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All posts tagged "music"


Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Google Renames Android Market to Play Store

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android News" @ 11:30 AM

http://www.androidcentral.com/googl...books-and-video

"Google's content portal for Android apps, music, books and video content has been consolidated under a new name -- Google Play."

If you haven't gotten the update you probably will very soon. Google is pushing out a new version of the Market called the Play Store. They are also replacing your current Books, Music, and Movies apps with Play Books, Play Music, and Play Movies. I think this move makes a lot of sense rather than educating people that they can use the Android Market on the web with their Windows PC to buy books, music, and video. It's a good time to check for deals too. There are apps for $0.49 and lots of other discounts as well.

Here is one thing to watch out for if you have a Motorola device. This update will cause your Market link at the top right of your app drawer to stop working. Hopefully Motorola will fix this soon on many of their devices. It's not a huge deal since you can still launch the new store using the Play Store icon but it's annoying.


Monday, November 14, 2011

November 16

Posted by Jon Westfall in "Android Software" @ 08:00 AM

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/11/...ent-november-16

"We just got word from that Google is holding an event on November 16th, and our sources tell us it's going to be for Google Music."

A Super Secret Google Music Event is coming up this week. Hopefully we'll get more information on how the service will be expanding, and when we can play with the new features. One rumor fairly consistent is that we'll see a Google branded music store. But with Amazon's offerings, one wonders what Google can do to up the ante and make theirs #1.

Tags: music

Friday, October 21, 2011

The Sweet Sound of Quality: Win a Set of $399 Audioengine A5+ Speakers

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Digital Home Events" @ 09:00 AM

http://audioengineusa.com/Store/Aud...5-Plus#overview

I may be selling these sites and working full time for HTC now, but who says I can't have a little more fun giving away a great prize before I go? Last week I posted about the new Audioengine A5+ powered desktop speakers; the generous folks at Audioengine have offered up a set of these new speakers for a contest. With dual inputs (3.5mm and RCA, the latter of which is easily converted to an addition 3.5mm input with a cable) and a USB charging port, the A5+ speakers are a great companion to an endless variety of devices: desktop computers, laptop computers, tablets, smartphones, and yes, even the humble Zune. Ringing in at $399 USD, these are high-quality speakers that I guarantee will blow you away.

How do you win this contest? Simply post a comment to this discussion thread (one entry per person) telling me what your current audio solution for speakers is and how the Audioengine A5+ speakers will be better. One winner will be randomly selected from amongst all the entries and they'll get to chose either a set of black or white A5+ speakers. Due to the size and weight of this prize, it will only be shipped within the continental USA. The contest will remain open until Friday the 28th at 12 PM mountain time (GMT -7).

Best of luck everyone, and I look forward to reading some interesting entries. :-)

UPDATE: The contest is now over, and the winner is ITforSmallBiz. Thanks to everyone for entering!


Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Pogoplug Mobile Offers Anywhere-You-Go Streaming

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 09:30 AM

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/2011/09...ablet-a-breeze/

"Looking for a drop-dead simple solution for streaming media (photos, music, video) and accessing files from home on your smartphone or tablet? Or how about backing up your smartphone's recently taken photos and video? Well, Pogoplug's new $79 Pogoplug Mobile product offers to do just that."

There's definitely something very appealing about having access to all of your music, videos, and photos anywhere you go. I've solve this by by uploading every photo I've ever taken to Smugmug, every song I have to Amazon's Cloud Drive, and videos...well, I don't have a good solution for that yet. I can access them remotely via my Windows Home Server, but only when that works (the last time it didn't). This is rather appealing, especially given the $79 price point. What solution do you use for everywhere-you-go media access?


Thursday, September 15, 2011

Music to My Ears - HTC Sensation XE Launching Soon!

Posted by Karey Westfall in "HTC Android Phones" @ 11:00 AM

http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/...c-sensation-xe/

It's here and it's real! The HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio will be launching for Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East sometime this month. Unfortunately, no price or launching date is available for the US, but it will probably make its way over the giant pond at some point. But if you do manage to get your hands on one, it will come stocked with awesomeness! Included are custom made Beats headphones, 1.5 GHz dual core processor, 8 megapixel camera (including dual LED flash and auto focus, as well as a separate front facing camera), Bluetooth, tethering and GPS capabilities and the ability to support multiple audio formats. If you like your music to go, this would be the phone for you!


