Archive for the ‘iPhone App Review’ Category

The iPhone App for Music Blogs – iHeartNewMusic!

Monday, April 27th, 2009

Ignoring for the moment the slightly cheesy graphics. How would you like to have these music blog categories on your iPhone? Imagine being able to scroll through potentially hundreds of music blogs and then being able to play all the music on a particular site through your iPhone. I think that’s pretty cool. Especially since I like to hook my iPhone up to my overpriced stereo for best results.

IHeartNewusic! is the app that can do all this and it was just released in its latest version this weekend. The app only works on wifi at the moment but I suspect 3g capabilities will follow soon. It comes preloaded with about 50 music blogs (Largehearted boy, GVB, MOKB and yes Songs:Illinois!). You can also add your own favorite music blogs by surfing the web with the built in browser and simply bookmarking the sites you love. What’s nice is that you can read the blog as you listen in real time.

The fact that there is a built in web browser avoids that annoying iPhone app problem where you can only do one thing at a time. For instance the radio apps that are now available are fine for just listening but you can’t surf the web at the same time. Being able to do both with this app is incredible.

You can download the app here for $2.99.

Or check out a video on all its features here.

iPhone App Review – American Public Radio’s “Public Radio Tuner”

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

This will probably be my first and last iPhone App Review. I first downloaded the APR (American Public Radio) Public Radio Tuner about 2 weeks ago. What a mess it was. Great idea (streaming radio on the iPhone), but bad, nearly impossible implementation. However the wonder of the iPhone and its App Store being what it is today there was an update and now I’m completely hooked.

The tuner allows you to listen to streams of any APR station (and there’s a bunch). With 3G this means you could listen while driving, in the airport, or in the comfort of your living room with an audio cord hooked up to your stereo. You can let the iPhone Radio Tuner search for all the local stations within 50 miles, or search by state or call letter. At the moment I’ve favorited WWOZ, WXPN, WETS, WUMB, KDHX and a few more (but not KRCW! bah humbug on them!). What would you listen to if you had your drothers and the constraints of geography wasn’t a concern?

When something like this comes along one can really start to see which direction convergence and the digital world will take over the next few years. And it’s not hard drive based or even Blu Ray video for that matter. Here’s all the pertinent info.