Seamless is a fresh new iOS app that solves a problem we’ve all met: you’re in front of your Mac, listening to some amazing music, and you have to get up and leave.
You could find the same song on your iPod or iPhone, and start it again there. You could even try to scrub through it to the same point in the song. Either way, the mood is lost.
A new jailbreak tweak that’s just hit Cydia enhances your Tweetbot experience by introducing a ‘now playing’ feature – enabling you to tweet the music you’re currently listening to at the tap of a button.
The simple hack adds a new button to the window in which you compose your tweets – and one tap will insert the artist and the name of the song you’re listening to, in addition to the ‘#nowplaying’ hash tag.
While there are other third-party Twitter clients that support this feature straight from the App Store, there aren’t many to choose from. And if you’ve already fallen in love with Tweetbot, this tweak is a great add-on. It’s free to download – all you have to do is search for ‘Now Playing for Tweetbot‘ within Cydia.
We loved the Tweetbot app from Tapbots in our review, and this extra little bit of functionality makes it even greater for music lovers. It’s also another great example of the way in which applications can be improved with minor jailbreak tweaks.
[via iPhone Download Blog]
With Sonos announcing only yesterday that Airplay support was coming to the Sonos range, as well as updating their iPhone and iPad apps – we thought it was about time we took the Sonos for a spin.
Let me start this by saying the Sonos multi-room system is the best solution available for getting multiple sources of music playing throughout your home – period. It’s not necessarily the cheapest, but it is without doubt the most complete solution you will find – and we love it!
This is a guest post by Paul Lamere, an executive at The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company located in Somerville, Mass. It was originally published here.
For the last year we’ve heard rumors of how both Apple and Google were getting close to releasing music locker services that allow music listeners to upload their music collection to the cloud giving them the ability to listen to their music everywhere.
So it was a big surprise when the first major Internet player to launch a music locker service wasn’t Google or Apple, but instead was Amazon. Last week, with little fanfare, Amazon released its Amazon Cloud Drive, a cloud-based music locker that includes the Amazon Cloud Player allowing people to listen to their music anywhere.
Amazon’s entry into the music locker is a big deal and should be particularly worrisome for Google and Apple. Amazon brings some special sauce to the music locker world that will make them a formidable competitor:
If you love your music, you’ve probably encountered this situation: you’re streaming songs from the web via one of your favorite sites, and the phone rings, so you need to hit pause. Or your Most Hated Song Ever comes on, and you just want to skip it as fast as possible.
But wait, you have 67 tabs open. And that’s just in the browser window that’s visible. There’s two more windows full of tabs minimised in your Dock. Where’s the music, the pause button, the skip controls? Gah.
Factotum is a tiny utility that solves the problem. It works in Safari and Chrome, and lets you attach your Mac’s built-in media control keys (aka F7, F8 and F9) to a long list of web streaming services (the full list is Rdio, Grooveshark, Hype Machine, Pandora, Last.fm, Napster, Playlist.com, Live365, BBC iPlayer, Songza, Jango, We Are Hunted, Deezer, thesixtyone, and Blip).
Want it? Go here. It’s four bucks in the Mac App Store.
(Via OneThingWell)
Rarely consumed with a desperate rush to issue any new music of their own, electropop pioneers Kraftwerk have come up with a better idea: get the fans to do the work for them.
So the Kraftwerk app lets you inside the Kling Klang Studio, in a manner of speaking, giving you access to some cheerfully bleep-tastic musical buttons in exchange for nine of your fine American dollars.
Given that the App Store is awash with sequencers, loopers, samplers and other electronic music apps, many of which offer quite a lot more in terms of functionality, this one might be left to the fans only. But for those who value the looking-cool as much as the making-sounds, perhaps it’ll be nine bucks well spent.
AirMusic – ($0.99) iPhone – Utilities
AirMusic is a superb application for streaming your music over Wi-Fi to your PS3, Xbox 360, or PC, and allows you to wirelessly listen to your tunes through your TV without using an AppleTV. Its incredibly easy setup means your music is there the moment you want it – just ensure all of your devices are on the same Wi-Fi network, start AirMusic, then navigate to your music library on your console or PC and your tunes will be there – it couldn’t be easier.
Although I use an AppleTV in our living room, I downloaded this application for use with a PS3 in another room and so far I can’t fault it. The only downside to AirMusic is that it won’t play older iTunes purchases that are protected by DRM, but I’m yet to find a way of playing DRM-protected tunes on my PS3 without putting them onto a CD first. AirMusic setup takes literally a few minutes, streaming is effortless, and the quality is great. If you’re looking for a way to share your iPod library with your Xbox, PS3, or PC, I recommend you give AirMusic a go!
