Appletell reviews iSing for iPhone and iPod Touch
Section: iPod + iTunes, iPod touch, iTunes, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone SDK & Apps, Reviews
Category: Music
Developer: Island Labs
Requirements: iPhone 3.0 software or later
Compatibility: iPhone and iPod Touch
File Size: 0.6MB
Version: 1.0
Price: $0.99
Availability: Now
iSing is an application that aims to bring American Idol to the mobile platform. In short, this app allows users to vote the performances of other singers from around the world up or down based on their performance in a short, 30 second audio clip recorded through their iPhone. Also, you are able to record your own performances and publish them for others to vote up or down on. If you’ve been waiting to be heard, this application is your stage.
When you first launch the application, you are greeted with an image listing all of the current recordings. You can sort these based upon periods of time. When you tap on a recording, you are shown more information about it. This includes the artist’s image (if he or she chooses to add one), the name of their recording, its current ranking for the month and for all time, its location, and the description the artist included. From this view, you can choose to play the 30 second recording. Then, you simply tap the up or down thumb to cast your vote.
Each recording gives the total votes on that song and indicates what percentage of those votes are “up” (people who like it). It’s sort of fun to watch if people like what you create, which brings me to the next part of this app: publishing. Publishing a song is as simple as hitting the right tab along the bottom and then a plus sign in the top right. From there, you give it your all for 30 seconds, as seen below. Once it is done, you can scroll through your previous recordings, as well as the most recent ones, and choose whether you want to publish them.
Once you decide upon a recording, you publish it by simply tapping the publish button. After adding a couple details such as your name and e-mail address, the application will upload it to the iSing servers. Here is where it gets somewhat confusing. From the way the app presents it, you would think you can go and look for your song on the current list. However, you won’t find it. The song must actually first be reviewed by someone who is, I assume, working for Island Labs. Once this process is completed, they send you an e-mail letting you know it has been accepted and published. Then, you are allowed to vote on it. While the first song each month is free to publish, each additional song will cost you $0.99 (using in-app purchases), assuming you do more than one per month.
While the concept of this application is pretty great, there were a couple of flaws. For one, the application allows you to vote on songs without even listening to them, which seems somewhat strange to me. This would, for instance, allow someone to simply go through and vote everyone down in order to make their performance seem better. You can actually even vote without even seeing the songs details. Also, if you are publishing over 3G and find yourself waiting a long time, you may simply quit the app. I did this before receiving the succes message, and then tried to publish the performance again later. However, iSing told me I had already used my free publish, even though it didn’t complete the upload, and must purchase another to do it again. Eek!
What I do like about this app, though, it how genuine it is. Since you are using the iPhone to record the songs, you can’t really edit anything or make your voice seem better. Since the playing field is level due to everyone using the same sort of mic, it makes the competition more fair in my opinion. The only way around this would recording something on your computer and playing it back into the microphone, which would be trying too hard, if you ask me.
All in all, the concept behind this application is good, having seen obvious success in shows such as American Idol. However, I still think the whole system and app could use a little polishing. For instance, there are currently no rewards for being the top performance of the month or getting a certain amount of votes. Also, there is no web-based mother (other than your iPhone) to access the site and data. It’d be nice to be able to access from a computer as well.
Appletell Rating:
Buy iSing
Full Story » | Written by Josh Holat for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »