Mobility Digest » Music

Google to get in the ring with Apple over digital downloads

Eric Greenwood — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:26:11 +0000

Google’s long-rumored entry into the digital music game is likely happening just in time for Christmas. Andy Rubin, Google VP and primary director for Android development, has been in talks with some of the major labels in hopes of securing some kind of licensing that would put Google in direct competition with Apple’s dominance of digital download sales. The search giant’s plan includes a download store à la iTunes (but let’s hope way less of a resource hog) and a “digital song locker,” which would enable users to stream songs on their mobile devices wherever they may be. Google is way behind Apple in the music department, but being late to the party has never been cause for concern for Google, whose Android mobile platform is activating 200,000 devices each day, despite Apple’s passive-aggressive claims to the contrary. Label execs (too scared to reveal their names) are excited to have something to challenge Apple’s monopolistic decision-making when it comes to pricing and digital formats. The competition from Android’s rising ubiquity is bound to take a bite out of Apple’s (see what I did there?) unchallenged dominance since iTunes and iPods changed the game back in 2001. I for one cannot wait to dump iTunes by the wayside.

5 comment(s) for this post:

Doug Simmons:
2010-Sep-02 F Apple's claims. "Activations" mean things involving cellular activity, not sales of ipod touches and whatever else has iOS. And let's say that figure did not include anything other than phones and ipads, let's just see where that figure is upon the next big release of these numbers as the iphone 4 fad dims, which it will, the buying spree, whereas it won't with Android. I just love how Google's getting in everyone's ring. Watch Google TV trample Apple TV even faster than fanboys like me think it will. And as for your post's subject, this has been brewing with Google for years and once they unload their master plan, expect it not to fall flat. Defeating itunes? Nah. But putting them on their toes, yes. As for iTunes itself, man I wish Steve had remained stubborn enough not to port it over to PCs. Frickin' hate iTunes. There's software out there that will let you dump mp3s onto ipods and it will go in and manipulate whatever database is necessary but the developers behind that stuff seem to struggle to keep up with each new ipod release. I hate itunes, I hate Safari and Quicktime updates you get as a result of installing ... ahh I don't want to hijack this into a rant, I'll stop. Returning to my original point, F Apple.
who dis?!:
2010-Sep-02 Man Simmons... won't you ever stfu. Okay I'll feed the troll. Google not defeating iTunes -- "nah" you say? Nah? If by nah you mean no way in hell, you wouldn't be understating it. And it sure ain't gonna put Apple on its toes, believe that. I don't know either whether or not ipod touches are included in that figure, but in terms of this pissing match, why shouldn't they? They're essentially, as long as they're within wifi range, the same in terms of functionality with both the iPad and iPhone. Not like Google's getting a pile of money upon each activation either. And what does it say about a platform that is badass enough that when slapped on a device without a GSM transceiver, iOS still makes that device a top seller? How many Android devices are there that are only wifi and high-end? Regardless, why can't we just lower our weapons, you and I, and kick back and watch the show together of the implosion of RIM? Enemy of my enemy kind of thing, right? Jive turkeys.
sm0k3ydaband1t:
2010-Sep-02 whodis, say what you want but the apple extravaganza is about over, due to thier "our shit doesnt stink" attitude apple wasnt allowing thier product to be sold at authorized agents of apple, or att. that just changed as of tuesday... why would they all of a sudden deem these people worthy to sell thier product when they didnt before? because apple knows they are about to be in a losing battle and their trying to recruit as many soldiers as possible... and no matter how hard you try you cant make a phonecall over wifi with an ipod touch, so same functionality my ass... and ps. you sound like foxy cleopatra from austin powers you "jive turkey"
Davidk:
2010-Sep-02 just on the license thing there is something big that apple has. if they activate a license in any form it means they just sold hardware and software. Google on the other hand just gave away a free license to software. bottom line is pretty different. Google has a few years to build a larger catalogue of software and services (prefect goggles and calling and music and tv and not beta any more). then they can make money on selling a product and not just advertising/info. that's a start for them to compete toe to toe.
sm0k3ydaband1t:
2010-Sep-03 obviously goog will get greedier and greedier as time goes on but make no mistake davidk, goog isnt hurting for cash at all, and thats all thanks to the advertising. i thought they were already going toe to toe...

Care to comment?

Apple Hosting Music Themed Event September 1st

Vikram — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:34:34 +0000

Today Apple sent out musical themed invitations for an event it is hosting next Wednesday on September 1st. The invitation does not say anything about what will be announced but the only clue that we have right now is this image.

