Music on the iPhone is an interesting one – presumably Apple may be a bit tetchy about letting services on that compete with its own iTunes store (i.e. don’t expect Amazon, eMusic or Rhapsody any time soon).
But nevertheless, as an ace music phone, the iPhone deserves to have some equally ace music apps. And it seems there will be, judging by the ones that have launched today with the App Store. Here’s a roundup of some of the coolest, with links to their App Store pages (warning, these will open iTunes).
MooCowMusic: Band (above). This was shown off at Apple’s WWDC conference, and is bluddy marvellous. It’s a collection of virtual instruments that you play by tapping the screen, creating your own songs with chords of up to five notes. You can record, overdub and mix instruments together to create sonic cathedrals of sound (alright, songs) and then save them to play back later. It costs £5.99. (link)
GuitarToolkit. Everything a guitarist needs (if they have an iPhone to hand). This app has a library of more than 260 chords, which is useful if you’re learning, as well as a tuner to ensure you’re not hitting bum riffs. Well, to ensure that if you are, it’s your dodgy playing anyway. There’s also an adjustable metronome. It costs £5.99. (link)
MixMeister Scratch (left). I always wanted to be a superstar DJ, but nobody would let me near their decks. Well, they’ll be sorry now, because this free app turns your iPhone into a wheel of steel, with a choice of numerous vinyl scratch sounds. Better still, you can use it to scratch whatever music you’re playing on the iPhone at the time. Hook it up to some speakers, and the party is yours for the slaying! (link)
Remote. This app was created by Apple itself. It lets you control the music on your computer or Apple TV device from your iPhone or iPod Touch, via Wi-Fi. You can play, pause, skip or shuffle your tunes, as well as browsing through as if you’re sitting in front of the computer. Okay, so this isn’t super useful until you buy some AirTunes speakers, allowing you to, say, sit in the living room with them, and trigger tunes stored on your computer upstairs. It’s free, presumably to help Apple flog more of those speakers… (link)
Shazam (right). Now this is a curveball – and not an app that was widely trailed in advance of the App Store launch. It’s a well-known mobile service already, though. It’s a music-identification service – so when you hear a song on the radio, TV, in a film or out in public, you simply hold your iPhone up and trigger the Shazam app, and it’ll tell you what that song is. Plus it has links to buy tracks directly on iTunes (very clever indeed) as well as watch the videos on YouTube, and share them with friends. It’s free to download and use for the moment, but they’ll start charging for usage at some point. (link)
Tuner. Nifty internet radio app that lets you stream thousands of web radio stations to your iPhone, browsing by genre and then bookmarking your favourites. You can even add your own streams in if you know the address. It’s a bit pricey at £7.49 though. (link)
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