MusicBanners is a nice addition to the stock iOS Notification Center. This hack notifies you when a new music track is playing. It will show up in all the normal places regular notifications appear such as the banner at the top, the lock screen or the pull down notification center. The hack also works with Pandora and possibly other music apps but it’s originally made for the iOS Music app (formerly the iPod app) but when you open the notification it will always open the music app. Hopefully a future update can fix this but it’s still a great hack. This app is free in the Cydia Store. [Read more…]
Alesis iO Dock – iPad Dock With XLRs, Phantom Power, MIDI & More
This is the ultimate dock for musicians and audiophiles. The Alesis iO Dock has loads of features and connectors. It would go great with Garageband or DJ apps. The dock has pro audio connections like XLR & 1/4″ TRS. So far it’s not quite available yet but should be released very soon. B&HPhoto.com has it listed for $199 and approximate arrival in June 2011. Here is a list of features: [Read more…]
Friday Night Movie Night: Touch DJ – Pro Level MP3 DJ Mixing
Available In: App Store | Price: $19.99 |
Tonight, my wife and I went to dinner with friends, one being a local radio station manager. He was telling me one of his employees was super excited about a DJ app that was released recently. He said the guy had been waiting for the app and that I should check it out. Well, looking for videos for tonight’s Friday Night Movie Night I just happened to run across the same app and I’m telling you, from the video, it looks like it’s worth the $19.99 their asking for it. I’m gonna try hard to get a promo code for this app and get a video review of all it’s features. Being such an expensive app, you need to know what it can do before you buy. Here’s their promo video which is pretty convincing if you’re into this kinda stuff.
Shazam Releases Paid Version, Encore
Available In: App Store | Price: $4.99 |
Ok, I’m to sure I like this to much. Shazam is the sweet, FREE app that allows you to see what song and artist is playing by sampling a clip using the iPhone’s microphone. I’m only guessing, but if they were smart they would make commission from every song they sell through iTunes. Apparently that’s not enough money. I’m sure it’s not cheap to have an unlimited subscription to a service that tags almost all songs. Either way, $4.99 seems like too much for their new, paid version. It’s supposed to be faster and have unlimited tagging. The free version, for new installs only, will be limited to 5 tags per month. If you already have the app, it works like it always has. We weren’t able to do deep testing as neither app would work for us tonight.
Gigaware HD Radio Receiver
As kewl as the idea seems, HD Radio on the iPhone isn’t what it could be. As you’ll see in the video below, to get HD Radio you’ll have to buy an $80 accessory that attaches to the iPhone dock port with a cord. Then you have to plug your headphones into the accessory, not the iPhone, to get sound. You might as well just buy an HD radio like this for $50. With the $80 price tag and all the cords, I’m pretty sure I’m out on this one. Check out this video and let me know what you think. Would you use this?
MotionDrum – Get Your Air Drumming On
Available In: App Store | Price: $0.99 |
MotionDrum is a pretty cool drum simulator. The thing that makes this application unique is how you play the drums. Instead of just tapping buttons on the screen, the applications takes advantage of the built-in accelerometer. You are able to easily play four percussion instruments by moving your iPhone up, down, left and right.
The app contains 40 different instruments to choose from ranging from three different bass drums options to a shaker to a three different varieties of a Tom. The set-up process is quick and easy… just choose which instrument you would like for each of the four motions (down, up, left and right) then select the volume and the sensitivity for each motion.
[Read more…]
Sonos Announces Sonos ZonePlayer S5 – A Wireless Music System Controlled from the iPhone
Available In: App Store | Price: Free |
Sonos recently announced the Sonos ZonePlayer S5 a powerful, wireless music system that not only delivers quality sound but also allows for remote access via the Sonos Controller App.
The Sonos ZonePlayer S5 is a 8.50in x 14.40in speaker that encases “five Class-D digital amplifiers” and “five driver speaker system (two tweeters, two 3” mid-range drivers, and one 3.5” woofer. Each driver of the product is individually powered by a dedicated amplifier).”
Another nice features of the system is that it can be controlled wirelessly from your iPhone (or iPod touch) via the Sonos Controller App. The app allows you to remotely control the music system giving you the ability to instantly access music stored on your computer, and play tunes from a NAS drive or Apple Time Capsule without turning on your computer, control the music selection and volume in each room individually, search for any song with the touch-screen keyboard and much more. [Read more…]
PocketTouch Makes it to the App Store
Available In: App Store | Price: $0.99 |
I was totally stoked to hear that PocketTouch had made it into the App Store. PocketTouch was definitely one of the most popular jailbroke applications and I always love to see those apps make it to the App Store.
For those of you unfamiliar with the app, PocketTouch is a music controller for your iPhone or iPod touch. The beauty of PocketTouch is that you can control your music without having to look at your device… all the controlling is done through taps, swipes and shaking.
Once you have a song playing in your music player, you can launch PocketTouch.
[Read more…]
DrumBeat – Drum Simulator
Available In: Cydia | Price: Free |
DrumBeat is a drum simulator. The simulator includes 5 drums (including a base drum) and 5 symbols. I’m no drummer so, I can’t tell you if they sound like they should, but they sound good to me! You can get DrumBeat via the BigBoss source. [Read more…]