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Tag Archives: iTunes App Store

TableDrum App Turns Your Incessant Finger Drumming Into Actual Drum Sounds

By Andrew Liszewski on 08/17/11 • Leave a comment!

TableDrum App (Images courtesy iTunes App Store)
By Andrew Liszewski

I’m a notorious finger drummer. Particularly when I find something to drum on that produces a really good sound. So my sympathies to my friends and loved ones because this new TableDrum app basically makes any surface sound like a professional drum kit. If your goal is becoming a drummer by taking drum lessons, then this app will get you one step closer to this becoming a reality. To be more specific, the app works like a drum pad but instead of tapping the screen to trigger samples, it uses the microphone to listen for taps from your fingers. It’s smart enough to distinguish between 4 different sounds too. So the sound of your finger tapping the dinner table could be used to trigger a high hat sound, while the clink of your fork on your glass could trigger a kick drum sound.

It’s quite easy to use, and ‘teaching’ the application what sounds trigger what samples is as easy as tapping away for a few seconds while it listens and learns. The video they’ve included on their website does a great job at showing just how well it works.

I’ve been playing with the app for the past half hour and am pretty impressed with it. I mean it’s not perfect, but it does a more than adequate job to justify its current sale price of $0.99 on the iTunes App Store. Regularly it’s $3.99 which is a little high given additional drum kit sounds are only provided as an in-app purchase. But if you’re the type who likes to whip out a new app that will impress your friends, you’ve found this week’s fodder.

[ TableDrum ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

Save Yourself Hundreds Of Dollars And Opt For Yamaha’s TENORI-ON App Instead

By Andrew Liszewski on 06/29/11 • Leave a comment!

TNR-i (Images courtesy Yamaha)
By Andrew Liszewski

Last time I checked, Yamaha’s TENORI-ON digital sequencer was selling on their site for $699. A far cry from the device’s original $1,000+ price tag, but still way too expensive for the musically un-inclined like myself. So if you’ve already got an iPhone or an iPad, you can save yourself $679.01 and pick up Yamaha’s new TNR-i app for just $19.99. It’s a software-only version of their TENORI-ON that recreates the instrument’s 16×16 grid of glowing buttons on your touchscreen device.

And while it might not be as full-featured as the original version, TNR-i is still capable of playing back up to 16 different sounds at the same time, on up to 16 different layers. The various performance modes also appear to still be here, including using it like a standard multi-track sequencer with sounds arranged and played back horizontally, and pitch affected by their vertical location. But taking advantage of the iPhone and iPad’s online capabilities, TNR-i also one-ups the original version by letting up to 4 people connect and perform together at the same time, even if they’re not in the same location.

[ iTunes App Store - TNR-i ] VIA [ AppShopper ]

$399.99 ‘Luci Live’ App Promises Broadcast Quality Recording And Streaming

By Andrew Liszewski on 06/16/11 • 2 Comments

Luci Live App (Images courtesy iTunes App Store)
By Andrew Liszewski

I realize that broadcast caliber equipment usually affords a level of quality not found in consumer-level gear, which is often reflected in the price. But I’m having a hard time seeing how Technica Del Arte manages to justify charging almost $400 for their 1.8MB Luci Live recording app.

I mean having the ability to record to professional IP codecs (optimized for transmission over cellular data networks) and even broadcast remotely to a station at the same time are certainly important features for on-air reporters. But from what I can tell it’s not like Technica Del Arte has developed these codecs themselves, or has exclusive rights to them. And let’s not forget that price tag doesn’t even factor in the cost of a professional mic which is a necessity if you intend to use the iPhone for any kind of broadcast quality recording work. And while I hate to throw out the term ‘snake oil’ because I have no doubt the app delivers and performs as promised, I can’t help but feel they’re maybe preying on the broadcast industry who’s used to paying exorbitant prices for their gear.

[ iTunes App Store - Luci Live ] VIA [ The Fancy ]

Letting Your Unborn Fetus Choose Its Own Name? – There’s An App For That

By Andrew Liszewski on 05/24/11 • Leave a comment!

Kick To Pick (Images courtesy Nathan Parks)
By Andrew Liszewski

Kick To Pick (Image courtesy Nathan Parks)Worried about risking years of passive aggressive behavior from your kid because of the terribly embarrassing name you gave them? Well you can worry no more thanks to an iOS app called Kick To Pick which puts all of that responsibility on your unborn fetus.

The app includes a database of thousands of gender-specific names which you can narrow down if you prefer by creating a favorites list. You then place your iPhone on your baby bump and the app will move through the list, presumably reading off the names one-by-one, until the built-in accelerometer detects that your child has provided some kind of physical feedback. I mean who’s to say a random kick wasn’t your baby excitedly letting you know they wanted to go through life known as Greyson, Dakota or Finnegan? And if they start to complain when they’re grown up you can always a throw a “well don’t get mad at us, you picked it!” back in their face.

Available now from the iTunes App Store for just $0.99.

[ Kick To Pick ] VIA [ Gizmodiva ]

Barcodas App Turns Your Pantry Into A Symphony

By Andrew Liszewski on 04/25/11 • Leave a comment!

