Five free iPhone music apps

In a world teeming with increasingly similar tech products, Apple is one company that seems to have no problem churning out standout products. This might be attributed to sleek designs, fun features, and friendly interfaces--or maybe you want to chalk it up to good ol' marketing tactics. However, in the case of the iPhone and the iPod Touch, there's one attribute that undeniably separates these devices from the masses: the ever-expanding cadre of third-party applications. You can find everything from cookbooks and weight-loss trackers to games and productivity tools, but the area in which the iPhone and iPod Touch really excel is music, and there are hundreds of applications to choose from in this category.

To help you sort through the mass of options, we rounded up five of our favorite iPhone music apps. To keep things simple, we limited our scope to free selections that have a heavy focus on full music playback. Not everything included here will be a perfect fit for every iPod user, but you're sure to find something that will float your boat.

1. Pandora

Pros: Straightforward and easy to use; saves user data to account; nice interface with prominent album art; good music selection.

Cons: Skip limits; pop-up ads on every track; no community features.

The gist: If you only get one music streaming app for the iPhone or iPod Touch, make it Pandora--it's a great introduction for those who are anxious to hear some new tunes.

2. Last.fm

Pros: Plentiful community features and perhaps the best-tailored music recommendations; let's you add individual tracks to playlists for calling up later; lets you tag tracks and purchase directly from iTunes; no ads that we noticed.

Cons: Interface isn't as straightforward as those of Pandora and Slacker; not as valuable to users who aren't involved in the Last.fm community; a bit slower than other music apps listed here; skip limits.

The gist: With all its features, tabs, and buttons, the Last.fm application is one of the most in-depth and dynamic streaming music applications available for the iPhone.

3. Slacker

Pros: Straightforward and easy to use; saves user data to account; nice interface with prominent album art; heart and ban buttons to tailor playback to your liking; station listing page is graphically pleasing with album thumbnails.

Cons: Skip limits; no community features.

The gist: Sound quality, speed, and access to tunes are the most important ingredients in a mobile streaming radio app, and this app has them in spades--it's a worthwhile download for anyone who wants to less ads than found on Pandora.

4. imeem

Pros: Unlike other music apps, imeem gives you "cloud" access to part of your own library; includes useful sections that spotlight artists and recommend music based on your tastes; offers a sharing feature; has a nice interface that's easy to browse.

Cons: Limited by the usual Internet radio restrictions (skip limits, inability to play songs by the same artist back to back); access to your library is limited to 100 tracks unless you pony up a yearly subscription fee.

The gist: Beyond the appeal of streaming your music collection form the cloud, the rest of the Imeem application falls somewhere between the simplicity of the Pandora app, and the more personalized, social approach of Last.fm.

5. iheart radio

Pros: Let's you listen to radio stations from most major metropolitan areas across the U.S.; sound quality is generally better than standard FM radio; less commercials than standard FM radio; includes a fun "Shake It" feature that randomizes stations.

Cons: Station list is dominated by Clear Channel and other corporate offerings, meaning you won't find any cool, indie frequencies here; quality for some stations is poor.

The gist: If you love Top 40 and miss some of the hit stations from where you grew up (or where you went to school, etc.), iheart radio provides a portal for you to enjoy that content again.

Honorable mention: Shazam

Pros: Identifies songs playing over the air with the push of a button; shows album art for identified tracks; offers links for directly purchasing the song through iTunes or watching the video on YouTube.

Cons: Only works for recorded music; doesn't work well in noisy environments; often can't identify fringe music.

The gist: Shazam is a great download for people who are constantly wondering "what's the name of that tune?" while out and about.

article source: http://download.cnet.com/2300-13271_4-10001192-1.html?s=0&o=10001192&tag=mncol;page

eBuddy Finally Presents An iPhone App With Push Notification

eBuddy, the Dutch startup behind the eponymous mobile communication tool I dubbed the swiss army knife for instant messaging when it debuted an application for the Android platform last May, is announcing one hell of an iPhone application today. For context: eBuddy is a free mobile app that enables users to communicate with others using AIM, Facebook Chat, ICQ, Gtalk, Windows Live Messenger etc. in one, aggregated interface.

The application for the iPhone and iPod Touch the company is announcing today has quietly gone live in the App Store last week, but hasn’t been promoted in any way since until today. It brings a very strong competitor to the likes of Nimbuzz and fring, both of which have had native iPhone applications for a while now. Where eBuddy differentiates is in its support for Apple’s Push Notification Service, which allows a third-party server to ping the service in order to push out notifications to your device over a persistent IP connection.

