More on music and mobile apps

My post last week on music promotion via iPhone apps preempted a smattering of news on the subject. Yes, I have special powers too weird to go into right now.

MusicAlly reports that Universal Music Group acts Lady Gaga, the Pussycat Dolls, Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em, the All American Rejects, and Keri Hilson are all releasing apps today. They're all free, and include "video content from the artists’ Kyte channels, as well as branding and advertising, click-through links to buy music and merchandise, a built-in RSS reader to pull in news updates, and community features like chat, comments and sharing."

Small bespoke games will be an utterly normal element of these packages in the near future.

And there's this from Wired's Gadget Lab on the introduction of paid apps to Google's HTC G1 phone and any other device running the Android mobile OS. Apple/iTunes keeps a tight rein on what kinds of apps it will sell, and keeps 30% of the revenues they generate. The open Android app market has no approval system, and all the coin will go to the app makers.

Break-ups go better with jazz

Tried out Erik Loyer's first Opertoon iPhone app, a mash-up of grown-up graphic storytelling, animation, and music that's quite unlike anything else you've seen before. "Ruben & Lullaby" is a love story told in expressions and gestures, both of the characters in the "game" and of the player manipulating the device. Below is the YouTube demo, which is better than any description I might attempt. I played it for about 20 minutes last night and after I'd exhausted what the characters could do I closed my eyes and just played around with the musical variations the app is capable of. This is a very promising innovation in interactive music games and narrative, even if as a standalone it feels somewhat limited. The app sells for $2.99, and I hope it shifts more than a few units. More like this please.



Adding, until I looked up this game on iTunes I didn't know that there is an age rating system for iPhone apps; this opertoon is for 4+ only. What other age cut-offs might there be? What are the criteria? Hmmm...

MS should listen to this advice

A headline that says it all:

Ditch the Zune, Microsoft. Bring me Xbox Mobile.

Need more reasons for why this is a good idea? How about 97 million of them? That's the number of Nintendo DS units greasing palms since its launch. You can have another 44 million while we're at it, the number of PSPs sold so far. Even the iPhone is basically a tarted up gaming device now.

And MS is still trying to make a better iPod.