Today finding the music you want, when you want it has been channeled to using sites like the Amazon store or iTunes. Sometimes, when looming for an obscure song that is not mainstream, you’d be lucky to find it. This frustrating experience paired with the perceived greedines of corporate music labels has forced many of us to find our music on peer to peer networks or bitorrent sites such the Pirate Bay.
Songbeat360.com is an amazingly innovative way of integrating a music player with a music search. Now you can listen to your favorite songs while searching for more. You are essentially still building your own station, much like Pandora or Last.fm, but on this music player you have the ability to download your music immediately.
Bypassing the need to go to the likes of Amazon or iTunes may please some, but does the pricing compare? Based on the site, the application is an Adobe Air app, and comes with 25 free credits. Credits are used when a search is done, and searches are supposedly capable of returning up to 500 results, ensuring you will fond what you need. For further credits, those can be purchased via a stored credit card. For $15 you receive 1000 credits for more music, which breaks down to a whole lot less than $.99 per song on the iTunes store. This is of course assuming you find what you want in one search.
Is the next revolution to your music search? I’d say know, but it’s definitely interesting. The pricing alone is attractive, and if the quality is the same, I can see this web app becoming extremely successful.
There are just so many Twitter clients in the market at the moment and Im even finding it hard to keep up. The newest Twitter client is TunesTweeter. TunesTweeter is a web app that lets you show what you are currently listening to in iTunes, and updates your Twitter status with the song and artist.
TunesTweeter seems like an interesting application that adds a nice twist, maybe now someone will also come out with a Last.fm Twitter related client.
Most people im sure would probably agree that Apple’s iTunes software isnt a lightweight application. I was wanting to put together a great list of free alternatives to iTunes that are actually worth checking out.
Foobar 2000 – A digital music management program for Windows users. It works with Windows 2000,Windows Vists, Windows XP and Windows XP 64 bit edition. To use this program you will need 32 MB of RAM and a display with at least an 800 X 600 resolution. This program is compatible with MP1-4, MPC, AAC, WAV, SND, WMA, Ogg Valis, WavPack, AIFF, CDDA, FIAC/Ogs FLAC and AU. It also supports full Unicode and Replay Gain. Other great features include third party development potential and keyboard shortcut that are fully customizable.
Froddle Pod – Froddle is not as feature rich as iTunes but it provides access to the main features that iPod owners need: It can copy music and videos from and to an iPod which is definitely the main feature that any iTunes alternative should support. The software can also backup and restore all data that is stored on an iPod. Another feature is music normalization for all or selected music on the iPod.
Songbird – Built on the Firefox platform and works with iPods and other media players. In addition to many great features, Songbird has a plenty of add-ons, and because it’s open source, clever programmers will be adding more as time goes on.
YamiPod An interesting iTunes alternative, because you don’t have to install it on your computer at all. Just copy it to your iPod’s hard disk and then you can manage your songs from any computer running Mac OS X, Windows or Linux.
Winamp – Sometimes called the grandfather of Windows music players, Winamp is a full featured music manager, with integrated iPod support and will even play iTunes protected files if QuickTime is installed.
Amarok – A great iTunes alternative for Linux and Unix users. It works with a wide variety of portable music players including: iPod, Creative Zen players, iRiver iFP and T players, Nomad players, generic MTP players and generic USB players. Some of the features that this program has that you are going to love include: album covers, wikipedia integration, last.fm integration, superior visual effects, lyrics support and music tracking capabilities.
Banshee – Linux users are going to enjoy what Banshee has to offer. This free download allows you to do everything that you want to do with your digital music. You can import music, organize music, play it back, share it and rip it on a CD. This is a great program for people who love their music and who want to actively manage it.
Cog – Most people using Mac OSX feel that iTunes is the best option because it was designed for this platform. However, Cog is worth a look for Mac users, because it addresses many of the limitations that iTunes has. It can be used with the following file types: Ogg vorbis, Monkeys Audio, MP3, Wavpack, Apple Lossless, FLAC, Musepack, AAC and WAV/AIFF. Some of the features that make it a worthy alternative to iTunes include: gapless playback, auto updating, preferences, Growl support, global hot keys, seeking, feedback forms, last.fm support, and smart shuffle.
Apple’s has more news for us, and they are going to make it official this Wednesday, September 9 at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. So, what’s going to be? New versions for iPod Touch with cameras included (maybe including iPod nano) and new features for iTunes.
There are a lot of rumors, which unfortunately are only that, just rumors. Marco Arment made a few guesses around all those and here’s a quick review about what he said:
New iPod touch version with the following features: camera, double the storage capacities, and new pricing: 8 GB for u$s149, 16 GB for u$s199, 32 GB for u$s249, 64 GB for u$s349.
New iPod nano version with camera. But they will offer only one model: 8gb for u$s99
iPod classic out of the market.
New pricing for the iPod shuffle: u$s59.
You want more? iTunes will include new social network features; and this event will possibly have a special guest: Steve Jobs.
Yes, I didn’t mention anything about the Apple Tablet. Seems that there’s not going to be any announce around that, and they could possibly wait until next year to say something official about it.
The iTunes app store is reportedly worth $2.5 billion and this is bringing more and more developers to the platform. If your a develop the first thing you do is sit down and sketch out your idea.
