Music Ally

We noticed a funny thing today when browsing our RSS feed of new iPhone music apps. A company called Apptism has released a bunch of apps called ‘Sing Along With…’, except not with the actual artist names in the app title. They offer collections of lyrics from the stars’ back catalogues.

For example, ‘Sing Along With the Canadian Country Star’ has loads of Shania Twain lyrics. Others include:

‘Sing along with the Caribbean Queen’ (Rihanna)
‘Sing along with the Genesis star’ (Phil Collins)
‘Sing along with Curly and the boys’ (N-Sync – we like this title especially)
‘Sing along with the Poker Face singer’ (Lady Gaga)
‘Sing along with the ‘Rockstar’ band’ (Nickelback)

And so on. The correct band/singer names are all in the App Store blurbs for these apps, it’s just the titles they’ve been not-so hidden in. Whether this is a cunning plan to avoid the copyright police is unclear – the app blurbs make it clear that they’re not officially connected (and thus presumably not officially licensed) with the artists.

(more…)

RealNetworks has announced that its Rhapsody iPhone app has been downloaded more than 200,000 times in its first 20 days of availability on the App Store. That’’s impressive, although it’’s a bit early to crack open the champagne at Real HQ, since the app allows users a seven-day free trial – in other words, its success will be proved not by overall downloads, but by how many new users start paying $14.99 a month for a Rhapsody To Go subscription. Meanwhile, RealNetworks has unveiled an Android version of the app too.

Big news tonight: Spotify’s official iPhone app will soon be available on the App Store, after Apple confirmed that it has been approved. The app was submitted several weeks ago, and has been the subject of much speculation since then.

“The current status as of right now is it’s been approved and we hope to add the app to the more than 65,000 apps on the app store very soon,” an Apple spokesperson tells MocoNews. “We’ve been in constant communication working with the developer and have already notified Spotify that the app will be in the app store very soon.”

It’s good news for Spotify, as the app requires a premium subscription to be used – meaning it could spark an uplift in users upgrading to the company’s paid service. The approval will also raise cheers at RealNetworks, which is submitting a Rhapsody app for approval this week. And it’s good news for iPhone users, as the app is rather spiffing.

Apple is facing more brickbats for its iPhone apps approvals process, this time from Facebook. Well, Facebook engineer Joe Hewitt, writing on his personal blog. He’s the man responsible for Facebook’s iPhone app, version 3.0 of which is currently in the approvals process.

“The review process needs to be eliminated completely,” he writes. “Does this sound scary to you, imagining a world in which any developer can just publish an app to your little touch screen computer without Apple’s saintly reviewers scrubbing it of all evil first? Well it shouldn’t, because there is this thing called the World Wide Web which already works that way…”

Apple has argued – most recently in a filing to the Federal Communications Commission – that its review process is necessary to catch bugs before apps go live on the App Store. However, that’s not a position Hewitt has any sympathy with.

(more…)

Reports that Spotify’s iPhone app has been rejected by Apple may be wide of the mark – either that, or Apple has let Swedish journalists and bloggers know before Spotify, which seems unlikely.

We contacted Spotify’s Jim Butcher to ask if the rejection stories are true, and he tells us it’s just Chinese whispers on Twitter. “We’ve seen more Twitter buzz claiming the opposite. Not a word from Apple – all quiet on the north western front.”

That’s not to say the app won’t be rejected, of course. But with mounting anticipation of the app’s release (or non-release), it seems we’ll have to wait a little while longer to find out for sure.

Underworld is the latest artist to get a remixable iPhone app. They’re working with iDrum on the application, which lets fans get slippy with 13 tracks, including all the hits but also an exclusive track called VoxJam.

Meanwhile, Underworld/Tomato creative director John Warwicker has created the artwork, meaning this isn’t just another reskinned iPhone app. This is pretty important, especially for an artist like Underworld who are known for being heavily involved in the stuff around their music.

Fancy monkeying about with Born Slippy and the rest? The app costs £2.99 and can be found here.

Soon, it may well be easier to list the artists who DON’T have their own branded iPhone app than to list those that do. In the last few days alone, more than 250 artist apps have been launched on iPhone’s App Store by iLike, which is charging bands $99 apiece for developing them.

Meanwhile, Kyte has launched iPhone apps for the likes of Lady GaGa and the Pussycat Dolls, Mobile Roadie has taken Spinal Tap onto the App Store, and everyone from David Bowie to BT to Soulja Boy Tell’em have launched iPhone apps letting fans remix their songs. The days when it was just Snow Patrol and Pink ploughing a lonely iPhone furrow are long gone.

Launching an iPhone app makes sense right now. More than 45 million iPhones and iPod touches have been sold, meaning a healthy addressable base. What’s more, iPhone apps are cool – the PR benefits alone often pay for the development costs. Yet we can’t help wondering when the people commissioning these apps will start looking beyond the App Store to other mobile platforms.

(more…)

Apple has announced that more than 1.5 billion applications have now been downloaded from its App Store for iPhone and iPod touch. The news comes less than three months after the store passed the 1bn downloads milestone.

Some other stats: there are now more than 65,000 apps available on the store, while 100,000 developers have registered with Apple’s iPhone Developer Program. Meanwhile, Apple has updated its device sales figures, revealing that it’s now sold more than 40 million iPhones and iPod touches. That means that the average user has downloaded more than 37.5 apps for their device.

However, there’s speculation around how many of these apps are actually paid for: AppleInsider suggests that for every one app that’s bought, anywhere from 15 to 40 free apps are downloaded. That’s not great news for developers looking to make their fortunes on the App Store, although it’s fair to say a lot of music apps fall into the free category.

Microsoft says that when its Windows Marketplace for Mobile app store launches this Autumn, it will have around 600 certified apps available. That’s less than iPhone and Android, obviously (50,000 and 5,000 respectively), but more than the Palm Pre, which currently has 30. Microsoft’s store will allow people to pay by credit card or on their operator bill, and there’ll be a 24-hour return policy for apps if they’re not happy.

Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek has been talking frankly about his company’s business model and future plans. Is it on target with its revenue forecasts? “Not really, to be honest. We’re in one of the world’s worst recessions, and it’s taken longer to get started. We view it as we haven’t really started yet.” Ek said video content and an IPO are possible in the future, and said it’s working with 7Digital on one-click song purchases – “The download integration we have now is not very good”.

Source: The Register – http://tinyurl.com/murtbn