ profiles and the messages they share on Ping, it’s not difficult to understand NPR’s position. Perhaps their hammer went down a little too hard on Apple’s new service, though? Sure Ping is not a massive hit, but it has room to grow.

As it stands right now, Apple wants its users to believe in Ping. The problem is, people sometimes don’t want to wait for things to get better. Here’s to hoping Ping will get insanely better in 2011.

First AirPlay Speaker From JBL Surfaces Online

When Apple announced AirPlay, it also confirmed that several AirPlay-enabled third party speakers would come out for consumers to use in conjunction with iPhones and iPads without the need of setting up a wireless system based on AirPort Express. Since then, though, those speakers haven’t found their way to the market. Yet. Read more

Tap Tap Revenge 4 Available: Game Center, 100 Free Songs, Retina Graphics

A few hours ago Tapulous (now part of Disney), released a major new version of their iPhone hit Tap Tap Revenge: Tap Tap Revenge 4 is now live in the App Store, and it’s free. This new update is the most important one since the original release of TTR 3 and all its spin-offs, and it features lots of new functionalities, songs and graphics.

First off, the app now sports Retina Display graphics and it’s got Game Center integration. TTR now has global leaderboards to see who has the best scores worldwide, a “like” button to see who else likes the same songs as you and sharing on Twitter, Facebook and email. As far as the built-in community tools go, you can create your own avatar and buy accessories and clothes in the game stores, have chats and private messages with other users, engage in online battles and download free tracks every week.

Speaking of which, Tap Tap Revenge 4 comes with 100 free songs from artists like Linkin Park, Taio Cruz, Metallica, Nicki Minaj and My Chemical Romance, plus premium content from the in-app store. The song selection is pretty huge and should contribute to the game’s replay value. The new user interface is cool although a little bit cluttered in my opinion, the app is free but there’s ugly in-app advertising in the main screen. It kind of ruins the whole feeling of the game – still the Retina graphics are really shiny on the iPhone 4.

Tap Tap Revenge 4 is available for free in the App Store. Full changelog and video below. Read more

iRip 2: The Best Way To Get Anything Out Of iOS Devices

The Little App Factory has published some great Mac apps in the past year. First for me came Evom, a simple and free utility that can save videos from the web (even Flash videos) and convert to a number of different devices, such as iPads or Apple TVs. Then I installed Rivet, another little utility for the Mac that can stream video from your local machine to a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 console in your local network. Works like magic.

Last week I took a look at The Little App Factory’s latest effort, Grappler for Mac. Grappler provides an integrated view to browse Youtube without leaving the app and download videos to convert for an iTunes-compatible format. It’s got a great UI, inline previews and a lot more. Make sure to check out my review here if you missed it. Read more

My Artists 1.1 - Still My Favorite iPod Alternative

In my review of My Artists for iPhone months ago, I wrote that the app was the ultimate iPod.app replacement for me. It still is, months after its release and with lots of alternative music players available in the App Store. I never deleted My Artists from my device, and I don’t see it going away from that Music folder on my homescreen anytime soon.

My Artists fetches artists and songs already synced to your device and sitting in the iPod app but provides a completely new layout that offers more information thanks to the magic of the Internet. Not only does the app provide better artist profile pics and cover albums, it also lets you check on detailed bios and related artists.

The latest 1.1 update brings several interface improvements, especially in the main list view where the app feels more solid and crisp than ever. You can also shuffle entire albums or artists now – heck, you can even shuffle your entire library from the main view. That’s quite handy. Last, the app’s engine has been update to be faster, and more stable.

My Artists 1.1 is a nice update to an app that is still one of my favorites on the iPhone. Highly recommended. Go download it here.

Acapella Group Rocks Out Madonna With iPads [Video]

Finnish acapella group Viisi got their hands (literally) on some iPads and thought it’d be nice to rock out some tunes with the tablets. After all, it’s not that the Internet hasn’t seen examples of Apple’s iDevices music before. The result, as you can guess, it’s pretty sweet.

The group made a cover of Madonna’s Material Girl using their voices to create harmonies (the main concept behind acapella performances) and ran a bunch of iPads as background instruments. I can spot a few pianos apps in there.

Check out the video below. [via TUAW]

Spotify iPhone App: Faster, Retina-ready

Spotify is still nowhere to be seen in the US – although they keep saying that the service will find its way to America, eventually – but it’s doing quite well in Europe. I, for instance, have been a subscriber for over a year now and I can say Spotify has changed the way I think of music availability and my personal library. I don’t care about downloads and purchases anymore.

The Spotify app for Mac has always been a sexy piece of software with neat functionalities, but the iPhone app is just better. It’s a mobile client that allows you to access your music anywhere, even on 3G, with high quality streams and the possibility to check on your favorite tracks and playlists.

With the latest updates released in iTunes last night, Spotify for iPhone got even better. The app now starts up to 6 times faster, and I can tell you this is a difference you will spot. The app sports a new loading indicator and it takes seconds to load up your account info, playlists and new releases. Bug fixes and updated graphics for the Retina Display aside, the developers changed the way the client handled saved state on each relaunch. Now you no longer have to wait for an internet connection to kick in before using the app. It feels immediate.

Spotify for iPhone requires a premium subscription and it’s only available in the UK App Store. Full changelog below. Read more