Songs Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Daily iPhone App: Magic Guitar

by Mike Schramm (Dec 30th, 2011)

Smule, as we've said before, is an interesting company. Its goal is to bring new musical experiences to people through technology like the iPhone. The company's latest release, Magic Guitar, definitely follows that philosophy. Like the very popular Magic Piano for the iPad, the app enables you ...

Daily iPhone App: Tap Tap Glee

by Mike Schramm (Aug 16th, 2011)

I don't purport to be a fan of Glee at all -- honestly, when it comes to musicals and dancing, I just don't get it. But I can't deny that the most recent Tap Tap app, based on the Glee TV show and its songs, is shooting up the charts on the App Store. So if you happen to be a Glee fan and want ...

Shazam Encore updated with lyrics, how about iTunes?

by Mike Schramm (Jun 16th, 2011)

Shazam has released another update for its paid Encore app, this one adding full lyrics of over 25,000 songs on the service from provider LyricPlay. It lets you stream the lyrics in real-time as the song plays, so you can sing (or even just read) along. It's not exactly a reason to shell out ...

Get five free songs on iTunes with your American Express card

by Mike Schramm (Feb 11th, 2011)

If you have an American Express card, the company wants to give you five songs on iTunes for free. Just hit up this URL and enter your card information (we double-checked -- it's an official deal, not a scam), and then whenever you buy five songs on iTunes with the same card, you'll get refunded ...

iTunes begins offering 90-second song previews

by Chris Rawson (Dec 9th, 2010)

It's been a long time coming: Apple has begun offering 90-second previews of songs in the iTunes Store. Previously capped at 30 seconds, all songs longer than 2 minutes 30 seconds will now have a 90-second preview available. According to MacRumors not all songs offer the extended previews yet, but ...

Rock Band Reloaded out now on App Store, Puzzle Quest 2 out soon

by Mike Schramm (Dec 2nd, 2010)

Two big sequels have hit the App Store in the past day or so -- as the holidays are here, more big name titles will be forthcoming for sure. First up, EA has released Rock Band Reloaded, a new version of the popular Rock Band music game series for iOS. This one plays generally the same as the first ...

TUAW's Daily App: Songatron

by Mike Schramm (Dec 2nd, 2010)

You may remember Jonathan Mann as "that guy who wrote that song Steve played at the Apple event," but of course Mr. Mann is a talented and extremely experienced musician and songwriter who's been churning out a song every single day over on his Songatron website. He's released an app with the ...

iTunes song previews will be extended to 90 seconds in US store

by Chris Rawson (Nov 2nd, 2010)

Music site Symphonic Distortion reports Apple has sent word that song previews in the US iTunes Store will soon be extended to 90 seconds, up from the 30-second previews the store has featured until now. The only caveat is that songs must be longer than 2 minutes, 30 seconds in order to get a ...

Extended iTunes song previews delayed, licensing may be to blame

by Chris Rawson (Sep 8th, 2010)

One of the things that was widely rumored to appear but ultimately absent from Apple's music event last week was an extension of song previews on the iTunes Store from their current 30 seconds to 60 or even 90 seconds. According to CNET, we can blame the Byzantine licensing arrangement of the music ...

iTunes 10 quick tip: Liking a song in Ping

by Michael Rose (Sep 2nd, 2010)

Here's a quick tip for iTunes that puzzled a few of us this morning: once you've gone ahead and set up Ping in iTunes 10, how do you 'like' a song instead of an album? The albums have those handy thumbs-up buttons, but it's not as obvious for songs. A bit of exploration reveals that the 'Like' ...

GDC 2010: Hands-on with Superbrothers' Sword and Sorcery

by Mike Schramm (Mar 15th, 2010)

"Superbrothers" is the alias of Craig Adams, a Toronto-based artist who specializes in pixel-based artwork and cinema. He's a big fan of musician Jim Guthrie, and after the two met a while ago (and discovered they were actually fans of each other), he was inspired to create a few music videos of ...

Rhythm Racer is big on fun, short on content

by Mike Schramm (Jan 21st, 2010)

Rhythm Racer [iTunes link] is an interesting take on the growing music/rhythm genre, and while it shows some interesting promise, it's currently a little too thin to become a full-fledged obsession. The basic idea is that you're controlling a ship down a track with different colored orbs on it, ...

Lyric fetchin' lovin': how to batch fetch lyrics with GimmeSomeTune and Needle Drop

by Sang Tang (Jul 14th, 2009)

One neat little thing about the iPod and iPhone family of devices is their ability to display lyrics -- supported by all iPod nanos as well as the iPhone/iPod touch, and iPod Classic 5th generation and higher. On the iPhone and iPod touch, lyrics show up when a song is loaded (and can be ...

It's all about the music: tunes from Apple's keynote presentations

by Sang Tang (Jun 18th, 2009)

I hope this post gets filed in the "I knew I wasn't the only one!" mental filing cabinets of many. Because if it doesn't, then it makes me the only one who really looks forward to the music Apple uses in its keynotes. Whether it's a song that leads up to Steve Jobs' entrance on stage, or one used in ...

TUAW Tip: Removing duplicate songs from iTunes

by Cory Bohon (Dec 15th, 2008)

Have you ever been listening your iTunes library and wondered why a song played more than one time? Duplicate songs in your library can be very annoying, and waste precious space on your hard drive. In this TUAW Tip, I'm going to show you how to get rid of duplicates using a built-in feature in ...