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Filed under: Multimedia, Video, Odds and ends

10 cool videos of the iPhone as a music instrument

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (RSS feed) on Aug 5th, 2009

The hyperbole around the iPhone platform has become hyperbolic itself, so I'll spare you the deconstruction of what is now an obvious conclusion: the iPhone has musical chops. The dizzying array of apps on the store has led to quite a few musical apps as well. It makes sense, as the multi-touch screen is a divine interface for manipulating sound.

Along with the dump truck of musical apps has come an even larger group of iPhone performers. I have yet to see impromptu drum circles made of iPhones, but you never know what the future will bring.

We begin our afternoon concert with Jordan Rudess demoing one of my favorite musical apps, Bebot. Take it away, Jordan!


Continue reading “10 cool videos of the iPhone as a music instrument”

Tags: audio, band, beatmaker, bebot, bloom, ellatron, features, iano, iphone, koi pond, KoiPond, music, ocarina, organist, pocket guitar, PocketGuitar, rjdj, video

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, iTunes, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Smule raises $3.9 million in funding

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Feb 13th, 2009

There's money in them thar App Store! Smule, the company behind the popular Ocarina and Zephyr apps for the iPhone, has informed us that they raised a whopping $3.9 million from a round of venture funding led by a firm named Granite Ventures. That's a lot of capital -- while a lot of people are aiming to get their hands in the cookie jar in a big way in the burgeoning economy of the App Store, $3.9 million is the biggest single payout we've seen yet (the iFund actually paid out $100 million, but that was split among various companies and people, and we haven't heard specifics on exactly what they got).

The company brags that they've attracted over one million users already, and that they will use the funding to "help people experience music as it's never been experienced before and in turn find new ways of bringing people together." We can't help but wish them well -- hopefully we'll see more high quality apps in the App Store, and hopefully that'll pay off for both investors and consumers.

Tags: cookie-jar, developer, ifund, iphone, iphone-funding, ocarina, smule, sonic-lighter, sonic-mule, venture-funding, ventures, zephyr

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Make a video with Cat Piano, win a DS

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Feb 4th, 2009

It's probably time for me to lay off of Smule -- I've said that their Ocarina app might be the silliest musical app in the App Store, but we have a new winner: Cat Piano is just plain loony: a piano made up of cats meowing, like those old Christmas recordings, but playable. There are a few different cat sounds to play (from "Furball" to "Housecat"), and even a regular piano if you just want to tickle the ivories a little bit. Most of the reviews on the App Store say people are using it to mess with their cats, but there's definitely a musical instrument here -- if Ocarina can be used as an instrument, the Cat Piano can, too.

And in fact, the developers are challenging you to prove it -- they're giving away a Nintendo DS (interesting choice of prizes -- an iPod touch might be more apt) to the person who makes the best video using Cat Piano. I don't know if you could beat that Jingle Cats video, but you can certainly try. The contest starts on Thursday, and goes until March 20th, so you've got a little over a month to get the cat sounds down.

Ocarina, you'll remember, also turned out some watchable videos, so we're interested to see what comes out of this contest.

Tags: app, cat-piano, instruments, music, nintendo-ds, ocarina, silly, smule, video

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Freeware, iTunes, iPhone, iPod touch

2008 Best iPhone App Ever winners announced

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jan 9th, 2009

The voting only went underway a while ago, but they've just announced the winners for the 2008 Best App Ever awards, celebrating (according to 148apps.com and the people they got to nominate and vote in their contest) the best iPhone apps of last year. As I said for the voting, you can probably take most of this with a grain of salt, but there's no question that there are some awesome apps in here, and probably at least one or two you'll be interested in checking out if you haven't yet.

Shazam won big in the "Best Overall", "Most Innovative," and "Best WOW" categories, and that is well worth it: Shazam is super reliable and works great as a "music recognizer." Rolando picked up "Best Game Graphics," and "Best Game Controls." Fieldrunners also picked up two awards for "Best Strategy Game" and "Best Long-play Game."

Unfortunately, the much-despised (by me) Ocarina won three total awards, including "Best 99 cent app" (I would have chosen Koi Pond over that one easily and that's one where Weightbot was made to win), but feel free to ignore me and my iPhone app crankiness. There are lots of great iPhone apps here (especially when you dive into the nominations), and overall, we're looking at the best of a terrific first year of iPhone development. Onward to 2009!

