Long before Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to found Facebook, Last.fm allowed music fans to keep an online record of the music they had been listening to in all sort of music players, including iTunes, Winamp, and more. Last.fm’s feature for this is called “scrobbling,” based on the fact that it had acquired a…
The creators of the new group-listening app budtobud say they had a long conversation with Turntable.fm creator Billy Chasen at TechCrunch Disrupt 2010 (see update), when they were working on a social DJ music player. At the time, he was still working on his old company, stickybits. The following spring, Chasen launched Turntable.fm, the music-tech darling of…
Google users may have noticed a new addition to the black navigation bar pictured above — you know, the one that was supposed to go away, but instead has become an omnipresent springboard for Google’s growing list of non-search services, seemingly designed to keep you frolicking in Google’s “free-and-open” garden for as long as possible….
Next year, a time bomb embedded in the Copyright Act of 1976 starts to detonate, as valuable copyrights fall back into the hands of artists who decide that they would prefer to own their songs, rather than allowing their label and publisher to keep selling them. Recordings released in 1978 will be up for copyright…
Apple’s “velvet rope” policy of allowing only certain apps into its iTunes app store has made it a target of criticism. Ironically, its bungling of that policy might be the strongest argument in its favor. After approving a (supposed) update to the incredibly popular Camera+ app, the 14th-most-popular app in iTunes, Apple deleted it after…
We’re already well into 2012 , which means we will have time for at most 48 more of these weekly music app roundups, according to the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar, until the world explodes in a cataclysmic Mayan fireball or otherwise ceases to exist — all because, 3,000 years ago, no one had the foresight to write down…
Are you a recovering Guitar Hero addict? Or if not, do you inexplicably love watching colorful circles slide down virtual strings so you can “strum” (or in this case, tap) away at your “guitar?” TubeHero, which has already enjoyed tremendous success as a Facebook app, brings everyone’s favorite wannabe-rockstar game to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch…
In the olden days, most of the music on music fans’ hard drives came from P2P networks and ripped CDs. If Apple’s vision of the music cloud proves dominant, the future will resemble that past, perhaps with MP3s downloaded from music blogs replacing CD ripping. Steve Jobs didn’t believe people wanted to rent music, which…
In some ways, some critics were wrong, when they said the iPad offers little to creative people who make things as opposed to merely consuming them, as proven by all the innovative recording and sonic fingerpainting apps we’ve seen, among many others. However, when it comes to building apps and programming other software, the iPad appears…
Tired of listening to music on your lonesome? Facebook might have the answer. About a month ago, the social network built some “connective tissue” between music fans and the services they use to listen. At its most basic level, Facebook now lets you A) let your friends know what you’re listening to on supported music services, and…
Last night, we regaled you with the jolting tale of our attempt to upgrade an iPhone 4 to iOS 5. Today, the trouble continues with the iPad. Our new nemesis: error -48. Apple’s iOS 5 upgrade fiasco, by no means unique to our devices, strikes again. We tried to upgrade this iPad last night, but…
Say goodbye to “iPod” — say hello to “Music.” As suspected, Apple changed the name of its music player app, found on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, during its recent iOS 5 launch. It’s now known simply as “Music.” The company stopped short of canceling the iPod Classic, although that’s likely on its way…
Apple rolled out the much-anticipated iOS 5 upgrade on Wednesday, bringing a bevy of helpful new features for music fans. However, the upgrade process is not going smoothly for everyone. Here’s what happened the first two times I tried to update my iPhone 4 to Apple’s new iOS 5 operating system on Wednesday: The same thing is happening…
Never mind the haters; Apple’s iPhone 4S offers plenty of new stuff, including a much-faster processor called A5, and a virtual assistant named Siri. Her processing demands are such that Siri will only be found on the iPhone 4S, which has that faster processor, and not the new iPod Touch. (We’re waiting for Apple’s confirmation…
Ten years ago this month, in a small-ish theater at Apple Computer headquarters at One Infinite Loop, I saw Steve Jobs unveil the iPod. On November 2, 2001, I wrote, “The iPod is revolutionary in a number of ways, and its descendants will replace the PC.” I think I was right, as we’re starting to see now with…