Possible guesses of what could be announced? Maybe a new iTouch that has all the same exact features of the iPhone 4 except it lacks the phone functionality? Maybe Apple TV? or a new cloud based music service?

What are your guesses on what they will announce? Let us know in the comments.

[Via The Register]

1 comment(s) for this post:

Ike:
2010-Aug-26 It's LaLa 2.0 - (still not compatible with left-handed people.)

Care to comment?

SRS 5.1 Virtual Surround Available on All Samsung Galaxy S Smart-Phones

Doug Smith — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:11:20 +0000

As you probably have noticed, the SAMSUNG Galaxy S™ line of Android powered smart-phones has really begun to gain in popularity, and rightfully so, these phones are packing some serious power, a killer screen and superb audio performance. If you are currently reviewing one of these phones or plan to review one in the future, be sure to check out the SRS Virtual 5.1ch. surround sound feature located within the Music and Video players.

You can experience the SRS 5.1 Virtual Surround effect by pressing the (5.1ch.) button within either the embedded Music Player or Video Player.

What to listen for when using the SRS 5.1 Virtual Surround feature:

Creates an accurate 5.1 personal surround sound experience over any stereo headphones
Dialog Clarity boosts the frequency range of the human voice in a way that lifts the dialog above the audio effects
A drastic increase in overall bass response

The SRS 5.1 Virtual Surround feature can be found on the following SAMSUNG Galaxy S smart-phones from top carriers.

AT&T – Captivate
T-Mobile – Vibrant
Sprint – Epic
Verizon – Fascinate

1 comment(s) for this post:

BennyJ:
2010-Aug-24 Come on XDA. I hope some can rip it for WinMo. That would be awesome.

Care to comment?

Rock Out Your Guitar With iRig On Your iPhone

Doug Smith — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:31:18 +0000

I own a guitar. I own a guitar amp. I own absolutely NO musical skill whatsoever.

Regardless if you have or have not any musical skill, or even if you like or dislike the iPhone. This is Bad Ass! The AmpliTube iRig is simply a way to get your guitars signal into your iPhone where you can then plug into a speaker or headphones.

First you have got to check out this video featuring Guns N Roses Guitarist Richard Fortus who is demonstrating the iRig and has a really cool sit down guitar jam:

The iRig sells for $39.99 and you can check it out here at:

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/

AmpliTube for iPhone

At the core of the AmpliTube iRig System is AmpliTube – the leader in gear modeling software for professional recording studios.

Now AmpliTube for iPhone gives you the same incredible ultra-realistic sound and modeling accuracy of its Mac/PC applications in a convenient mobile platform app.

With AmpliTube for iPhone, you’ll have an entire guitar/bass rig at your fingertips, comprised of 3 recombinable simultaneous stompbox effects, an amp-head plus cabinet and a microphone.

With AmpliTube for iPhone fully loaded, you will be able to choose between 5 amps (clean, crunch, lead, metal, bass) with full controls, 11 stompbox effects (delay, fuzz, distortion, overdrive, wah, envelope filter, chorus, flanger, phaser, octave, noise filter), 5 cabinets and 2 microphones (dynamic and condenser).

Plus, AmpliTube for iPhone features a chromatic digital tuner and a metronome. You can also import and play with songs or backing tracks with real time effects, and create, save and recall up to 36 presets on the fly!

Real time guitar and bass mobile multiFX app
Full rig made by 3 simultaneous stompboxes + amp + cabinet + mic
11 Stomps, 5 Amps, 5 Cabinets, 2 Mics available
Import and play with songs or backing tracks with real time effects
36 presets can be saved/recalled on the fly
Includes tuner/metronome
Free, LE and Full versions available
Free and LE versions expandable with a-la-carte downloadable gear
Same low-latency as Mac/PC systems

3 comment(s) for this post:

Chris Leiter:
2010-Aug-18 Now that's AWESOME. I love it. I have a Fender strat sitting around collecting dust because I sold my amp, and didn't want to invest too much money in it, but $40? I think I just found my next toy :)
Doug Smith:
2010-Aug-18 I want to find a good battery speaker like Richard was using, anyone got any suggestions?
Ant_129:
2010-Aug-19 @Doug Smith: I am waiting for this to come out http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Rechargeable-Speaker-s715i-iPhone/dp/B003VANOI6/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1RK5I2R8PKWOU&colid=33LXLHHSOYYFC

Care to comment?