Tags: 148apps, 99-cents, awards, best-app-ever, fieldrunners, koi-pond, ocarina, rolando, shazam, weightbot

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

2008 Best App Ever awards voting is underway

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jan 2nd, 2009

The nominations are out and voting has begun for the "Best App Ever" awards for 2008, recognizing the best iPhone and iPod touch apps of the year. Nominations have already happened -- the public submitted almost 18,000 nominations, and a panel of developers and experts was assembled to finalize the choices. You can vote right now over on the website for the winners in categories like "Best App Ever," "Best Musical App," and "Most Creative Use of IPhone Hardware" all the way down to "Best Word Game."

Quite a list of choices. Voting ends on January 6th (so get started testing those apps if there are some in here you've never heard of), and the winners will be announced next week at Macworld Expo.

Unfortunately, the App Store changes so fast and is so varied that some of the most useful apps (SnapTell Explorer is in for the hardware award, but it's missing on the "Most Useful" list) are not on the list in favor of more popular or well-known apps (Weightbot is a great app and very well done, but "Most Innovative"? And you know how I feel about Ocarina). Still, as a popularity contest, it'll be fun to see what comes out as the winners, and I can guarantee that in all of the many categories presented, there are a few really great apps that will come to your attention for the first time.

Tags: 2008, app-store, awards, best-apps, best-apps-ever, iphone, ipod-touch, ocarina, snaptell-explorer, voting, weightbot

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Internet, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Smule's Zephyr sends snowy messages around the world

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Dec 29th, 2008

As much as I hate to do it, I'm always willing to admit when I'm wrong, and I was wrong about Ocarina. Not about the app itself, per se -- I still think it's one of the silliest, most pointless apps I've seen on the App Store. But it has been nothing but popular since its release, so apparently lots of people out there are into it. That's fine -- I'm willing to accept that there are best-selling apps out there that I think are dumb.

And maybe this will be another one: Smule, the company behind Ocarina, has decided to follow up with a new app called Zephyr (not to be confused with the MacBook cooling system) that seems just as silly to me. You can draw out messages with an airy sound-and-snowflake interface, and then send those messages blowing around the world (represented, in the official video above, by Las Vegas) to random people who, if they like your messages, will pass them on around the Internet. "What's the point?" you might say, and in that opinion, I'd agree with you. There are lots of ways to send messages around the world, and more than a few of them are quite free and will let you be clearer than drawing snow with wind sounds in the background.

But then again, I didn't see a point to Ocarina, and that made plenty of money. Zephyr is available on the App Store right now for 99 cents. And if you do jump in and buy it, make sure to tell us exactly why in the comments below.

Tags: app-store, holiday, iphone, las-vegas, message, ocarina, smule, snow, world, zephyr

Filed under: iPhone, App Store

First Look: Ocarina for iPhone

by Cory Bohon (RSS feed) on Nov 11th, 2008

If you're a Zelda nerd like most of us on the blog (not to mention any names), then you will most likely run out and buy the app we're about to discuss. Ocarina [iTunes link] is a new musical entry to the iTunes App Store that allows anyone to be just like Link in the Ocarina of Time (probably one of the best N64 games next to Super Mario 64... just sayin').

When you launch Ocarina.app, you are presented with four buttons that control the pitch. You make sounds with the Ocarina by blowing into the microphone on the iPhone. You control the pitch of the sound by pressing one, two, or all of the four blue buttons. The more air you blow through the mic, the louder the sound gets. You can also tilt your iPhone up/down to change the vibrato depth, and left/right to change the vibrato rate.

All of this is cool, but the real magic happens when you tap the green button just above the home button. A small menu appears, and allows you to tap on a globe. In the world view, you can hear other Ocarina players around the world as they toot along to jingles and their favorite songs. You can even rate the player's performance by tapping the little heart next to their name. If music isn't the player's forte, then press the fast forward button to skip them.

I've used the application over the weekend, and have really liked it so far. I would like to see a favorites list added. It would be nice to mark certain players as favorites and be able to instantly start listening to them again. You can purchase Ocarina from the iTunes App Store for $.99 (US). Note that you must have an iPhone to use this application (no iPod touch).

Gallery: Ocarina for iPhone

Tags: App Store, AppStore, iPhone, N64, Ocarina

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