Posts tagged with "music"

“On the way to Woodstock” for iPad Takes You Back To 1969

From the same creators of The History of Jazz, an interactive timeline about jazz music that was featured multiple times by Apple in the past, comes a new “book” for the iPad called On the way to Woodstock that takes where the previous digital experience left off to offer over 100 hours of video, audio, and editorial content related to the 1950’s, 1960’s and each of the artists that performed at the 1969 Woodstock Art & Music Fair. The History of Jazz was incredibly successful in the way it transcended the meaning of “digital book” to offer an experience that was closer to what Push Pop Press is doing now with Our Choice for iPhone and iPad: more than a simple book and closer to an interactive media gallery packed with content of all kinds, On the way to Woodstock is a digital, multitouch-based homage to the culture, politics and style of the 50’s and 60’s, as well as the historic bands and artists that performed at the legendary Woodstock festival.

I have downloaded the app a few minutes ago, and there’s so much stuff to do with its it’s difficult to get the hang of it in a short amount of time. You can look at photos and read descriptions; browse the timeline at the bottom by tapping on the colored bars and check out every single moment of the Woodstock fair with videos, bios, articles and exclusive photographs; you can even enter a special “screensaver mode” to turn your iPad into the perfect Woodstock-themed coffee table book. The app is full of content, information, and media. It’s definitely a rich experience that will engage you in reading and watching for hours, and perhaps even coming back a few times after you’re done consuming everything the app has to offer. Like I said I’ve been playing with On the way to Woodstock for less than an hour, but the attention to detail, the animations, the options and the selection of songs and videos are amazing. The app also packs related content from iTunes, YoutTube and Wikipedia and lets you check out the original Woodstock set lists as well.

On the way to Woodstock is the perfect app to showcase the versatility of the iPad, something Apple would be proud of. You can get the app here at $6.99, and watch the demo video after the break. Read more

Spotify Now Lets You Sync MP3s To Your iPod Without iTunes

Spotify, the music streaming service that counts millions of active users in Europe but has been struggling to launch in the US due to the lack of deals with major music labels, announced some important new features last night, both for Premium and Free users. With an update to the official desktop app that will automatically roll out to all users in the next few days to “ensure technical quality”, Spotify now allows you to sync your music to an iPod Classic, iPod Shuffle or iPod Nano without using iTunes at all. With the new Spotify, users will be able to place the MP3s they bought (more on this in a minute) or saved locally inside a playlist (as they usually do) and sync these playlists to an iPod thanks to the new “Devices” section in the app’s sidebar. It’s worth noting that Spotify doesn’t allow sync via USB cable to iOS devices, as they’re only focusing on standard iPod models now. However, with the updated mobile app for iPhone and iPod touch (now also available to free users for playlist sync, whilst Premium subscribers retain the ability to stream everything) users get the possibility to sync playlists wirelessly. Clearly, Spotify has set out to become the standard music player for many both on the desktop and mobile devices, although the software still can’t sync back to iOS devices like iPhones and iPads through a USB cable. Plus, the lack of a native iPad app still makes it impossible for iPad users to properly enjoy the Spotify experience.

For the first time, seamlessly manage any iPod classic, iPod nano and iPod shuffle in Spotify. Simply connect your iPod to your computer via your USB cable and watch it magically appear in the new ‘Devices’ section of your Spotify sidebar.

iPod integration was your biggest request, but there are also a lot of Spotify Free users out there who are iPhone and Android phone owners. You asked for the ability to buy your MP3 playlists and sync to your phones. So we’ve got you covered too…

As of today, everyone can download the Spotify Mobile iPhone & Android apps to wirelessly sync your MP3 playlists in Spotify from your computer to your phone. Fire up your mobile app and see your phone appear in the ‘Devices’ section of the Spotify sidebar, ready to rock and roll. No cables required!

As mentioned above, users can now take the music they bought or already own on the go all the time. Spotify is, in fact, launching a new “download service” that, through a simple click&buy interface, allows you to purchase a range of MP3 bundles offered by the service starting at 50p per song. I haven’t managed to test the new music store and iPod Classic integration as the update is still rolling out and I don’t have it available, but from what Spotify unveiled last night, it really looks like the company’s intention is to take on Apple and (the future) iTunes with a mix of streaming, local cache, USB sync, and online store. The variety of apps offered by Spotify surely gives them an important head start in the music streaming scene for mobile devices, but they obviously still can’t compete with the music catalogue offered by iTunes. And when Apple finally rolls out is iCloud service for music with iTunes integration, it’ll be interesting to see how Spotify will react.

