By now, you’ve probably heard of Piki.fm (free for the web and iOS), the latest venture from the creators of the breakthrough music app Turntable.fm, which powers internet radio streams based on your friends’ music. Since Piki’s much anticipated public release in April, some have questioned the necessity of this service. With heavy hitters Twitter and Google recently…
Late last year, Spotify told a roomful of us about some great-sounding new features that would make it easier for people to do all three things they need to do with music: discovery, audition, and collection. Today, Spotify rolled out its web player app with new features, some of them seemingly designed to compete with Rdio…
We’re on a quest for the best ways to collect music, which recently saw us examine Later.fm, an InstaPaper-style web app that makes music collection in these difficult times a little bit easier. Minilogs (free; web) was designed to solve the same problem of collecting music on the web, with a little more versatility. By clicking…
Last week, Sean Adams from Drowned in Sound and DiS readers shared with my editor a bunch of methods they use to deal with the problem of digital-age music collection. The list includes some great ideas, but the hunt for the most efficient way to collect music is still on. Later.fm (free; web) stands as a pretty good contender,…
Smule, creators of several of the most popular iOS music apps of all time (including early smash hits I Am T-Pain and Ocarina), has been kicking apps and taking names, with over 15 million active users. The company’s chief product officer Prerna Gupta (formerly of Khush) shared some crazy numbers with Evolver.fm this week, as…
I set out this morning to build a chart listing the various features of the major music subscription services: Rdio, Rhapsody, Spotify, and we assume the recently-launched Google Play Music All Access, although it remains to be seen whether it will succeed on the level of those standalone music services — or whether it will…
In a way, Vio reminds us of those old advertisements that depicted a brain on drugs as an egg frying in a pan. In this case, it’s your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch on drugs. This novel $3 app for iOS grabs audio from the iPhone’s microphone and applies reverb, delay, and other effects listed…
As crazy as it sounds, we might have to start paying more attention to Shaquille O’Neal for music app scoops. The basketball star awarded Optini‘s new app Speakerfy one of two prizes at his “Pitch Shaq” competition at SXSW last month; after investigating, we agree with his positive assessment. Speakerfy (iOS/Android; free or $1; Windows Phone soon)…
Our own Aarti Kelapure attended the launch party for the Focusrite iTrack Solo, which promises to turn any iPad (or Mac or PC) into a recording studio suitable for one-person music production for $200. Aarti was mightily impressed, so we requested a review unit to put this thing through its paces outside of the craziness…
Celebrities caring about sound quality is the new nobody caring about sound quality. But really, for most of us, the convenience of compressed (or streaming) files and the portability of a smartphone trump all other considerations. App creators have stepped in to rectify the problem. We’re pleased with Audio Xciter and SonicMax Pro for messing around with music’s…
Countless studies suggest that listening to music has a range of physical and mental health benefits. As such, there’s no shortage of app developers striving to deliver the healing power of music in app form, from those that purport to reduce pain, alleviate stress, help you relax, or get in shape. Now, a group of music therapists, designers, and…
Spacemen 3 released an album in 1994 called Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To, which you can hear on YouTube, if you use it like a music service. In similarly recursive fashion, a new iOS app called Crossfader Move & Mix (free for now) lets you dance to remix music to dance to….
The legendary electronica label Ninja Tune has done what many have contemplated, but no one has crushed: It launched an app, Ninja Jamm, that lets anyone remix music with (relative) ease, using a variety of high-quality releases from world-renowned DJs, producers, and other artists. If this doesn’t start you remixing music, nothing will. By simply downloading this…
Going to concerts these days can mean staring at either your smartphone, or the one held aloft by the person in front of you, to the point that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs recently issued an edict commanding their fans to watch the show, not those screens. However, the band’s singer, Karen O, carved out a…
All smartphones have cameras. This one is a camera. Let’s just get this out of the way, too: the Samsung Galaxy EK-GC100, which comes with Android 4.1 (Jellybean), can be used as a phone. We connected headphones with an inline microphone, fired up Skype for Android, and made calls to and from normal phones. Easy-peasy….