Barcodas iOS App (Images courtesy iTunes App Store)
By Andrew Liszewski

Barcodas iOS App (Images courtesy iTunes App Store)If you’re looking to do a price comparison between brick & mortar and online stores there’s a plethora of barcode scanning apps available for iOS that can help you there. But if you’re looking for a way to turn regular old barcodes into beautiful music, and I’m just going to assume the vast majority of you are, then your quest ends with a simple app called Barcodas. You’ll need a camera-equipped idevice for reading the barcodes, but once they’re ‘scanned’ in you’ll be able to hear them played back in whatever harmonic scale is most pleasing to your ears.

The results are surprisingly listenable, at least the samples they’ve chosen for the video I’ve included below are, and multiple barcodes can even be strung together to create a lengthy concerto. At the least it’s a $0.99 investment which should make your next trip to the grocery store endlessly entertaining.

[ Barcodas ] VIA [ CreativeApplications.net ]

Einstein’s Pedometer App Measures How Much Time You Gain While In Motion

By Andrew Liszewski on 04/08/11 • Leave a comment!

Einstein's Pedometer (Images courtesy iTunes App Store)
By Andrew Liszewski

According to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, more specifically something referred to as Time Dilation, someone in motion will age slower relative to someone that’s not moving. So your co-worker sitting at their desk is actually aging faster than you whenever you head to the break room to get another doughnut. And now, using your iPhone’s GPS capabilities and the Lorentz Transformation, this simple Einstein’s Pedometer app can actually caculate how much time you’ve gained while walking about. Of course even if you spent your life circling the globe in a supersonic fighter jet you’d still only add mere thousands of a seconds to your life, so you better make sure to live that borrowed time to the fullest!

[ iTunes App Store - Einstein's Pedometer ] VIA [ bookofjoe ]

NoseDial App Is A Seasonal Must-Have

By Andrew Liszewski on 12/22/10 • 1 Comment

NoseDial App (Image courtesy NoseDial)
By Andrew Liszewski

Why spend money on special gloves, a stylus or voice-activated Bluetooth gear in order to use your iPhone in the cold when there’s another available appendage for operating the touchscreen sitting right between your eyes? This German NoseDial app displays your list of contacts as a set of large buttons, making it easy for you to place a call by simply hitting the screen with your nose. The list can be scrolled by tilting your iPhone too so you don’t need to slide your nose across the display, and the app is available from the iTunes App Store now for just $0.99.

[ NoseDial ] VIA [ SlashGear ]

Pulse Phone App Cleverly Measures Your Heart Rate Using The iPhone 4′s Camera And Flash

By Andrew Liszewski on 11/15/10 • 4 Comments

Pulse Phone (Images courtesy Rafael Lozano-Hemmer)
By Andrew Liszewski

Pulse Phone (Image courtesy Rafael Lozano-Hemmer)Originally rejected from the iTunes App Store over a year and a half ago because the developers had to ‘hack’ their way into accessing the iPhone 4′s camera, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Pulse Phone app was only recently finally approved after Apple loosened their restrictions a few months ago. Now while it’s not the first app on the market to detect a user’s pulse, most of the other options out there use the iPhone’s microphone to listen for sound like a stethoscope, and since the iPhone 4 isn’t purpose built for that application, they rarely work that well.

Pulse Phone however has the user place the tip of their index finger over the iPhone 4′s flash and camera lens, which illuminates the finger and allows the app to detect subtle color and brightness changes as blood pulses through its veins. The app works on older, flashless, versions of the iPhone or iPod Touch, but you’ll need to use it in a well it area for it to be effective. But thanks to the iPhone 4′s flash, you can even use the app in complete darkness. It’s brilliantly simple and clever in my opinion, and while there’s a big warning when you first load it up that it shouldn’t be used for medical purposes, from my own testing it’s pretty darn accurate. Pulse Phone is available as of last week on the iTunes App Store for just $1.99, making it an inexpensive yet very impressive party trick.

[ Pulse Phone ] VIA [ Switched ]

Holo-Paint App Lets You Create Your Own 3D Floating Text Long Exposure Photos

By Andrew Liszewski on 10/05/10 • Leave a comment!

Making Future Magic (Images courtesy Dentsu London)
By Andrew Liszewski

Remember the ‘Making Future Magic‘ video (I’ve included it below to refresh your memory) that was making the rounds a few weeks ago? It was a collaboration between Dentsu London and BERG London that resulted in what appeared to be floating 3D text holograms created by taking long exposure photographs of a special animation played back on an iPad. Understanding how it worked wasn’t that difficult, but creating the 3D animation needed to pull it off was a bit tricky, particularly for someone not familiar with the software.

But thankfully there’s now an app for that too! Holo-Paint is now available from the iTunes App Store for just a buck, and lets you easily create the necessary animations to spell out any piece of text in 3D. The long exposure photography is still up to you though.

Holo-Paint (Images courtesy Garry Somerville)

The app lets you see the text as a live preview while you adjust settings like letter depth, letter angle, frame rate, color, font, smoothness and size, and you can store an unlimited number of creations, well limited to your iPhone or iPad’s available memory that is. The app seems pretty robust actually and the results aren’t that far off from what was seen in that original video. So bring on the Flickr galleries!

[ Holo-Paint ] VIA [ Cult of Mac ]

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