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Posts Tagged ‘Touch Music’

MusicNAO offers unique dock for iPhone and iPod touch

Filed under: Audio, Hardware, Bluetooth, iPhone, iPod touch, Music

Canadian company Cignias has announced an interesting product in the home audio/iPhone category. It’s called the MusicNAO and it allows you to wirelessly control a docked iPod with an iPhone or iPod touch. It also lets you play music wirelessly to the dock from an iPhone or iPod touch. The music streams using the stereo Bluetooth capability of your iPhone or second generation iPod touch.

The base unit, which is a bit reminiscent of the Bose product, has 40 watts of output power, contains equalization circuitry, and uses 4″ speakers. You can skip music, select music, and control the volume remotely. If you have an iPod plugged in, you can view and select playlists, artists and genres from your iPhone or iPod touch.

The apps for your iPhone or iPod touch are available free from the iTunes app store [iTunes link]. The control connections are through Wi-Fi, while the music streams through Bluetooth.

The unit also has an auxiliary input for plugging in another audio source. Hey, anyone still have cassettes?

The MusicNAO is shipping December 1, with an introductory price of U.S. $249.00 until November 30, then it’s $299.00. The prices are the same in Canada. I haven’t heard the device, so I can’t give testimony to the audio quality.

I do think the MusicNAO is a unique twist on portable music integration with Apple products. The system also supports Blackberry cellphones that have a stereo streaming feature.

TUAWMusicNAO offers unique dock for iPhone and iPod touch originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rock Band out for $9.99 on the iPhone… but fails to thrill

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, Music

The good news is that EA has released Rock Band for the iPhone and iPod touch, and you can pick it up from the App Store right now. The bad news is that it seems like a pretty tough sell — despite the relatively high price tag (Tap Tap Revenge 3, a similar music game, is currently 99 cents and headed for free), there’s not much new here.

Sure, there is four-device Bluetooth multiplayer, and that’s something that Tapulous’ game has never had. But other than that, it seems like this is basically EA’s cash in on the tapping concept — the draw of Rock Band has been getting together with your friends and jamming out the hits on those fake instruments, and touching a button-less screen by yourself doesn’t have the same effect. Singing is included, but you’re still just tapping out notes for that — it seems like they missed a lot of potential fun there. And even some of the fun things from the console version like the drum fills for overdrive and the character avatars are missing here.

If you don’t like the 20 songs included with the game, you can download others at 50 cents (in two-song packs for a buck each), but most people probably shouldn’t even bother at that price — just stick with Tapulous’ game unless you really love Rock Band and its aesthetics (even then, I haven’t seen my much-beloved Harmonix mentioned anywhere with this port, so I doubt they’re even involved).

Even if you want to try this one, wait for the inevitable price drop — if the game really lived up to its name as the premiere music experience you’ll find on the consoles, it might be worth it, but all indications are, unfortunately, that it doesn’t.

TUAWRock Band out for $9.99 on the iPhone… but fails to thrill originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rock Band coming to the iPhone

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, Music

It’s true — as leaked earlier this week and confirmed yesterday, EA is bringing Harmonix’s Rock Band to the iPhone, and it’s about what you’d expect: notes come down the screen set to popular music, you tap in certain places in time to the beat, and get a score based on how well you do. Truthfully, I’m a huge Rock Band (and Harmonix) fan in general, but this doesn’t excite me much — the big draw of Rock Band is actually playing with those instruments, and while yes they’re plastic and tiny, when you get four people in the same room together playing them, it actually feels like you’re jamming in a band.

Fortunately, the iPhone version will have both online and bluetooth multiplayer, so you will be able to jam with people, but the gameplay is simply reminiscent of Tap Tap Revenge, which you probably already know about and/or have. It looks like they’ve gotten most of their songs from the actual Rock Band game; twenty songs with the purchase (no price yet), and then there will be 99 cent packs of two songs each coming out soon. The app’s been submitted and it should be out in the store next week.

TUAWRock Band coming to the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TUAW Interview: Andrew Lacy of Tapulous on Tap Tap Revenge 3

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Features, iTunes, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, Music

By the time you read this, Tap Tap Revenge 3 should have made its way to the App Store. The latest version of the rhythm game/music platform for the iPhone and iPod touch is a huge release for Tapulous — from the series’ humble beginnings as a pre-App Store bit of code to the more recent incarnations of artist-specific music collections, Tapulous has taken Tap Tap a long way in the still short history of this gaming platform. And now they’re trying to go even farther: they’ve introduced in-app purchases to the game (you can find a full list of songs available now as in-app purchases inside the interview below), and they’ve added in social features, from customizable avatars to in-game chat and score sharing.

Tapulous COO Andrew Lacy sat down to talk with us just before the release of the software, both about how he thinks consumers will react to the new business model, and what’s next for Tapulous and this series that has come so far already. Tap Tap Revenge 3 should be in the App Store very soon — it’s available for 99 cents, with extra music packs at six songs for $2.99, or two songs for 99 cents.

Continue reading TUAW Interview: Andrew Lacy of Tapulous on Tap Tap Revenge 3

TUAWTUAW Interview: Andrew Lacy of Tapulous on Tap Tap Revenge 3 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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