Lou Reed releases Lou Zoom, a surprising iPhone contact app

John Brownlee ()

Screen shot 2009-12-17 at 6.35.55 PM

Lou Reed’s a strange one, but then again, you’d pretty much expect him to be: as a teenager, the Velvet Underground founder was institutionalized by his parents and underwent a course of electro-convulsive treatment in order to cure his “homosexual feelings”… a traumatic event that I’ve always felt directly inspired Reed’s 1975 double album of recorded audio feedback, Metal Machine Music, which certainly sounded like brain synapses wildly misfiring. Reed’s latest accomplishment? A surprising foray into iPhone App development called Lou Zoom, which may be just as much of a waste of money as Metal Machine Music ever was.

As you can see, Lou Zoom basically just strips down your contact list to its barest essentials and explodes the text with a large point Helvetica Neue font, although it does include some improved search functionality as well. Frankly, it’s not much of an app: it looks pretty terrible, and only seems like it might be even marginally useful to the visually impaired. Still, Lou Reed “designed” it, so you can expect to pay $2.50 for it.

Lou, you know I love you.You are one of the greatest guitar players of the 20th century. You have single-handedly changed the course of rock and/or roll. But you can’t be all things to all men. It’s okay if you’re just a rock god: you don’t need to be an iPhone app developer too.

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iPhone: the font

[via Daring Fireball]

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About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in iPhone, News, Top stories |

  • Domi

    “one of the greatest guitar players of the 20th century”? I love Lou Reed but I wouldn’t accuse him of being a great guitar player. Competent, possibly, although not sure. The app looks very silly.

  • Gabriel

    it looks like it’s for my old almost blind grandma, but I could see (HA!) this app being useful….

  • Kirk

    Greatest guitar player? You need to listen to more music. He was a huge singer, songwriter and performe, but as a guitarist, he was – and still is – mediocre. I saw him live once around 1982, and he barely played any solos (heck, with Robert Quine onstage with him, why would he). But he sure can sing.

  • Stephen R. Stapleton

    Once you teenagers grow old like the rest of us, you will see what an amazing app Mr. Reed created. One can actually see the damn data without putting on one’s reading glasses! There is too much white space in the official app and text simply too small for us old farts. Jobs should use this app, he’s old enough to need glasses and drives too fast to try and look at Apple’s official version.

    You young people may want all that beautiful design, but I will take large type anytime.

    Being a typical 52-year old queer, unless Mr. Reed played at the Met, on Broadway, or had a song at the Troc (the great disco place in SF in the late 70s, early 80s) or The Saint (NY answer to the Troc), I wouldn’t have heard of him, but he seems a great app developer.

  • John Doe

    Wow. Could you be a little more insulting next time? I like most of the articles here, and I want to hear about the great must have apps. This man’s app may not be perfect, but do you have apps in the appstore? If you do, wouldn’t you rather hear constructive criticism than some guy calling it a waste? At least he had the guts to pursue his app idea. If you see things wrong with his app, email him with suggestions. Please, if you have nothing nice to say (or in this case post about) don’t post it at all.

    I’m not trying to start a flame war, I just don’t see what good reason you had to post this. I only see intent to try to harm the developer’s feelings. It’s not your job to tell us what not to buy. Maybe a suggestion, sure, but a smart buyer would be able to recognize this app (or any other) if it would be a good buy or a bad buy for their particular instance.

  • footagehead

    So Lou needs glasses, so do I John ! When you hit 40, which I hope you do, unless you drive off the road while trying to read a text that
    ‘looks pretty cool’ and thus too small, you’ll be happy that Lou designed this.

    Since you have chosen to review Lou’s app in conjunction with his virtuosity.I will review your review for your lack of same. Unless your pic was photoshopped you were not born when Lou was playing at Max’s thus you might not know that Lou is known for his great songwriting talents. So do your homework kid, and lets hope u can even see your Iphone 5000 when your 67 !

  • gecko

    Lou who? Is he more famous than Linda Ronstadt? Because I knows Linda Ronstadt. But I never heard of this Lou Reid guy.