[xrr rating = 80%]
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2H–IsTL_E&feature=player_embedded
Tap DJ – ($1.99) iPhone – Music
Not many DJ applications for iOS devices quite deliver the experience you get from using Tap DJ. Its bucket-load of features, together with its brilliantly designed and incredibly intuitive user interface, make it the ultimate pocket DJ application. Featuring integrated access to your iPod library, a 9 pad sampler, voice recording, FX, a 3-band equalizer for each deck, and lots more – it’s never been easier to mix, scratch, and add FX to your favorite tracks.
Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, Tap DJ makes it unbelievably simple to play around with your music and create mixes you never thought were possible with an iPhone app. Boasting many of the features you’d find in a pricey desktop application, but at a fraction of the cost, there’s never been a better time to try your hand at being a DJ!
[xrr rating = 100%]
If you use online streaming service Spotify, you’ll know that the client software required for controlling it is pretty good.
It’s simple to use, and not too cluttered with controls and extras. Since I started paying £5/month for Spotify’s advert-free Unlimited service, I’ve been listening to it for many hours on end, and found only one problem: I have to switch back to Spotify to control it.
Now it’s true that Spotify can be controlled with your Mac’s existing dedicated iTunes buttons – F7 for previous track, F8 for play/pause, and F9 for next track. But this only works well if iTunes isn’t running at the same time. If both apps are open, they both respond to these commands, and audio chaos ensues.
Spotify Menubar is a simple free utility that solves this problem by allowing you to set up your own system-wide keyboard shortcuts for Spotify, so you can avoid the conflict with iTunes and still have easy keyboard access to your favorite songs.
It would be nice if Spotify Menubar had some clickable controls of its own, which would better justify its position on the Menu Bar in the first place. But for those of us who spend hours a day with our heads inside Spotify playlists, it’s a useful little widget to have around nonetheless.
Oh, there’s gonna be a bumper crop of iPhone musicians born this weekend if Frontier Design Group has their way. Practically all their music-slinging iPhone apps are on sale to celebrate the iPhone coming to Verizon, including the highly regarded iShred app — sister app to the free iShred LIVE app required to use Griffin’s GuitarConnect and StompBox accessories — GuitarStudio and PianoStudio, all three of which are normally $5 each, but on sale for a buck apiece.
As musician and fellow Cult of Mac contributor Lonnie Lazar says, these apps won’t turn you into a Rock God; but they’re certainly a truckload of fun and great tools to learn with. Sale ends tomorrow, so don’t mess around if you want ’em.
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — Here at Macworld, people are raving about the iStreamer, a small metal box that turns your iPhone or iPad into a high-fidelity audio source by connecting it to your home stereo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xVccc22zI0&hd=1
You’ve got to watch this version of Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer performed by the iBand on iPhones and iPads. It’s really pretty good!
And here’s their version of the Black Eyed Peas’ I Gotta Feeling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkMFBSUH3pI&hd=1
Thanks John!
Here’s a fun little hack. It combines the convenience of digital music with the tactile pleasure of browsing through someone’s music collection and having something physical to pick up and look at. Flickr fella bertrandom put it together in his spare time.
Each plastic disk represents an album or a playlist. Inside each one there’s a RFID tag. To play it, put the disk on the cardboard box turntable, in which there’s an RFID reader connected to a computer. The music starts immediately.
Of course, you might argue that if you’re going to have a shelfload of plastic disks, you may as well just have a shelfload of CDs, which is perfectly retro enough for some people. But where would the fun be in that?
LAS VEGAS, CES 2011 — I guess a strange product collaboration with Yao Ming was somewhat entertaining to hear about (don’t you want Yao Ming headphones??), but my ears didn’t really perk up until Monster brought out their Tron inspired iPhone dock and headphones.
Where do you characterize the iPad and iPhone in the music making process? They can be your instruments, recording console, video edit system, and playback devices all in one. With new tools comes new talent, taking advantage of what progress has to offer. The Age of the iDevice in Music has only just begun.
Korean musician Yoari and an all-iDevice band performed this cover of Beyonce’s Sweet Dream in June 2010. The apps used in the piece are noted during the performance – a nice touch. And not a bad jam!
Ping just got a micron less useless on Friday with the addition of new functionality: the ability to make social playlists and share them with friends.