[image via TechCrunch]
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Planetary: Your iPad’s Music Library Becomes A Galaxy

In what might be the coolest music experiment that has landed on the iPad to date, company Bloom Studio released earlier today Planetary, a new way to explore your iPad’s music library. Bloom Studio promises to deliver “playful, explorable, visually compelling views on personally relevant information from services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and iTunes”, and Planetary is the realization of this mission statement: not only it’s based on the crazy concept of turning your iPad music library into a galaxy, it also works exceptionally well. Since I got my eyes on the teaser website a few days ago, I was looking forward to trying the actual product and see whether it could really bring a different way of exploring music to the tablet: now that I’m using the app, available for free, I have to say Planetary is one of those apps you have to try for yourself, rather than watching in some YouTube demo videos.

So here’s the gist: your music is a galaxy, artists are stars, albums are planets. In the 3D view of Planetary, no two planets are the same as the graphics are generated automatically off an album cover from the iPod app. Similarly, songs are moons: the more you listen to a song, the bigger the moon grows. And there’s more: each moon orbits at a speed related to the song’s length. Indeed, crazy stuff that doesn’t really make any sense until you try it. But on the other hand, it’s clear Bloom Studio set out to create an interesting experiment based on data visualization that merges files synced to your iPad, music, and space. I’m sure Buzz Aldrin would be proud.

While Planetary features some standard music controls like play / pause and back / forward, the key area of the app is support for multitouch gestures: you can pinch the galaxy to zoom on a star, pan and rotate a planet to check out all moons and orbits – overall, do all sorts of zooming and viewing to enjoy the pleasure of having your music available in the form of a galaxy. Like I said above, you just have to try it and see how it works with your music.

At the price of free, Planetary needs to be downloaded now and experienced with a rich iPod library synced to your iPad. Personal recommendation: for greater results, try to sync some Explosions In The Sky.

Music Hunter: Intelligent Music Discovery For iPad

If there’s another industry the iPad is disrupting (together with media consumption, digital reading, medical applications – you name it), that’d be music discovery. The category isn’t nearly as popular as news readers and social aggregators and RSS apps, but two apps that came out in the last months which I also reviewed here on MacStories, Aweditorium and Discovr, are leading the way towards better, more interactive, beautiful discovery of new artists and songs on mobile devices. Where Ping failed at empowering people to share, buy and discover new music, apps like Aweditorium make it super-simple to “touch” music you’ve never listened to, explore genres and albums you didn’t know you might be interested in, share the results with your friends on Twitter and Facebook. The iPad does its job extremely well in this case: with a large screen that’s meant for swipes and taps, it easily becomes a piece of glass functioning as a wall for music. Like those walls in guitar shops advertising this week’s shows from those unknown bands your friend keeps talking about all the time. Here, that’s what music discovery on the iPad is all about: the intertwinement of social, digital stores, and personal taste.

Music Hunter is the latest entry in the music discovery market for the tablet, and at $0.99 it offers a sweet way to find new songs to purchase later on the iTunes store. While Aweditorium and Discovr are based on indie artists and correlation between music you already know, respectively, Music Hunter starts up with a window displaying two sliders: one for genres, one for styles. As you move the sliders, you can get to results like “high energy hip hop” or  ”90’s electronic music” that will load a wall of artists with the first song picked for you. The results are generally accurate as they’re based on the echonest engine, the same infrastructure that powers Discovr for iPad. Like Discovr, song previews are fetched from iTunes and a button allows you to quickly jump to the store and hit Buy. You can scroll through the wall to see more songs and previews, or mark something as favorite and start exploring from there as the app allows you play “music similar to your favorites.” There’s no support for AirPlay (unlike Aweditorium), but you can check out quick artist bios from a popup window that can be activated from the bottom toolbar. What I like about Music Hunter is that it packs a lot of features: you can search, adjust the settings at any time (and thus load other genres and styles) or aggregate different artists and music styles into the Favorites for the ultimate personal playlist. Everything’s really minimal and good looking.

