Posted: August 25th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Apps | Tags: 808, 909, Android, app, beatmaker, bebot, bend, casio, circuit, drum, ds-10, electrum, iphone, ipod, jam, james, junk, korg, kraftwerk, m-audio, market, music, niko, nintendo, poor, psp, richard, sessions, store, stylophone, synth, theremin, touch, toys, traxxpad, twenty, ubisoft, zoom | 3 Comments »
Because I spent many years as a poor musician, my area of gear expertise isn’t with high quality instruments, it’s with bargain equipment (think Zoom, M-Audio, Casio, et al.), pawn shop finds, and things best classified as “musical toys.”
I keep up with the latest toy musical instruments, and delight in their exploitation. Circuit bending brightens my day, and I’m always looking out for the next Stylophone. I got the Korg DS-10 on the day it came out, I have two copies of Traxxpad for PSP, and I consider the iPhone/iPod Touch to be a full-fledged music platform.
I guess i’m a pretty discerning customer in the “Don’t Expect Much” category.
Electrum was made by Niko Twenty and is available for $3.99 in the Android Market. What you get is a 16-step sequencer somewhat like the ol’ TR-808 in design, and each sequence is built with six samples. You can put together up to 32 different sequences and create full songs. The cool part is that you can export your creations as single sequence loops or as a full song. The dumps are 16 bit wav files (mono).
A blurry, late night shot of Electrum's interface
I had originally intended to put in a couple of quick sequences that I whipped up on the “rock kit,” but I’m having some trouble doing that, so I’ll just say that there’s also 808, 909, Orchestral, Hip Hop, and Human Beatbox kits and 6 free downloadable packs. While it’s pretty light on features, the only thing it’s really lacking is the ability to import your own sample set. (See Comments) I always find myself wishing for a sound recording sampler app so I can make my own Richard James kit of nutty noise captured on the phone’s mic. But I guess I have to wait.
If you’ve ever used BeatMaker on iPhone, don’t expect that level of quality. However, BeatMaker costs 20 fricking dollars and Electrum costs only 4. At one fifth the price of BeatMaker, you get much more than one fifth of the functionality with Electrum. Complaints are few. It does get crashy at times, it has dumped some broken .wavs for some reason, and the UI in Sequence mode looks like it’s unfinished. But it’s a work in progress and junk musicians should applaud Niko Twenty.
This is definitely one of the best music apps we have on the Android Platform, and I’m currently working on a little jam built with beats from BeatMaker, a guitar track from Ubisoft’s Jam Sessions for Nintendo DS, and some Theremin wangling from Bebot on iPhone.
Posted: August 20th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, app, fun, g1, Geek, international, iphone, music, national, newton, npr, old, phone, podcast, pre, pri, public, radio, time | No Comments »
It took me a while to get into podcasts…like very long…like I had an iPod for 3 years before I even considered checking any out. And this is coming from a guy who runs errands on Saturday mornings just so he can listen to Car Talk, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, and This American Life in close succession. This is coming from a guy who would subject his bandmates to old tapes of Johnny Dollar and Nero Wolfe when on tour.
So, long story short, it took me a while, but I eventually learned that I love podcasts. However, using mp3 players without their own wireless connection kind of makes the acquisition of podcasts a little bit tiresome…especially if you don’t use iTunes. So being able to get them wirelessly as soon as they come out is probably one of my top five favorite media conveniences. It’s definitely up there with Kindle whispernet shopping and Netflix Instant streaming. (I’ll think of a couple more later.)
I used DoggCatcher for a while when the app was still pretty new, but it really sucked the battery, sucked up resources, the interface was crap, and there was no easy method of content discovery. On top of all that, they started charging for the full version. It was at that point that I uninstalled it. I haven’t had a podcatcher on my phone since then.
check that out!
So I’m stoked on
Google Listen, the new Android-exclusive podcatching app in Google Labs. Like most of Google’s stuff, it’s simple and straightforward. You search for podcasts you already know, download them, subscribe to them, or stream them instantly. On 3G you can get a good chunk of a podcast listened to, but once you hit the spot where it would normally pause to buffer, it actually starts all the way over again and you can’t jump back to where you were interrupted. It’s an annoyance, but they’ll fix it…they’re Google.
You can also discover new content by browsing through recent and most popular searches, or by entering topical search terms. For example, if you don’t know exactly which show you want to listen to, but you want it to be about some current event, just type in the event or the date. It’s a good use of search. I suppose it may actually be more a search tool than a podcatcher, but I haven’t decided yet. I have only been using it for one day.
Like the title of this post says, if it’s made by Google, even as a Lab, you can expect a certain degree of awesomeness.