Last month, Damon Alban of Gorillaz announced that he was in the midst of recording the band’s first album to be recorded entirely on the iPad… and now they say that they’ll be giving that album away for free as a Christmas gift to all their fans.
Despite wild speculation and user interest, Apple has yet to launch any cloud-storage and streaming functionality to iTunes, but that’s not to say you’re completely out of luck if you want to access your music no matter where you are: a new cloud-based streaming site named Mougg has just launched, and best of all, it’s free to try out.
No way would I ever plug in my Gibson SG Les Paul Custom into my iPhone 3G. Just no way. Now that I have the iPhone 4 and its increased processor speed, crystal clear pictures, and hardcore stage presence, I’ll reconsider.
Seriously though, playing an instrument through an iDevice is more of just a hobby or gimmick if you’re going to try and use it for modeling amps and effect pedals. What really convinced me to hook up a quarter inch jack to my phone was the Moog Filtatron App. Synthesizers are most certainly perfect for and acceptable to use in your music even if they’re coming from you Macbook or iPad. If they have the Moog name attatched to it then you’re just that much more legit.
If you have a box full of cables tucked away somewhere, you may have all that you need to construct your very own iRig. Even if you purchased all the cables from The Shack, you’ll probably come away with a cheaper version, and you’ll feel like MacGyver.
Here’s how I put together my own audio interface:
Ask most iTunes users and they’ll agree that 30 second song previews are simply too short to inform a decision on whether or not to buy a song… but if the music labels had their druthers, they wouldn’t even allow that, which makes it amazing to me that Apple has successfully employed its clout to triple the length of iTunes song samples.
NY-based DJ Rana Sobhany is fully committed to Apple’s mobile hardware — iPads and iPhones — as the technology that will be used to create the next generation of mobile music production. Her website Destroy the Silence chronicles her iPad Music Experiment and is filled with audio and video clips showing how the author and former instrumental musician is warping the boundaries of nightclub and dancefloor music production.
Sobhany notes in a recent interview that the strong emotional connection usually present between audiences and traditional live music performers can be lost in the transition to computer-based performance. She feels the touch-screen UI of Apple’s flagship mobile device may be able to help bridge that divide. “The iPad creates complete audio and visual engagement with the audience because I’m not just clicking a mouse,” she says, adding “I’m actively using these apps and mixing beats.”
This link points to a 10 minute clip of music Sobhany created during a recent set at the House of Blues in LA. It was mixed live on two iPads with one additional synth/drum machine controller powered by an iPhone.
Despite a massive lion lurking in the background of the press invite for today’s event, the big news didn’t have much to do with OS X 10.7 (now officially “Lion”); instead, the big news was about the new MacBook Air pair, the Mac App Store, FaceTime for Mac — and iLife ’11
In fact, iLife almost stole the thunder from the later “one more thing” MacBook Air announcement. And for good reason: There’re some really impressive features included in this round of what is quite possibly the best software suite to ever come standard on a manufacturer’s entire product line.
It’s just a clever little piece of marketing for a band that’s not half bad — and the back story is that they had their real-life instruments stolen — but here’s Brooklyn band Atomic Tom rocking the NYC Subway with a bunch of iPhones.
Can’t wait to see the band that tries this with some Windows 7 phones.
The popular Spotify music application for iPhone & iPod Touch has been updated to version 0.4.7 today for the iOS 4 software. This update brings with it the eagerly awaited multitasking support which now allows you to listen to your favourite music whilst using other applications on your device.
The update also features a new “what’s new” tab that displays new releases, the top 100 tracks in your country and a social news feed that displays Facebook posts. As well as the ability to use your headset remote, the multitasking dock buttons and the lock-screen buttons to control playback.
The full list of changes as listed in the description are:
- iOS 4 multitasking! Play Spotify tracks while doing other things with your phone. NOTE: Only iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4 and iPod Touch (3rd generation) support multitasking.
- Use the headset remote and lockscreen buttons to control Spotify playback
- “What’s new” tab has been added showing you newly released albums, the top 100 tracks in your country, and the social feed
- Share tracks and albums to your Spotify friends!
- Battery consumption is improved when the app is in the foreground or paused.
You can find Spotify in the App Store here (U.K.), but please note; you need a Spotify Premium account to use the iPhone & iPod Touch application.
Apple has just unveiled iTunes Rewind 2009, a feature on the iTunes Store that lists all of the year’s best selling content, across music, video and apps. For some, the feature will be confirmation of the intractable cretinism of that mouth-breathing biomass, mankind. For others, it will be a handy primer on popular media they might have missed this year. Let’s dive in!