Thursday, July 7, 2011

Amazon Cloud Player: Unlimited Music Storage (As Long As You Pay)

Posted by Jason Lee in "Android Software" @ 09:00 PM

http://lifehacker.com/5818783/amazo...space-for-music

"If you're a paying member of Amazon Cloud Drive, you've been enjoying free music storage for Amazon MP3 purchases. Now when you upload any MP3 or AAC music, however, that won't count against your storage either."

Well that's one way to keep up with what Google Music is offering. Though I won't be renewing my free year of the 20 GB storage plan with Amazon. I'll keep storing my Amazon MP3 purchases there but the overall playback experience is quite lacking in my opinion. Besides, Google is giving me storage space for free. This is nice though for those who pay for the larger storage plans. Any paying Cloud Drive costumers out there?


Friday, June 17, 2011

Sony Music Unlimited Now Available For Android

Posted by Jason Lee in "Android Software" @ 05:00 AM

http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/0...ed-by-qriocity/

"Now that continuous waves of attacks against Sony's servers have slowed down a bit (it's been over a week since the last hack), the company found some strength to regroup and released an Android client for its popular cloud music service Music Unlimited, powered by Qriocity."

I guess this Music Unlimited service has been around for a while and only recently became available for our Android devices. The service pretty much seems to be Pandora with a little Amazon Cloud Player thrown in for a monthly fee. Not exactly a compelling business model with all of the other options out there these days. Though one feature you get with Sony's service that you can't get with others is free username and password sharing...


Thursday, May 19, 2011

Rock On! Slacker's Premium Radio Service Provides The Ultimate Mobile Listening Experience

Posted by Karey Westfall in "Android Software" @ 08:00 AM

http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/17/...-makes-premium/

"Internet radio provider Slacker is bulldozing the thin line dividing itself from subscription-based music services today, with the launch of Premium Radio."

Slacker has launched Premium Radio to join their Basic Radio and Radio Plus services. The new Premium Radio includes features such as ad free listening, replay songs or albums, create and manage playlists and song lyrics. And it allows for offline access to favorite songs on Android, iPad, Blackberry and more. Premium Radio will provide users with a customizable, personal experience allowing them to rock on to their hearts' content!


Thursday, May 12, 2011

Google Music Launches And Brings With It An Updated Music App

Posted by Jason Lee in "Android News" @ 06:00 PM

http://androinica.com/2011/05/googl...ic-for-android/

"Google Music lives. After keeping android phone owners on the edge of their keyboards for nearly a year, Google has finally confirmed that its cloud-based music streaming service will launch soon in the United States."

It's here!! It's here!! Google has officially launched its online music service... sort of. First of all you need to head over to music.google.com to signup and await your letter of acceptance. At the moment you can't buy music or anything but you can upload up to 20,000 of your favorite tracks and stream/sync them to all of your Android devices. Once the big G finalizes their deals with record labels we should be able to purchase our tunes and store them in the same place. If the prices compare favorably to the Amazon mp3 store I'll for sure be switching. Any one got their invite yet? I'm still waiting.


Thursday, April 21, 2011

GrooveShark: Hey, We Didn't Do Anything Wrong.

Posted by Jason Lee in "Android Software" @ 02:00 PM

http://androinica.com/2011/04/groov...pp-open-letter/

"Music streaming service Grooveshark has many fans, few of which work for the major recording labels. That's why many assumed problems with the RIAA, a group of music industry thugs, I mean record labels, led to Grooveshark's removal from the Android Market last week."

I'm not a GrooveShark user (mostly because it involves spending money every month for something I don't need) but I really kind of wonder why it was pulled from the Android Market. According to GrooveShark, they haven't really been told what part of the ToS they violated to be removed from the Market. Were they pulled because of RIAA complaints? Pressure from the music labels? Because they might be a threat to Google's own pending music service? Who really knows... At the moment you can still get the app directly from GrooveShark's site and side load it to your phone but that's a pain. Especially for AT&T users. Any of you guys GrooveShark users? What do you think about its removal from the Android Market?