Scan this to download Google Listen!
Humorously, In the Listen FAQ, it asks: “Will Listen work on my iPhone, Palm Pre, or Newton?”
Jokes.
Posted: August 18th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, eNV, iphone, keyboard, LG, real estate, screen | No Comments »
…So the G1 may not be updated beyond Cupcake (Android 1.5)…
As an Android early adopter, I do not feel screwed. Do I care that I shelled out all that money for the G1 just to watch it get put out to pasture in less than a year? Nope. I can’t imagine that any other G1 owner would really be that upset either.
Know why?
Because we didn’t want the G1 when we bought it. We wanted the first Android phone. We wanted the first Google phone, and we got both of those things. If anything, the G1/Dream actually made the whole experience worse for a lot of people.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the phone, I really do, and I am now painfully attached to the keyboard/trackball layout. But overall it’s janky and I now have a legitimate reason to shop for a new phone. The first one on my list is the Motorola Sholes simply because it has a keyboard and there more Android devices without one.
I understand that a physical keyboard lends to a phone’s overall creakiness, and the iPhone is therefore built like a goddamn rock. My G1, on the other hand, cracked to shit when I dropped it once and it feels all wobbly most of the time. But I simply do not wish to sacrifice the already tiny screen real estate (and use a soft keyboard) for the sake of a stronger chassis.
I mean, are you nuts? People and their virtual keyboards, man. How fucking small of a screen do you want?
Your virtual keyboard cuts the workspace down to 1 inch. Good Job.
Knowing this, how can you honestly consider an onscreen keyboard a viable interface? Couldn’t they have come up with some kind of stupid gesture-related “handwriting recognition” alphabet like the old Palm Pilots used to have? I mean, ONE INCH OF WORKSPACE….your screen is about this big:
This doesn't look so awesome for running apps.
Now I know these two devices end up having the same real estate because I have both of them and I measured. The LG eNV is actually a o.9″ so I rounded up, and the iPhone’s screen space in notepad and messaging was 1.1″ so I rounded down.
I know Motorola hasn’t had a killer phone since the RAZR, but I’m putting a lot of stock in the Sholes, since it’s one of the only Android Phones in the near term that has a keyboard.
Posted: August 12th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, iphone, palm, pre, WebOS | 2 Comments »
I like the Palm Pre…Maybe it’s because I like crap.
Palm’s phones were killer enterprise demons before the world went iPhone crazy and every company had to release a competitor. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great phone and everything, but I can’t help but compare it to the BlackBerry Storm…another example of an enterprise heavyweight trying to make something for the fat-fingered consumer to smear with his jelly-stained digits.
Palm tried to break into the consumer market with the Centro and really scored a hit, but at $99, the Centro’s margins were paper thin and an iPhone Killer* was needed. So we’ve got the Pre, equipped with WebOS.
And What better way to celebrate it than by creating homescreen skins that copy the design? The iPhone’s got one, and Android’s got one.
Well, yeah, see…it won’t be for long Palm apparently hit the designer of the “Palm Pre Android Theme” with a cease and desist order , so naturally I ran over to the Android Market and grabbed it. It’s free, why not?
Better Android Palm Pre theme
So here it is, not too shabby, eh?
The theme’s designer posted Palm’s C&D order in its entirety, and within it, Palm said:
“Without further investigation, Palm is willing to assume that you did not use Palm’s copyrighted images or adopt the Palm Pre Android Theme name with the intention of infringing Palm’s copyright rights or trading on the goodwill that Palm has developed in its valuable PALM and Palm Prē marks. Palm would prefer to resolve this matter amicably and without the need to resort to other legal remedies. However, we must receive written confirmation by [date redacted] 2009 that you will cease using the Palm Pre Android Theme name, as well as any other Palm or Palm Prē-based names for current or future software products, and that you will cease use and distribution of the Palm Prē user interface. Your failure to provide the requested written confirmation of this request in a timely fashion would suggest your intention to willfully infringe Palm’s trademark and copyright rights and could subject you to significant damages.”
So I advise you to go and pick it up, it’s not even that great of a theme, really…you could do a lot better. But what the hell, it’s kind of funny, it’s most likely going to go away (at least in name), and it’s MUCH BETTER THAN THE iPHONE’S VERSION.
*If you’ve ever read my writings on Betanews, you’ll know that I fucking hate the term “iPhone Killer,” almost as much as I hate the terms “Kerfuffle,” and “Perfect Storm,” but I’ll be damned if this hasn’t been turned into the name for all touchscreen devices designed with high consumer engagement but low enterprise value.