ZuneCardr – Find More Music For Windows Phone 7

David K — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:54:16 +0000

Here’s a WP7 app that’s designed with a panoramic view that helps you find more music. With it, you can view the Zune Tags of others on Zune Social to see what they’re looking for and discover new music. It will be available for free with the launch of Windows phone 7. Neat concept and always great to combine music and social (two keys to WP7) in one app.

More information is available at http://www.zunecardr.com/phone or follow @rogueplanetoid

Care to comment?

Thumbplay Brings Offline Music To Android

David K — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:10:40 +0000

If you’re using Android then you’re probably still waiting for your Zune Pass OK done wit the digs. Thumbplay is a paid service that gives you access to some 9 million songs and they’ve now announced that included in that service is the ability to download music to your phone and play it locally so you don’t need to always stream it. So it should be better on battery life and of course, if you’re in an area of poor reception you can keep listening. They also note that they’ve “added a widget that makes it super easy to control your music and go about your business on Android – play games, check email, whatever. Think of it as a remote control for your phone.” There’s more to the app like a desktop companion, playlist builder, etc.

You can see Thumbplay in action in this video:

Thumbplay Music App Demo from Thumbplay on Vimeo.

You can sign up for a free three day trial here. By the way, there’s also a Blackberry and iPhone version of Thumbplay.

Care to comment?

Thumbplay Music Launches On Android

Doug Smith — Mon, 03 May 2010 19:01:16 +0000

Thumbplay®, the leading provider of mobile entertainment in the U.S., has launched its cloud-based Thumbplay® Music(TM) (www.thumbplaymusic.com) service in Android(TM) Market, providing the Android fan-base with unlimited, anytime/anywhere access to millions of songs. Thumbplay Music is the only on-demand, subscription music service currently available on both the fastest-growing and largest smartphone platforms in the U.S., Android and BlackBerry® smartphones,* respectively. (Complete list of devices below.) The service is also available as a companion app on PCs/Macs® and it is coming soon on iPhone®.

Thumbplay Music has more than eight million tracks under license from all major labels and more than 25,000 independent labels. Thumbplay Music is a next generation music service, built by experts in mobile content delivery to serve the rapidly growing market of U.S. smartphone users which is forecasted to grow to 160 million people by 2013.**

Said Evan Schwartz, CEO and Co-Founder of Thumbplay, "With Thumbplay Music now live on Android and BlackBerry smartphones, we’re giving tens of millions of people truly portable, anytime, anywhere access to all the music they want. We’ve been getting rave reviews from our Android users in Beta, especially when they employ the companion app on PC and see the power of having their complete music collections and playlists in-sync. We’re thrilled to deliver a music service worthy of discerning Android fans."

Thumbplay Music includes its own in-app media player and boasts several compelling features, including:

Unlimited, on-demand access to any artist or album; millions of songs to choose from
Build a personal music collection with Favorites and effortless Playlist creation; auto-sync between smartphone and PC/Mac
Online and offline access: No connection? No problem! Listen to music on the subway or in-flight. Available anytime, anywhere. (Offline access currently only available on BlackBerry devices; coming soon for Android.)
Playlist Genie for music discovery: Instantly generate customized recommendations from favorite songs – Search: Find music by artist, song, album or genre; includes free previews of all songs
Import existing iTunes® playlists within Thumbplay Music’s companion desktop app. With a few clicks, recreate iTunes playlists and have them available on smartphone and PC/Mac.
Free, "no strings attached" three-day trial; subscriptions are then available for $9.99/month.

Thumbplay, which enjoys sustained profitability, has built an award-winning service centered on delivering millions of pieces of mobile content to 95 percent of U.S. devices among every major carrier. Thumbplay is leveraging its existing network of more than 8,000 distribution partners to promote Thumbplay Music.

Care to comment?

Slacker Back For Realz

David K — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 02:28:59 +0000

So as we thought, Slacker was faking left and going right. First we had Slacker, then they removed it and XDA hacked it to work again (which was only reported in our comments but not to the main site to let it live as long as possible). Then we showed you that the release videos from TMo of the HD2 showed Slacker was in fact included. And then today with the release of the HD2 Slacker made the release of Slacker for WM official. A few caveats. It’s for WM 6.5 and WVGA only – other setups may or may not work. If you’ll recall I installed it on my Fuze and it was workable, you just couldn’t navigate the app.

If you’re ready for a legit version of the app just hit up this link for a direct download of the cab. And yes, it’s still a great app. And no, it was never a bugged version, but we forgive you for misleading us:)

Oh, here’s the feature list:

Free application and free service

Over 100 expert-programmed stations

Create your own custom stations

Displays album art, reviews and bios

Care to comment?

