Spotify Unveils Touch Preview

When looking for new music, we're not always sure about what we like, but we always know what we don't. Most music services give you a 30 second preview of a song, but these days we want to be able to immediately move on if there's something that doesn't immediately tickle our fancy.

That's why the new Spotify Touch Preview feature is so cool. It's a change in the user interface on an iPhone or iPad (Android to come soon) that allows you to touch and hold to activate the preview of the song. Don't like it? Just touch something else. It's designed to make music discovery as quick and easy as possible, and I think it succeeds. Check out the video to see how it works.

Instagram Launches The Hyperlapse App

Every platform needs a "killer app" and while Instagram has always been about pictures, it's new Hyperlapse feature might be just the thing to push its use in video over the top. While time-lapse video has always been pretty cool, it's been a major production pain, requiring hours of shooting time. Hyperlapse allows the user to instantly get that same look without any pain other than holding your smartphone still for a while.

Hyperlapse is different from most platform apps in that it doesn't require an account since its a dedicated app that sits on your smartphone. You just tap to begin recording and it automatically defaults to 6x speed, although you can change it to something slower or faster if needed.

You can shoot the video for as long as you like (providing you have the arm strength to hold the camera still that long), but like all video shared on Instagram it's limited to 15 seconds and presented in its signature square format.

Music video directors should love it though, and here's a video called "Overblown" by Doctor Popular as a sample. If you have an iPhone, you can get Hyperlapse from the App Store here.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Would You Wear Your Music?

Apple Thinks Big With The Wearable Tech Market

From all indications it appears that the Apple - Beats Electronics deal will come to pass, and as we move forward from the initial leak a week or so ago, many analysts are focusing on the wearable tech part that Beats may bring to the Apple deal.

As I and other industry observers have written, Beats headphones are as much a fashion accessory as an audio accessory, with the balance clearly leaning towards the fashion side of things. There are plenty of other headphones available from serious audio manufacturers that not only sound better but are also cheaper, but virtually none come close to the sales numbers. Beats excels at marketing (much to the chagrin of the serious audio manufacturers), and as a result its headphones are all the rage, especially in the Urban community thanks to co-founder and uber-producer Dr. Dre (“Beats By Dr. Dre” is the brand name).

This scenario is one that’s actually very near and dear to Apple’s heart. It wasn’t that long ago that the iPod was the go-to music device for anyone that was even remotely into music, and the distinctive white earbuds made exactly the same statement then that Beats makes today, only to a much broader demographic.

The trend continued with the introduction of the iPhone, where you just weren’t hip unless you had one (signified again by the white earbud/microphone), which carried on until the various Android smartphones gained marketshare over the last 12 months or so. As a result, owning an iPhone no longer holds the same status as it once did. Read more on Forbes.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Enough With The Apps Already!

I hate most iPad and iPhone apps. There, I said it. In this world we live in where jumping on the bandwagon is expected in order to keep up with the competition, every company or artistic project seems to be working on an app. And it’s not a good idea.

For one thing there are too many available already. In October Apple announced that there were one million apps available in the iTunes Store and a total of 60 billion had been downloaded already. Shortly before that, Google announced that there were 900,000 available from Google Play and over 50 billion Android apps downloaded. That figure has no doubt increased to match Apple’s by now. 

Besides the fact that we’re already inundated, the real problem is that most apps (except for games and utility apps) don’t work as well as the website they hope to replace. I’ve gotten to the point where I just use the browser on my tablet and phone instead of most apps that I’ve installed, which leaves the tiny programs taking up space in the background (I have to get around to deleting them soon).

Sports is a great example, with dozens of apps for every individual genre, and for the most part, every one that I’ve tried is frustrating. I keep on going back to ESPN on the browser for game updates. In fact, even ESPN’s own app isn’t as good as its website. Read more on Forbes.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Why Apple Hasn't Lost It's Mojo

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. Apple releases a new product, gets rave reviews and has lines around the block at their stores, yet the press predicts doom and gloom for the company. Well, we’ve seen this very scenario play out again with the latest introduction of the iPhone 5S and 5C.

Wall Street consistently shows that it has its head in the clouds and is about as far away from Main Street as could be. The example that I love the most is when a company issues an earnings report where things went well and it actually turns a profit, yet their stock gets pounded because the analysts proclaim, “Yes, but they didn’t reached our estimates, so we should worried about their health” (this has happened to Apple many times). Here’s the bottom line that doesn’t require a Wharton School MBA - you make money, you stay in business. You lose money, you go out of business. Apple has made a lot of money as it’s estimated $145 billion (yes, that’s with a “B”) cash on hand shows. I’d say that’s pretty healthy.

Back to the iPhone launch - One headline of the weekend read, “Long lines But How About Sales?”. Hold on here a second. Do you actually think that people are going to stand in line for hours just to look around? How about the speculators that are paying dozens of homeless people to stand in line to purchase multiple phones, or the fights that happen because of line position? Read more on Forbes.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

It Can Be Done, With An iPhone

We live in an age where there's so much technology available to us that there's no excess why you can't be creative anymore. Take making a video for example. Once upon a time not all that long ago, if you didn't have an expensive high-quality camera on your shoot, the quality wouldn't be sufficient enough to ever get on television.

