TuneMob
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TuneMob syncs multiple devices to play surround sound music
Very often, people have a lot of music on their iOS device that they'd like to play at a get-together or party. Unfortunately, the speakers on iOS devices are designed for personal use and therefore typically aren't loud enough to satisfy a group of people. Sure, you could go to the store and spend a few tens (or perhaps a few hundreds) on a Bluetooth speaker, but spending money isn't anyone's favorite hobby. Completely free, TuneMob is an app that solves this problem by pairing up multiple devices and playing music in sync on all of them. TuneMob is easy to set up and control. When you sign in with Facebook or via email, you have the option to either start a new session or join an existing one. If you start a session, you are officially the DJ. This means you're in charge of creating the playlist as well playing, pausing, skipping a song or moving back one. Then make sure your device has Bluetooth turned on along with all of the other devices you want to pair and sync the music with. Now on those other devices, rather than start a session, tap "Join" and TuneMob finds devices to link with. It can play music in sync with up to five devices. Aside from a master volume setting, each device can control its own volume without affecting the others. If you have all five on full blast, that makes for some pretty decent party music. Placing a few devices in a triangle around the room produces a rather satisfying surround sound effect. Of course the quality of the sound has limits rooted in hardware, but for an Apple device, at least it's loud. TuneMob gets its music from two sources: your own iTunes library or SoundCloud. Unfortunately there's no way to use the two simultaneously so you have to just pick one for the occasion, unless you want to switch midway through. I hoped TuneMob supported additional services like Spotify or Rdio but alas that's nowhere to be found in the app, but perhaps it's worth remaining hopeful for the future. So, is the sound all truly in sync? To my mere human ear, yes. Each device is playing music in perfect time with the other. In fact, when you first start your playlist, TuneMob initializes a five-second countdown before the party begins. I did notice when I paused the music on the "DJ" device there's an ever so slight delay for the others, but it's minuscule enough to be forgivable. While TuneMob is functional enough, I think the app could be even better if it tapped into its full potential. I'm talking more music sources like Spotify, plus the ability to pass on the responsibilities of being a DJ to a different device or rearrange the music queue after adding it. It's also important to note that TuneMob supports the iPhone 4S and later, 4th generation iPad and later, iPad mini and later and the 5th generation iPod touch. Overall, the app does exactly what it advertises and does it well, so I'm certainly not complaining. TuneMob a great tool for catering to the music needs of a group of people without spending extra cash on an external speaker. Better yet, since the app is free, you don't need to spend money at all.