If you’re a fan of Aweditorium and Discovr, Music Hunter is the app to add to your collections of music discovery tools. It’s elegant, well integrated with iTunes and “intelligent” in the way it aggregates results from echonest. Go download the app here.

Rumor: Apple’s Cloud Music Service Won’t Be Free

A new report by Cnet today claims Apple will charge users a fee for its rumored cloud-based music service, although no exact details on pricing have been provided. Citing “music industry insiders”, Cnet says Apple could offer the service free of charge initially as a promotion, but eventually they’ll have to charge users to keep the service running and pay music labels. It’s unclear whether the new cloud service will offer different kinds of monthly and annual subscriptions, although Cnet points to an old report that suggested Apple could go for a $20/year fee.

Don’t expect Apple’s cloud-music service to come free of charge, at least not forever.

Apple plans to eventually charge for its cloud music service, sources told CNET. Users would be able to store their digital media on the company’s servers.

Music industry insiders told me that Apple has indicated it could offer the service free of charge initially but that company will eventually require a fee. Google is also expected to charge for a similar service.

Several reports in the past weeks indicated Apple was working on a complete MobileMe revamp featuring new cloud-based music functionalities, social and location features, as well as a new price point to make basic parts of the service (such as syncing options) free for all iOS and Mac users. Last week, it was reported work on Apple’s new music service had been finalized, with the company seeking to close deals with music labels to push ahead the release of its new iTunes-in-the-cloud offering. Cnet also claimed Apple had signed a deal with the Warner Music Group, whilst Peter Kafka at MediaMemo said Apple had already closed deals with at least two of the four major music labels, with Apple’s Eddy Cue visiting New York City to ink the remaining deals.

iTunes In The Cloud: Apple Signs Deal with Warner Music

Following last night’s report on Apple readying the launch of the rumored cloud-based music service based on iTunes after having recently “completed work” on it, Cnet weighs in today claiming the company has signed a deal with Warner Music to offer streaming of the labels’ artist catalogue and songs on the new iTunes cloud service. Cnet notes how Warner Music is only one of the four big players in the music industry, with EMI, Sony and Universal still out of the picture:

Apple has an agreement with Warner Music Group to offer the record label’s tracks on iTunes’ upcoming cloud-music service, music industry sources said. It is unclear whether Warner was one of those two that had previously licensed Apple or whether the label inked a new agreement on Friday.

Indeed, Peter Kafka at MediaMemo posted a follow-up to Reuters’ original report on the finalized cloud service yesterday, claiming that Apple had actually already signed deals with two of the major music labels, and Apple’s Eddy Cue was set to fly to New York City today to arrange the remaining deals. It’s not clear now whether Warner Music was part of the rumored labels that had signed in the past months, or one of the two that needed to be convinced today. Cnet’s report doesn’t provide additional details on the deal.

Speculation surrounding this new cloud-based service from Apple indicates the company has both considered an option to let users back up an existing music collection to the cloud and stream it anywhere, as well as a second iTunes Store-like functionality offering the possibility to stream songs you don’t own through a monthly or annual subscription.

iPhone-based iDrive With BMW Apps Demoed On Video

Back in July 2010 we reported German-based car manufacturer BMW was looking forward to integrating Apple’s iPhone into their automotive experience with a system called iDrive that, featuring a “plugin” option co-developed with Apple, would allow users to connect their iPhones to the car’s dashboard to access a variety of information and media like music from Pandora and the iPod app, as well as status updates coming from Twitter and Facebook.

Autoblog got the chance to try the new iDrive system built into all BMW models from Series 1 to 7 that will begin shipping next month, and reports the integration is really smooth and impressive on a technical side as all rendering is done on the iPhone, with the car’s dashboard only functioning as a screen. A you can see here and in the video embedded below, the iPhone fits in a cradle in the car’s console and is directly connected to the iDrive; with an active 3G connection on the iPhone and the BMW app installed, users will be able to stream music off Pandora’s radio stations with their own accounts, mark songs as favorite and even create new stations using the car’s iDrive knob. The integration goes as far as enabling users to access their Facebook and Twitter streams, with the possibility to generate automated status updates with your location and estimated time of arrival to a specific POI (based on the car’s navigation system) so you don’t have to type the whole message using the knob. BMW also decided to restrict some sections of Twitter and Facebook while a car is in motion, so drivers won’t be distracted by the streams.