Today an artist isn't all that concerned with getting their video on TV, but high quality for YouTube and other video networks is still a priority, as more and more consumers demand hi-def. Luckily, the video technology available today for mere hundreds of dollars far surpasses some of the multi-thousand dollar cameras of ten years ago. In fact, even the video quality that you get from the almost afterthought feature of a typical iPhone 5 is amazing.

Here's a video for Allied Irish Banks that was done completely on an iPhone. Granted, there's nothing fancy and no editing at all, but the point is that the video holds up well enough to meet television standards.

Considering that many videos with just lyrics or a picture of the album cover get millions of views, an iPhone video behind a song could work at least just as well, if not better.

Now there's no excuse. You can't blame it on the gear any more.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

4 Astounding Mobile Stats

Cells phones are now a way of life nearly everywhere on the planet, and mobile communications has totally changed the world as we know it. As smartphones become more and more of a factor in our media consumption, here are some astounding facts about mobile from MobileRoadie CEO Michael Schneider: 

• On average, we check our phones 150 times a day.

• Four people are born a second; 39 mobile phones are sold a second.

• There are presently 5.5 billion-plus mobile users -- smartphones users comprise 21% of them.

• iPhone users spend 90-plus minutes per day on apps.

 I must be the exception to the above, as I'm pretty sure I don't check my iPhone more than 100 times a day. I know for a fact that I don't spend much more than an hour on phone apps either (a big tongue in cheek here). All that said, it seems like these numbers will only increase in the future, which is why it's a good idea to never forget mobile when designing your online strategy.

-----------------------------------

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Apple's Latest Music Announcements

Apple's press conference today didn't introduce the iPhone 5 like everyone was anticipating, and the general feeling was that it was underwhelming in terms of product announcements. If you look underneath the surface of the event though, it wasn't really about product at all. This was more for the investment community and developers to let them know that Apple was still in good hands and there was truly some continuity from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook as the guiding light of the company.

That said, there were a few announcements that did affect the music industry. First was the official introduction of iCloud, which officially launches on October 12th. According to Apple, fully a third of all music sold on iTunes store is purchased on iOS devices, so iCloud is an important tool for the future of that ecosystem. As we were lead to believe, songs purchased via iPhone or iPad on iTunes will automatically be downloaded to a user's Mac for no additional charge.

And finally, some real details on iTunes Match, which launches at the end of October as well. With over 20 million songs, Apple claimes that iTunes is the largest music store in the world, which becomes an important piece to Match. Match "scans and matches your library against our 20M songs we’ll upload. What we don’t find, we’ll stream,” according to Apple's Eddie Cue. The operative word here is "stream." The price is $24.99 per year. Worth it? We'll see, although it seems to be a no brainer at the moment.

Finally, news about the death of iPod are extremely premature apparently. Apple introduced a new iPod Nano with a modified touch screen and a new clock face that also measures walking and running sessions, and a new iPod Touch and Shuffle were also introduced. It seems there's some life left in those Pod's, and the digital files in your life, yet.

-----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

iPad Owners Consume More

Apple's iPad was an instant success from the moment it was introduced and seems to be making great inroads in more places and demographics than anyone anticipated. One of the more interesting aspects of the unit is how much content an iPad owner consumes.

According to some new research from Nielsen entitled "The Increasingly Connected Consumer," iPad users:

  - are typically male (65%)
  - are under age 35 (63%)
  - have incomes over $100k (25%)
  - regularly access TV shows (25% vs. 11% on the iPhone)
  - buy more books (39% vs 13% for iPhone)
  - buy more movies (32% vs 12%)
  - are more likely to view ads that have interesting content (49%)
  - enjoy ads with interactive features (46%)

Contrast that to owners of videogame console systems when surveyed by Knowledge Networks and said:

  - 21% of viewers watch TV programs or movies using the game console at least once a month, which broke out like this:

    All persons 13-54        13-31      32-45     46-54
DVDs              17%          27%        13%       7%
Blu-ray discs      6            10             4          2
Streamed or       6            11             3          1
downloaded video
Overall use      21%          31%       17%       8%


What this all means is that we now consume all types of media on all types of devices. By not taking devices like game consoles, smart phones, and iPad tablets into consideration when distributing content potentially leaves money on the table.

-----------------------------------

Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Will Apple Reinvent Concert Ticketing?

As if being a leader in the computer, mobil and music businesses weren't enough, Apple is working on a new technology in hopes of revolutionizing the concert ticket business.

Apple's new iTunes Concert + utilizes the iPhone for buy tickets to concerts, amusement parks, museums, baseball games, and even assist with wedding invitations.

Once at the event, the Concert + ticket will also make additional purchases for parking, swag, and refreshments with the same account possible.

The concert business is in need of an overhaul, with 3rd party ticket brokers and even the bands and promoters holding back the most prized seats that will then command several times their face value in the aftermarket. Concert goers have long been fed up with additional service charges that can add as much as 50% extra to the ticket price as well, and are eager for any system that limits these charges. With Apple's system, the ticket will be personalized to the buyer, making it difficult to transfer to another individual, which keeps secondary ticket brokers out of the market. No word yet what would happen with service charges like those charged by Ticketmaster, but it's thought that they would be limited.

Right now there's no timetable for iTunes Concert + introduction, but it can't get here soon enough. The system we have now favors everyone but the one who matters most - the fan.

-------------------

Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.