Tech Blog

Sonos is a company that’s been pretty visible to me lately. First, I had one of their Play:3 speakers in my place for about a month, and then I got to speak with them at CES to discuss their plans for Canada in 2012. They’re looking to be more visible with you, the consumer, as well, and the Play:3 is one of the key products to make that happen. How does it stand up as a standard-bearer?

There are few feelings like the times when you discover something unexpectedly. This is how I stumbled upon Jango Radio after browsing through some of the music apps in Apple’s App Store on my iPhone. For a free app that streams full-length songs based on artists you like, it performs far better than you might expect.

Sonos may not have been on the show floor with all the other booths at CES 2012, but the company appears poised to continue a steady push into Canada that started in the fall. The Play:3 and Play:5 units have already launched in the Great White North, but it’s possible that the wide range of music services and access currently available will only grow wider. 

Embracing Android probably makes a lot of sense for Philips. Like other manufacturers that have flocked to Google’s popular operating system, Philips is creating hardware products that complement the software. These include an MP4 player, headsets and speaker systems.

Last year, IK Multimedia released a ton of music-inspired iOS compatible apps and gadgets that seemed to peak everyone's interests.  While fairly inexpensive, products like the iRig MIDI, iRig Mic, or the iKlip Mini wowed us with their high quality and ease of use.  To kick off 2012, IK has announced a whole slew of new products and apps worth checking out. Here they are: 

The Walkman may have been iconic once upon a time, but the most recent attempt to give it a boost in the digital age a few years ago fell flat. This year at CES 2012, Sony is banking that a mix of audio excellence and a full Android experience is enough to make an impact.

You can keep your Oscars, Emmys, Junos and Geminis. I'll sette for the iTunes' Best Of The Year.

Are you still using the Apple headphones that came with your iPhone or iPod? Are they good enough? I am sure most people would say that they are. But they’re not. Sorry. I know the white Apple earbuds are ubiquitous with everything that is cool and hip about owning an iDevice.  Heck, Apple even used them as the main focus of a whole series of iPod advertising campaigns.  But in reality, the stock headphones you get in the box aren't really that good. Their sound quality is pretty low, they fit rather awkwardly in your ear, and have a pretty short life-span (just look at all the bad reviews here).

At this juncture, I should also mention that it’s not just Apple’s stock headphones that are of lower-quality. Most phone and MP3 player-included headphone are sub-par. However I’ll be looking specifically at replacement ones that are iPhone/iPod compatible in this post.  

Now that I've finished my tirade, it’s time to start looking for a new set of earphones -- I guarantee that once you hear the difference between those white monstrosities, and a set of much higher-quality earphones, you’ll never want to use the stock headset again. Now I know some of you are thinking that I am some kind of audiophile snob who is just being overly-fussy, but I assure you I am not.  Trust me when I say that music and calls will sound better to anyone’s ear with a good set of headphones, and you don’t have to spend a fortune either (prices begin at around the seventy-dollar range). The challenge, though, is finding out which headphones are best-suited for you, since Future Shop has almost fifty different types to choose from!

Today I am going to look at the Klipsch Image One headphones, S5i and S4i earbuds with an iPhone/iPod remote, and the S3 earbuds.

Whether the iRig Mic, iRig MIDI or AmpliTube Rig, IK Multimedia has been churning out some amazing products in the last while. Offering a diverse range of affordale and easy-to-use music production tools, IK has done well in creating appealing, high quality products great for beginners and professionals alike. Earlier this week, IK proudly announced that VocaLive, the first professional performing and recording vocal processor for iOS, is now available as an even more powerful iPad app for download from the iTunes App Store. 

The possibilities in music composition are endless.  By combining a music program/app with a MIDI controller, the possibilities don't necessarilly increase, but they do make the musical process more fluid and intuitive. This setup is extremely popular for many musicians and while many companies have been making a wide-array of music programs and apps, there are others that are making equally important tools and software needed to synchronize the two.

IK Multimedia have released some very important additions to their already impressive lineup of music software, the ultra-compact standard Core MIDI interface, iRig MIDI, and the accompanying application SampleTank for iOS.

By now, everyone knows what an influence Bob Marley was to people all over the world. His commitment to forge a better world through passion, love and responsibility transcended time and space. Now, even after his death, his ideals and principles have turned into something even grander than before – into products that ignite our senses and inspire different methods of product development and distribution.  They inspire more profound ventures into creativity and, most of all, they inspire one of the greatest gifts of all: music. 

When the late Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPod back on October 23, 2001, he did so in front of a small crowd in Cupertino, CA that bore no resemblance to the aura and showmanship that was to follow years later. And no one knew it at the time, but that launch would initiate a series of events that revolutionized entire industries.

Apple launches iCloud this week with the release of iOS5 and while many of Apple's products have taken other inventions and further innovated them, I'm not sure the music in the cloud solution that Applehas created raises the bar.

IK Multimedia's release of the iRig Mic and the IKlip Mini (I will be publishing a review on these products within the next couple of days, until then check out Tris' great review) proved itself to be an immediate success to musicians, podcasters and journalists alike.  Since then, IK has been working on the ultra-compact standard Core MIDI interface iRig MIDI and the accompanying application SampleTank for iOS. Both are sure to be more great additions to this intriguing line.  

If you’ve become totally accustomed to using the “iPod” app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you might want to think about trying something new. The only reason I say that is because there’s an app that pretty much does everything the iPod app does, but manages to actually make the music you listen to sound even better.