Colorful aluminum lined leather cases for your iPhone 3GS and 5G iPod nano

Doug Smith — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:11:06 +0000

Never be left out on a limb again. The Aluminum Lined Leather Case (Apple iPhone 3G/3GS) is hand crafted from high quality leather to meet the exact specifications of your Apple iPhone 3G/3GS. Featuring our trademark ‘Screen Saver System’, a sheet of rigid, lightweight aircraft grade Aluminum lines the Case to protect your precious device from crushing and impact shocks. Stylish and clever.
Cut outs give access to ports and controls so that you can continue to use your device while it’s in the case.

Key Features

Handcrafted from the finest quality leather
Stitched leather case with contrast leather style, and black with cream pinstripe lining
Custom made to hold your Apple iPhone 3GS securely in place
Aluminium lined “screen saver” flip cover
Contrast overstitching
Secure closure system
Cut outs for access to device whilst in the case

The Aluminum Lined Leather Case is also available for the Apple 5G iPod nano!

Be sure to head on over to Proporta to pick one of these up for your iPhone for $42.95 and for the nano for $35.95 plus the MOBILITYDIGEST discount of 10% when you enter us in the promo code slot!

iPhone 3G3 CLICK HERE

Apple 5G iPod nano CLICK HERE

Care to comment?

AT&T Launches New Music Experience

Doug Smith — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:58:48 +0000

If you got the LG Xenon, Samsung Solstice and Samsung Impression from AT&T you will now be able to get your groove on as AT&T is launching a new music service for these devices. AT&T says it will be rolling it out to more devices soon and will be preloading it (more AT&T bloat to get rid of more most of us) sometime this summer. Here is more:

AT&T* today announced a new AT&T Music application that combines the most popular mobile music services – song and album downloads, streaming radio, song match, lyric search and an enhanced music player – into a single, cohesive experience for AT&T mobile phones. The service is available first as a download on three of AT&T’s most popular quick messaging phones, delivering the tightest integration of mobile music services available to this category of devices.

Within one mobile broadband application, subscribers to AT&T Music can:

Listen to 40 commercial-free genre radio stations;
Customize unlimited personal radio stations;
Use song match to identify the tune by holding their phone up to music playing on the radio, TV or elsewhere;
Search for lyrics to identify song title and artist;
Preview, buy and download songs and albums straight to their phone; and
Listen to personal music saved on their mobile device, including the ability to create and manage playlists and find music by artist, album, song or genre.

Read the entire Press Release after the break:

AT&T Launches New Music Experience

New Service Combines Ways to Discover, Play and Shop for Music in a Single Mobile Broadband App. Launching

Within one mobile broadband application, subscribers to AT&T Music can:

Listen to 40 commercial-free genre radio stations;
Customize unlimited personal radio stations;
Use song match to identify the tune by holding their phone up to music playing on the radio, TV or elsewhere;
Search for lyrics to identify song title and artist;
Preview, buy and download songs and albums straight to their phone; and
Listen to personal music saved on their mobile device, including the ability to create and manage playlists and find music by artist, album, song or genre.

“We’ve long been a leader in mobile music and have been at the forefront in evolving the category to offer some robust experiences, but those experiences have largely been available though separate applications,” said Mark Collins, senior vice president of Data and Voice Products for AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “We recognized a need to create a ‘no dead-ends’ experience that weaves together all of the most popular music services, so customers don’t have to jump in and out of different applications depending on how they want to access mobile music.”

The app was designed to deliver deep integration of tasks while maintaining simple, easy-to-use navigation. A customer with a song line stuck in his or her head can enter those lyrics into the lyric lookup function to identify the song and artist and, from there, view full lyrics, access the artist’s bio, preview and buy the song, or create a personalized radio station from that song.

AT&T plans to enable full song and album downloads through direct deals with Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music and indie music distributor The Orchard. Details on additional content providers will be announced in the future.

The new AT&T Music experience is available today on the LG Xenon, Samsung Solstice and Samsung Impression. AT&T plans to make the service available as a download on additional handsets soon and will begin preloading the service on devices beginning this summer.

Feature enhancements, such as the ability to purchase and manage ringtones and ringback tones from within the application, are also planned.

The service is available for $6.99 per month to customers who subscribe to an unlimited data plan. Song and album purchases are charged a la carte.

Customers with currently compatible handsets can download the new AT&T Music experience through the AT&T App Center, available directly from their phone or www.att.com/appcenter. Customers can also text MUSIC to 7299 to receive a link to download the application; messaging rates apply.

For the complete lineup of AT&T offerings, visit www.att.com.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

Care to comment?