Wednesday, April 6, 2011

New Android Music App Leaked: More Evidence Of Google Music In The Cloud

Posted by Jason Lee in "Android Software" @ 04:00 PM

http://www.businessinsider.com/andr...d-player-2011-4

"The upcoming version of Android's Music app has been accidentally leaked to the blog Tech From 10 and they have the app available for download on their site."

Well, looky what we have here. It's the latest (unreleased) version of the stock Android music player. The player itself looks pretty much like the stock player you get with Honeycomb. Same album views and now playing screen. The coolest part? After a bit of digging in the setting you will find quite a few setting obviously related to some how syncing and streaming music from the internets. :) It doesn't appear to work for anyone who has installed the leaked version of the player yet but the options are there. Maybe the service will the here shortly so I can decide if I am going to continue to use Amazon's MP3 store or not. Any day now Google...


Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Amazon Cloud Player And Cloud Drive: Keep Your Music And Everything Else In Amazon's Cloud

Posted by Jason Lee in "Android News" @ 04:00 PM

http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_lin..._rd_i=163856011

Well, ain't that a kick in the teeth? Look who managed to get their cloud based music service out the door first. I am very excited about this as I get all my music from Amazon already. Now I can also leave a copy in the cloud at no additional cost. The service works very well so far. I purchased an album from my phone just to see how it works. The purchase went through as normal but pretty much skipped the download phase. This option can be changed though to just download your music as you did before but why? I discovered that music you buy through the Amazon MP3 store does NOT count towards your 5GB of storage space! So I will have all my purchases saved into the cloud from now on. It's just one button press to download it to your phone like it used to. Once purchased the tracks can be played through your Android device in the Amazon MP3 app or from any computer using a web browser. It is also worth noting if you buy an album from the Amazon store before the end of this year you will get your storage space upgraded to 20GB for one year from the date of purchase. For FREE!

Other than buying music from Amazon you can upload any of your already purchased music or any music you've ripped into Cloud Player. This, of course, does count against your total storage space. I really wish I could retroactively upload all the music I've already purchased from Amazon into that "doesn't count against my storage space" location. One really neat thing though is that Amazon allows you to use your storage space to upload any type of file you want. They provide a nice web interface much like Dropbox where you can upload files from your hard drive. They call this Cloud Drive. While there are no sync features as with Dropbox the upgraded storage plans are about half the price. Something you may want to consider if you need a big chunk of cloud storage. This is pretty much a no-brainer for anyone who already uses Amazon for their music needs but is it enough to sway people away from iTunes or from what ever magical music service Google has up their sleeves?


Friday, March 18, 2011

Spy On Your Friends' Music Tastes With AOL's Play App

Posted by Karey Westfall in "Android Software" @ 02:00 PM

http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-...-android-2011-3

"AOL's mobile efforts so far have been to make mobile apps and websites for its existing properties, like AIM, Mapquest, Engadget, etc. No longer: The company is launching its first "mobile-first" product today."

AOL has produced it's own app that allows you to listen to music on your Android phone. The new app, Play, will also let you share music with friends via posts to Facebook and Twitter and check out what friends are listening to. And Android users get this app before our iPhone friends!


Sunday, February 27, 2011

Altec Lansing InMotion Air Wireless Bluetooth Speaker System Reviewed

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 01:00 PM

http://www.trustedreviews.com/mp3/r...eaker-System/p1

"Every year the gadget world is swamped by new buzz words, technological breakthroughs or product types that we simply must buy into. For music fans the must-have gadget is a dock and the buzz word it must now have is 'AirPlay' - Apple's wireless streaming connectivity capable of supporting lossless audio. So can we take a wireless speaker with none of this functionality seriously? Actually yes..."

Bluetooth-based speakers tend to be more on the "suck" side of the spectrum than the "awesome" side, but it seems Altec Lansing has pulled a rabbit out of their hat here and delivered a system that actually allows Bluetooth-transmitted audio to sound good. Go figure! If you've got a Bluetooth device and want to listen to music without having to connect it to a speaker dock, this looks like a good solution.


Friday, February 18, 2011

Google Music Service To Launch With Honeycomb?

Posted by Jason Lee in "Android News" @ 03:00 PM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technolog...petitor-android

"Google is to launch a music service to compete with Apple's iTunes music store as part of a forthcoming upgrade to its Android mobile operating system, according to Sanjay Jha, chief executive of Motorola Mobility, which will soon launch one of the first machines able to run the software."

