Posts Tagged mobile

Music Explorer FX – Mobile Edition

MEFXMobile

Caption contest: what is the guy in the back thinking?

Sten has created a mobile music discovery application that runs on a mobile device.  The application shows similar artists using Echo Nest data.   You can read about the  app and give it a try (it runs on a desktop too), on Sten’s Blog:   Music Explorer FX Mobile Edition

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I may never use iTunes again

On the Spotify blog there’s a video demo of Spotify running on Android (the Google mobile OS).   This is a demo of work-in-progress, but already it shows that just as Spotify is pushing the bounds on the desktop, they are going to push the bounds on mobile devices.  The demo shows that  you get the full Spotify experience on your device.  You can listen to just about any song by any artist.  No waiting for music to load, it just starts playing right away.  All your Spotify playlists are available on your device. You don’t have to do  that music shuffle game that you play with the iPod – where you have to decide on Sunday what songs you will want to listen to on Tuesday.

I think  the killer feature in the demo is offline syncing.  You can make any playlist available for listening even when you are offline.  When you mark a playlist for offline sync, the  tracks in the playlist are downloaded to your device allowing you to listen to them in those places that have no Internet connection (such as a plane, the subway or Vermont).    The demo also shows how Spotify keeps all your playlists magically in sync.  Add a song to one of your Spotify playlists while sitting at your computer and the corresponding playlist on your device is instantly updated. Totally cool.  I do worry that the record labels may balk at the offline sync feature.  Spotify  may be pushing the bounds further than the labels want to go,  by letting us listen to any music at any time, whether at home, in the office or mobile.

Much of my daily music listening is now through the Spotify desktop client.  The folks at Spotify continue to add music at a phenomenal rate (100K new tracks in the last week).    The only reason I ever fire up iTunes now is to synchronize music to my iPhone.  It is no secret that Spotify is also working on an iPhone version of their mobile app.  I can’t wait to get a hold of it.  When that happens, I may never use iTunes again.

Check out the demo:

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