Music

The iPhone isn’t just a hit stateside, it is also a hit in England. And wouldn’t you know it, just in time for Christmas sales, there’s a new iPhone killer in the water. Apparently Nokia doesn’t believe the iPhone is all about browsing, calling and ease of use. No sir! Nokia believes the iPhone is all about music. Which explains why the company is launching not just one but an entire series of phones that “come with music.”

The idea here is a prepay phone with access to 2.1 million tracks (iTunes~8 million). Owners will be able to download the tracks for a year and keep them forever. It sounds sweet but to keep downloading music after a year you’ll have to buy a new phone. Good thing bands don’t release albums every so often. Wait, they do? Well, you’ll always have an excuse to get a new phone.

Unsurprisingly, Nokia doesn’t have a partner to actually sell the “comes with music” phone yet but the company is desperately hoping to find one before the launch next month. The phones will cost between $200-$600.
source:The Telegraph

You’ve heard about Apple’s September 9th event called Let’s Rock. The event has most people convinced we’ll see new nano or an extended version of the Bobby versus Satan Kids in the Hall skit. But it can’t just be a new nano, that would be far too boring. Plus Steve saves nano announcements for times he finds himself on stage with Motorola CEOs.

So there has to be something more to event than Steve whipping out an even smaller nano. Though if he does it like he did the first time it will be pretty cool:

what else could be going on? If you’re a podcast maker or listener you know that you can create enhanced podcasts. You also know that record companies are looking for ways to add value to your music buying experience. Well, that last part isn’t true. Mostly record companies seem to want to complain that they need more money but bands are being smarter and at least one is releasing an enhanced version of their album to increase your enjoyment.

Perfect! We can all start back to making our own ringtone.

Ambrosia Software has released an update to its popular custom ringtone software, iToner, now supporting iPhone firmware 1.1.1. If you are already a user, download the update now. If not, get it!

iToner allows you to quickly transfer custom ringtone for your iPhone - without modifying, hacking or having to reset your iPhone in any way.

It is tough finding earphones that will fit the iPhone. Why Apple decided to make it so hard--who knows, but if there is a will, there is a way, right?

I found some pretty nice earphones that fits the iPhone without needing a pesky adapter. There are a few out there already, but I actually used a pair of the Shure earphones. If they sound anything like those, they will be not only made for the iPhone, but amazing also. Shure’s SE earphones were made just for the iPhone’s recessed headphone jack. The whole SE line will be ready for the iPhone so you don’t need to purchase an adapter, thank goodness.

The Apple earphones that ship with the iPhone are decent, but Shure SE makes those sound like white noise in comparison. Unfortunately, these amazing earphones come at an amazing price--$120 to be exact. I have never paid that much for earphones in my life, but I am considering…

Perfect for the new firmware update rolling out soon. You’ll be able to use the WiFi Music Store with a great pair… more...

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A while back, I did a review of Efiko’s iPhoneRingToneMaker. To this day, I am still using the software. I love it, but something that was missing, that I failed to mention in my review, was support for protected AAC songs. So all the songs that I purchased from iTunes (which is a lot of songs) were not able to be used as a ring tone. I found that somewhat odd considering it was an Apple product on which I was placing the music.

Labor Day came, and not only was I able to relax, but I was also able to import protected AAC ring tones to my iPhone. Why? Because my request was answered! On Monday (Labor Day) the maker sent me an email announcing the released copy 1.3.1 which adds support for those pesky protected songs I have been wanting to try out as a ring tone. I am a happy camper now.

iPhone is shareware, but allows you to try a full demo of their product before purchase, so check it out.

I don’t know what’s more exciting, waiting for the hordes of lawyers to be dispatched from the RIAA to unleash a wrath so terrible that all who encounter are never the same or the parodies we’ll see in a few days. Either way, you can get your fix of Apple Ad music goodness thanks to iPhone Alley.

There are two ways to obtain this clip. First is the legal way provided courtesy of TUAW. You can grab the entire song the clip is based from via iTunes (clicking this link will take you to the iTunes store) where you can purchase the song Perfect Timing by Orba Squara for 99 cents.

This other way would be considered a grey area by many but iPhone Ally has provided us with a 30 second clip of the song which is very close if not the same to the clip in the Adverts. You can head on over to iPhone Alley to nab the 30 second clip.

This is perfect for all of those attempting iPhone parodies (we haven’t seen that many) but… more...

It really surprised me when the iPhone was released with no way to customize, or add ringtone. It didn’t bother me though, because I knew there would be plenty of third-party software makers to please me. Of the few out there, I was able to get my hands on an extremely easy-to-use program called iPhoneRingtoneMaker.

The software is what the name suggest--a ringtone maker for your iPhone, which can support .MP3, .WAV, or .OGG. I thought the software was going to be difficult to use, but I was making ringtone like a pro in no time. Once installed, you’ll see the simple user interface. Two great big buttons at the bottom of the program will allow you to preview or create the ringtone. First, you’ll have to get your music, and as the program itself, is a very simple task. On the left side, you will see “Get My Music” and you can do so by file or folder. You can also go into your music folder yourself, right click the music file you want and within 30 seconds, your ringtone is made.

Once you… more...

“iPhone on training wheels.”

Not the words of yours truly. Rather, the words from Dave Dederer, founding member of the Presidents of the United States of America band (Remember Lump?) and a representative from Melodeo, when describing his company’s new mobile music service.

The new offering, called nuTsie, allows users to stream music from their iTunes libraries directly onto their cell phones. This name, an anagram of “iTunes” is in this writer’s humble opinion, perhaps the worst possible name a company could give a new product. To save some of you the trouble, and anagram basically means the same letters shuffled to make a new word. The term “nuTsie”, athough admirable in concept, clearly was approved by a bunch of non marketing savvy folk.

Digressions aside, this product is currently free to download and works on a select number of existing phones.

[Via Seattlepi]

Sprint Nextel, the nation’s third largest wireless carrier said yesterday that they will begin selling a new Samsung phone with $0.99 over the air music downloads.

This new device is called the UpStage and although it is trying to get a foothold in the over-the-air music download space, I don’t think Apple should be too concerned. Because even if the phone is all that it says it will be, it still only maxes out with 2GB of external memory. And that is a max out. The factory install comes with a mere 64MB of MicroSD memory.

Sure, it is innovative: if you consider innovative being a device that looks like a phone on one side and a cheap Creative Zen on the other. There won’t be any iPhone killer talk coming from Sprint Nextel.

[Via AppleInsider]

Here is a link to the music used in the iPhone Oscar ad. The song is called, “Inside Your Head” by an artist named Eberg. On his site, he is getting mad props by people who have learned about his music through the commercial. The most amusing is a posting on the site messageboards where a user named, Arturo offers this nugget: “I used your free sound clip as background music homevideo of my dog Marley the sheepdog, fantastic!!! thank you. Wish you the best on your music journey. Awesome cover art!”

There you have it...whether you are into the iPhone or sheepdogs, Eberg is for you.