Introducing the iPhone Design Template Sketchbook:
There has been a lot of talk this morning about Spotify getting their new iPhone application accepted into the iTunes store. I know we have talked a lot about Spotify recently including them entering into the Chinese market, USA market, and how to use Spotify if your based in the USA or any other country. However, today’s news is probably bigger than all of these.
The company’s iPhone application has been approved for the App Store ahead of competitors Rhapsody and Grooveshark. PaidContent UK reports that Apple has notified Spotify that its app will appear in the store shortly. In late July there was fear that the Swedish site’s iPhone service would be denied due to the fact that it was seen as a threat to iTunes.
Unlike many other iPhone music apps, Spotify’s iPhone service offers users the ability to select tracks and listen to them in an offline playlist. The ability to cache files is a huge asset to those who commute to work without a wireless connection.
With today’s announcement, Spotify’s audiences in the UK, Sweden, Norway, Spain, France and Finland will be more likely to pay for the company’s premium service.
This is a very interesting decision by Apple who recently blocked Google Voice from entering the app store because it basically provided free phone calls via the iPhone. I dont think Spotify is a future competitor to iTunes because they are offering completely different products. iTunes provides a platform to purchase digital products, while Spotify is strict music streaming service. However, im very surprised that Apple didnt make an agreement with Spotify and accept them into their iTunes store but only if iTunes because a default download provider for the music on the service (like 7digital currently).
Apple has approved the new version of the SlingPlayer. The SlingPlayer is available in the app store for £29.99 in the UK. The new version of the SlingPlayer includes added features such as, native DISH Network navigation, improved widescreen support, and improved response times throughout the app.
Separately, Sling has updated us on the 3G-compatible flavor of the app that they’ve submitted for consideration outside of the US, but so far, no dice — the company hasn’t heard back from Apple, which means it’s all WiFi-only for the moment. Wouldn’t want to saturate those pricey little 3G cells, now, would we?
We all like music. Rock, rap, R&B, metal, rave, trance. What ever your taste sometimes talking about music with other fans is really cool. Discussing favourite songs, artists, concerts or the industry news is what music fans do. iLike is a platform that allows you to do just that.
It’s is about to be purchased by the floundering MySpace – perhaps in some desperation to heal their wounds. Anyway, I’ll give you a quick run down on what iLike has to offer.
Firstly, it combines all of the great music facilities into one profile from across loads of different social networks such as Bebo, Hi5 and FaceBook. So instead of flying around all the different social networking sites to discuss music you can simply go to iLike.
They’re also in tune with the music scene with tons of news and song updates. iLike will also detect what city you’re in and inform you of upcoming concerts and festivals in your area.
And, as expected you can get songs their (well, iTunes). On the homepage there are free Mp3 songs from lesser-known artists that you can download for free. They also have popular songs that you can buy.
iLike also has different arrangements with many different singers and bands. For example, at the time of writing this article they were promoting Creed’s upcoming tour. The smaller things include loads of applications for download and cool pictures and videos for your enjoyment.
Following the death of Michael Jackson the iTunes charts have been flooded with his tracks. Out of the top 10 tracks on iTunes Michael Jackson has 8 of them. Plus he has 11 tracks in the top 15 and 14 in the top 20. Michael Jackson was struggling financially for a long time before his death and maybe now his death is going to be a resurgance of his music and the real money making machine that was Michael Jackson.
I also know that Michael Jackson used to own the copyrights to the Beatles catalogue, but I wonder if this is still the case and know who will own that catalogue?
Apple hits 1 Billion downloads from their App Store! Since launching the App store on the 27 th June last year, Apple has been making big waves with their iPhone and iPod Touch products. Apple currently pays 70% of all revenues from the App store to developers. Thus, if there was an average of $0.50 per download, then Apple would be $150m richer and App developers $350m richer.
No I know what most of you are thinking, why the hell isn’t this an iPhone app or why hasn’t Apple done this already, well they should have! The Next Web is reporting on a new app that is really going to help.
It’s an awesome app in Cydia called “Categories” which lets you organise your apps into folders. The app provides an array of different icons you can use, you can easily rename folders via the app and adding/removing apps is relatively easy. However, this is not available in the app store and you need to have your iPhone jailbroken.
Currently, on my iPod touch I have over 5 pages worth of applications that I use on a monthly basis. At the moment I’m having so much trouble keep track of the apps and actually arranging them so they can be easily used and organised. Apple needs to come up with an app like this, either that or they need to be able to arrange your apps directly in iTunes.
One limitation: the app doesn’t recognise iPhone web apps only genuinely local apps.
As I noted above, this is only for Jailbroken iPhones. Other features which Cydia (jailbroken app database) brings is copy & paste, 5 apps in the dock amongst hundreds of others.
The sequel to the iPhone’s most popular ever game is here, Tap Tap Revenge 2. The latest version has hit the app store today. The previous version of the game had more than six million downloads and featured licensed music from some of the worlds largest bands including Weezer and Nine Inch Nails. You can Download the app here.
Today finding the music you want, when you want it has been channeled to using sites like the Amazon store or iTunes. Sometimes, when looming for an obscure song that is not mainstream, you’d be lucky to find it. This frustrating experience paired with the perceived greedines of corporate music labels has forced many of us to find our music on peer to peer networks or bitorrent sites such the Pirate Bay.
We all like music. Rock, rap, R&B, metal, rave, trance. What ever your taste sometimes talking about music with other fans is really cool. Discussing favourite songs, artists, concerts or the industry news is what music fans do. iLike is a platform that allows you to do just that.