We heard a bit of buzz about Google Music a few weeks ago and now it appears that Mr. Sanjay Jha has given us a bit more to chew on. According to Jha, Google's Honeycomb version of Android will include "video and music services". If we assume that Honeycomb will officially launch with the Xoom and bring with it the launch of Google's music service this rumor will line up nicely with the previous timeline we heard. I can't wait to see what Google brings us on the music front.

Tags: music, store, mp3, google

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Sonos Controller For Android Released

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Digital Home Software" @ 11:30 AM

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/10/...-blow-you-away/

"You can exhale Sonos fans, it's finally happening. The Sonos Controller for Android is official. After almost a year in development, the free WiFi music remote finally gives Sonos owners control over their whole-home audio system from any Android 2.1 and above device with a screen size of HVGA 320 x 480, WVGA 480 x 800 or WVGA 480 x 854."

If you've made the rather hefty investment in a Sonos music system (reviewed here), and you have an Android phone, this is a clever way to maximize the functionality of that system. You might not have a Sonos remote handy, but if your phone is nearby, you have an even better tool for controlling music all around your house. I really like the Sonos system, but it seems so expensive to me so I've never made the jump. Any Sonos owners out there that feel the investment is justified?


Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Google Music Service Coming As Soon As Next Month?

Posted by Jason Lee in "Android News" @ 05:00 PM

http://www.androidguys.com/2011/01/...c-launch-month/

"Android is worldwide, and now, Rubin is focusing more on music. He and former YouTube lawyer, Zahavah Levine have been talking to four major music labels, and although nothing has been confirmed, they are stating that the labels are more willing to work with them now that 'Rubin is involved.'"

I am excited to see what Google has in store for us on the music front. I love what they've done with Google eBookstore and hope they bring something similar with Google Music or Google eMusicstore or whatever they call it. Though I do hope there is a way that I can load or sync the music I already own into the system. I'm pretty happy with Amazon's MP3 store but really curious to see what Google has in ready for us.

Tags: music, store, google

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Lucy Might Really Be In The Sky: Google Music Sync Coming to Gingerbread?

Posted by Jason Lee in "Android News" @ 12:00 PM

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/14/...in-gingerbread/

"Google's been teasing cloud-based music features in Android since its I/O conference last year, and the recent leak of a revamped first-party Music app suggests that the plans haven't evaporated into thin air."

We've known of Google's plans to launch their own music store/service for quite some time now we just didn't know when. Well if the above screen shot is to be taken as truth then it might just be happening in the not to distant future. The shooters of this screen claim that it was taken from a device running Gingerbread, which as we know is already out there. With Google eBookstore out in full force is "gTunes" the next logical step? I for one am excited especially if I can use it to sync the music I already own.


YouTube Improves Music Video Features

Posted by Craig Horlacher in "Android Software" @ 08:00 AM

http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/...be-app-for.html

"Starting today, we’re welcoming VEVO’s extensive library of official music videos from artists like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Kanye West and U2 onto the YouTube 2.0 app for Android, available around the world. To watch these videos your mobile phone needs to be running Android 2.2 (Froyo)."

If you watch a lot of music video's make sure to update your YouTube app! If you have Froyo you'll have access to a ton of music video's from VEVO. YouTube also has some very handy new features for finding similar bands, accessing the artist bio while watching the music video, finding more songs by the same artist, and every music video is now easy to pick out due to a new music note "badge".


Thursday, December 30, 2010

Honeycomb Music Player Leaked: It's Hot, Sticky Sweet...

Posted by Jason Lee in "Android Software" @ 09:00 AM

http://www.talkandroid.com/24828-do...te-ui-overhaul/

"Want a sneak peek at some Honeycomb goodness? Of course you do! And now, thanks to xda member johnnie93, you can have some."

I have to say this looks promising. If this is any indication of the UI goodness we might get when Honeycomb lands we are in for a real treat. I'm sure we all agree that the default Android music player isn't the prettiest thing in the world. After looking at the screen shots of the new default Honeycomb player my hopes are up. If screen shots aren't enough for you follow the read link and download the apk for yourself. I hear it works "most of the time." Anyone tried this out yet? What do you think?


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