Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, App Store
I've been down on the fine folks at Smule in the past -- I've said that their app Ocarina seems kind of silly (even if people have created some pretty awesome stuff with it and other less annoying music apps). And about the only thing they could have done to make it up to me was to develop some sort of super massively multiplayer music app, some app in which you could play a tune and have it sent all around the world. So I guess I have to call off my pretend grudge against them once and for all, because that's exactly what they did: Leaf Trombone: World Stage is in the App Store right now.
This is, of course, the app with the strange name that we saw at Apple's iPhone 3.0 demo. It features a Chinese leaf-type instrument that sounds, as you can hear above, like a trombone. But the World Stage part is the most interesting -- Smule has set up a way to share the songs you play in the app with people around the world, and the people who hear your work can send back short messages and emotes to say how they felt. It's an interesting idea -- kind of combines what they were trying to do with Zephyr into a more Ocarina-like app.
At just 99 cents, there will undoubtedly be lots of musicians out there picking it up. And while the video above is... cute... we're sure there'll be some even better stuff to listen to soon.
TUAWLeaf Trombone out now in the App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Apple's US Market Share Slips in 1Q 2009
Gartner has released a preliminary report detailing U.S. and worldwide PC shipments for the first quarter of 2009. The report pegs Apple's U.S. market share in fourth place among vendors at 7.4%, down from 8.0% in the fourth quarter of 2008. More i...
Future iPhone may detect when you are truckin' like the doodah man, offer video chat
Macrumors has a detailed breakdown of a couple of new iPhone patent applications, but here's the gist: Apple is looking at how to trigger events based on movements (or gestures), and one patent filing shows a front-facing video camera. The camera is easy -- there's your 2-way video chat (we hope). The motion stuff? Well, Apple could go in several directions with that.According to the indications in the patent filing, Apple is suggesting the interface on the iPhone could change under certain conditions. Specifically, contacts would get larger if you are running. That makes them easier to tap when you aren't able to be as accurate. This is just one example, but I think the more the iPhone can correctly guess the context of its use, the better. We were all a little excited when we saw the auto-orientation of (some) apps, and the relatively minor miracle of a proximity sensor which turns off the screen when you raise the phone to your face. The motion-sensing stuff takes this way beyond all that.
While this stuff won't likely make it into the next iPhone revision, it does show you where Apple is headed: more features, better usability. Although I do notice the power button seems to have moved to the right, away from the top. Will that be part of the next iPhone? There's mention of everything from a stylus to a scroll wheel (like BlackBerry), but I think that's just patent chatter (covering the bases, as it were). Here's a link to the patent filing.
[thanks to Alejandro for help in plumbing the patent filing]
TUAWFuture iPhone may detect when you are truckin' like the doodah man, offer video chat originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Leaf Trombone out now in the App Store
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, App Store
I've been down on the fine folks at Smule in the past -- I've said that their app Ocarina seems kind of silly (even if people have created some pretty awesome stuff with it and other less annoying music apps). And about the only thing they could have done to make it up to me was to develop some sort of super massively multiplayer music app, some app in which you could play a tune and have it sent all around the world. So I guess I have to call off my pretend grudge against them once and for all, because that's exactly what they did: Leaf Trombone: World Stage is in the App Store right now.
This is, of course, the app with the strange name that we saw at Apple's iPhone 3.0 demo. It features a Chinese leaf-type instrument that sounds, as you can hear above, like a trombone. But the World Stage part is the most interesting -- Smule has set up a way to share the songs you play in the app with people around the world, and the people who hear your work can send back short messages and emotes to say how they felt. It's an interesting idea -- kind of combines what they were trying to do with Zephyr into a more Ocarina-like app.
At just 99 cents, there will undoubtedly be lots of musicians out there picking it up. And while the video above is... cute... we're sure there'll be some even better stuff to listen to soon.
TUAWLeaf Trombone out now in the App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Apple's US Market Share Slips in 1Q 2009
Gartner has released a preliminary report detailing U.S. and worldwide PC shipments for the first quarter of 2009. The report pegs Apple's U.S. market share in fourth place among vendors at 7.4%, down from 8.0% in the fourth quarter of 2008. More i...
Future iPhone may detect when you are truckin' like the doodah man, offer video chat
Macrumors has a detailed breakdown of a couple of new iPhone patent applications, but here's the gist: Apple is looking at how to trigger events based on movements (or gestures), and one patent filing shows a front-facing video camera. The camera is easy -- there's your 2-way video chat (we hope). The motion stuff? Well, Apple could go in several directions with that.According to the indications in the patent filing, Apple is suggesting the interface on the iPhone could change under certain conditions. Specifically, contacts would get larger if you are running. That makes them easier to tap when you aren't able to be as accurate. This is just one example, but I think the more the iPhone can correctly guess the context of its use, the better. We were all a little excited when we saw the auto-orientation of (some) apps, and the relatively minor miracle of a proximity sensor which turns off the screen when you raise the phone to your face. The motion-sensing stuff takes this way beyond all that.
While this stuff won't likely make it into the next iPhone revision, it does show you where Apple is headed: more features, better usability. Although I do notice the power button seems to have moved to the right, away from the top. Will that be part of the next iPhone? There's mention of everything from a stylus to a scroll wheel (like BlackBerry), but I think that's just patent chatter (covering the bases, as it were). Here's a link to the patent filing.
[thanks to Alejandro for help in plumbing the patent filing]
TUAWFuture iPhone may detect when you are truckin' like the doodah man, offer video chat originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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