You can see how that comes in handy for an instant messaging tool, since it basically acts as a replacement for text messages. When you exit the app, you’ll still be able to receive incoming messages from your contacts regardless of which IM client they choose to use (apart from Skype, but that’s another story), for 30 minutes initially.

At a later stage, the company expects to prolong this push notification window but strives to maintain a balance between a longer time and not putting too much strain on the device’s battery life.

I’m told that eBuddy already saw about 2 million people using its product from the iPhone or iPod Touch before the app actually hit the App Store, thanks to the web-based eBuddy Lite Messenger tool, but the free native application that was just released will likely convert most of those users to it in a short period of time.

In fact, many seem to have already done so despite the lack of a marketing push: according to stats provided by app store analytics startup Distimo, the eBuddy for iPhone application is currently already ranked #1 in 21 countries, within the top 5 in 31 countries, and within the top 10 in 37 countries in the free social networking application category.

Of course, a massive user base doesn’t equal massive revenue streams, especially not when you’re giving away a product for free. I asked eBuddy how it expects to make money from its mobile applications (they’re already doing quite well on the web version, I’m told), and CEO Jan-Joost Rueb said he wants to see an aggregate mobile app user base of 10 million uniques before they roll out monetization efforts like advertising and paid premium apps.

Rueb expects to hit that milestone by the end of this year based on its current growth path, so basically if the company can attract 4 million more mobile app users on top of its current 6 million ones, they’ll start deriving revenues from them in Q4 2009.

Growl App Notifies You Of Other iPhone App Changes

If you've seen a string of notifications pop up on your screen and then gracefully fade away, you've probably seen Growl; it's the open source & popular system-wide framework that allows applications to let you know when something happens. For instance, a Growl notification might appear to inform you of a newly-arrived email, new mentions on Twitter, a change of song in iTunes, or a download completing in Safari or Transmission.

The notification itself is a customizable pop-up that can also include an auditory notification as well. Growl is very flexible; it allows you to choose exactly which events trigger a notice, or pick a particular notification style for a specific event. Growl includes support for hundreds of OS X applications and is one of the first items I install on a new system.

Probably the only feature that could make Growl even more awesome is if it were to support forwarding notifications to an iPhone or iPod Touch running 3.0 via the new Push framework. Enter iPhone application Prowl. it is a Growl client for the iPhone that sends your Mac's Growl notifications out to your iPhone.

Because Growl is installed on your Mac and Prowl on your iPhone, the requisite link between the two means there is some configuration involved in getting going with Prowl. You can't download Prowl onto your iPhone or iPod touch and be ready to go immediately.

To use Prowl you must first have Growl installed and then create an account at the Prowl website. An account is necessary for the Prowl plug-in on your Mac to know where to send the notifications. Once the client application is installed on your iPhone and configured it is simply a matter of setting your Growl notification style to use "Prowl" rather than your default.

Usage/configuration
Prowl immediately begins working and any notifications that appear from Growl are automatically forwarded on to your iPhone. You can configure Prowl to use a different notification style for notices that appear on your Mac. It is also possible to have Prowl only forward notices of a specified priority. Prowl even lets you decide when to keep the notices on your Mac, when to send them to your iPhone or when to have them them show up on both.
This works by configuring the option to "Only send to Prowl when computer is idle for more than X minutes." By using this option you can tell Prowl that after X minutes of inactivity it should begin forwarding notifications to your iPhone. While the computer is still active, however, it will use the local notification style. Leaving this option un-checked means that all notices will appear on your Mac and your iPhone or iPod touch.

Performance
In my testing I found that Prowl worked exactly as planned and the notifications appeared on my iPhone very quickly. When my iPhone had been in standby for about 20 minutes, there was a 3-second delay between the actual event and the notification appearing on my iPhone -- not bad at all. When I was actively using my iPhone the notifications arrived almost instantaneously. For example, downloading the latest release of redsn0w with Transmission, I heard the familiar sound-effect of my torrent download completing, and before the "ting" had ended my iPhone was vibrating with a new Prowl notification.

Conclusion
I was extremely impressed with Prowl and the elegance with which I was able to view Growl notifications on my iPhone. If you are already using Growl then this application is an easy $2.99US purchase.
Growl is also common with individuals running their own closet servers -- if this is you then Prowl is a must-buy. For example, you could have Growl notifications on your closet server show up on the office Mac and also forwarded to your iPhone when you're away from home.
Prowl is written by Zachary West, who is also one of the developers of the beloved, multi-platform chat client Adium. Prowl is a great application, and I am extremely pleased with the results I had in my testing.

article sources: http://www.tuaw.com/2009/07/08/push-growl-notifications-to-iphone-with-prowl/