BMW calls its Facebook and Twitter integration “Automotive Grade,” which is a nice way of saying “minimalist.” And as it should be. The primary function is less about reading status messages and updates, and more about sending a quick, pre-programmed post on the go. The system can pull in hundreds of data points from the vehicle and navigation system, allowing you to update your status with location information, weather and a host of other data. Want to let your friends know when you’ll be at the restaurant? The app can pull in your location and destination from the sat-nav and post an update saying you’ll be there in 15 minutes. And if the pre-packaged responses aren’t up to snuff, once you unhook the phone from the cradle, you can create your own canned responses and updates directly in the app, which also keeps track of vehicle mileage, service data and a handful of other useful bits of information.

Last, there’s the plugin functionality based on Apple’s iPod Out feature that’s been designed by Apple engineers, and as the name suggests plugs directly into an iPhone’s iPod.app music library to display artist’s information, album artwork and everything you would expect from iOS on a BMW car’s dashboard. It looks really neat and I wish I had the chance to try it out, too.

Videos of BMW iDrive and the background story embedded below. Read more

Robick: Visual Audio iPhone App for Learning Music By Ear

Previously, we’ve covered the Capo range of apps for the iPhone, iPad, and desktop that help students learn music by ear via setting repeating segments, altering the tempo & pitch, and giving students the ability to adjust an equalizer. When we previously covered these apps, the Capo mobile applications were more limited in some respects compared to it’s older desktop sibling - not a bad thing, but it would be nice to bring over the ability to adjust highs and lows for example instead of just only pitch and tempo. Robick is an alternative take on plugging in tracks from your iPod’s library, and altering them in such a way that helps you learn parts of a song. The developer noted to me it was primarily designed for learning Jazz (I’m assuming for Japanese students), and the interface reflects a modern edge and a shifting paradigm that’s quite neat.

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Apple’s Cloud Music Service Almost Ready to Launch?

According to Reuters, Apple “has completed work” on its rumored cloud-based music service that will allow users to store their music online, and access it anywhere using a computer or an iOS device connected to the Internet.

Apple Inc has completed work on an online music storage service and is set to launch it ahead of Google Inc, whose own music efforts have stalled, according to several people familiar with both companies’ plans. Apple’s plans will allow iTunes customers to store their songs on a remote server, and then access them from wherever they have an Internet connection, said two of these people who asked not to be named as the talks are still confidential.

Reuters also claims Apple hasn’t secured any deal with music labels yet, and industry sources said several labels are hoping to close these deals before the service’s launch. Similarly to Amazon’s recently launched Cloud Drive and Cloud Player, Apple could introduce a service that works on the web and mobile devices, and offers a way for users to “digitally lock” their own media in the cloud – quite possibly without even needing the blessing of music labels to do so. Amazon, for instance, was initially rumored to be in a lot of trouble with licensing deals after the Cloud Player launch, but as of today no major music label has sued the online retailer – which basically gives its users an online space to store their DRM-free songs. Amazon, however, is reportedly in talks with labels anyway to come up with a more “advanced” plan that meets the music industry’s expectations and requirements.

Apple, on the other hand, might launch a service that acts as a remote backup location for a user’s iTunes library, and it could be part of the rumored new MobileMe – a complete revamp of the suite of online sync tools that’s also expected to be free, and deeply integrated into future versions of iOS. A number of reports in the past months indicated Apple was building an online iTunes backup solution with built-in streaming capabilities, although others claimed the company was also focusing on a subscription-based model for streaming the entire iTunes Store catalogue – similarly to how music service Spotify requires a premium subscription to stream music you don’t own.

Last, Reuters reports:

Apple and Google are keen to offer services that give music fans more flexibility to access their media wherever they are rather than tying them to a particular computer or mobile device.

In late 2009, Apple bought Lala, a cloud-based music company, but closed it down in April 2010, leading to speculation that it would launch an Apple-branded cloud service.

Interestingly enough, a series of downtimes and errors in iTunes and the App Store during the past 2 days lead many to believe Apple moved its iTunes servers to the new data center in North Carolina, which was set to become fully operative in Spring 2011. Read more