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Iconic album covers reimagined with the help of emoji
Some folks like to pass the time with a playlist or TV show while getting a treadmill workout in, but for musician Wesley Stace, it was the perfect time to recreate highly-recognizable album covers. Using his emoji library, Stace has since created over 50 such works that range from The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and Springsteen's Born in the USA. He tells Fast Company that what started as a way to pass the time turned into a guessing game of sorts, so he decided to beam them to Twitter. If you ask me, the emoji version of Nirvana's Nevermind is quite stellar.
Google Play Music app update brings tweaks to Now Playing, Recent, playlists and widget
Ever since introducing the Google Music app in beta last year its developers have been hard at work trimming away the rougher edges and that's never been more evident than in the new 4.3.606 version now available for download. While Google Play Music's overall look hasn't shifted significantly, the changelog and a quick spin using it reveal nearly every screen has had some slight change. As seen above, the recently played screen now features larger album art, while the action bar has been adjusted with different transport controls. In this version, users have the ability to adjust and reorder music in the Now Playing queue, while a refreshed widget shows off album art and allows for thumbs up without opening the app. The settings menu has a direct link to the Nexus Q control app (assuming you can run it, and have one), hit the Play store for the updated version to try it out yourself.
JBL reveals wireless AirPlay speaker dock for iPhone or iPod touch
As you can see above, the JBL On Air Wireless AirPlay is a pretty intriguing speaker dock for your iPhone or iPod. Not only does it sport that Dyson-style ring, but it's got an attached FM radio, a dual alarm clock, and even a screen to display the current name and album art of the song you happen to be listening to. As you can tell by the name, it'll connect up to any AirPlay-enabled device, streaming your songs and media wirelessly for your ears to listen to. Looks great. Of course, at home I already have a nice speaker setup in the living room, but this seems like it would be great for a bedroom or maybe even an office space. The dock should be available to the public this spring, and no price has been announced yet. [via Engadget]
JBL's On Air Wireless AirPlay speaker dock gets official, unavailable to purchase
When we first peeked this AirPlay-enabled speaker dock, we were admittedly excited to see how things would turn out after it made rounds through the FCC. JBL just tossed up the splash page for the On Air Wireless speaker and we've gotta say -- it looks to be a promising means of streaming your jams. The system connects wirelessly to your AirPlay-enabled Mac and iOS device on 4.2 or later and packs a screen that'll display the track info of the song you're rocking out to. What's more, the rounded grill sports a dual alarm clock, FM radio, and a USB port for future firmware updates. As you might have surmised by now, the dock is not yet available for purchase and there's no word on price. If you're interested, though, be sure to hit the source link, sign up for more info and get ready to headbang this spring.
Five widgets for Friday
As we've previously pointed out, in many ways, Dashboard Widgets are the precursor to iPhone apps. Need to know when your latest packages will arrive? Yes, there's an app for that. But there's a widget too. Need to figure out how many pesos are in a dollar, or what a Quarter Pounder with Cheese comes out to in the metric system? There's an app, and a widget, for that as well. For this Friday afternoon, here are five useful Widgets to help you make the most of your Mac. And best of all, they're all free.
Apple and record labels to release competing enhanced album formats
Remember when we said the four largest record companies were working together with Apple to add enhanced liner notes and extra media to full album purchases through the iTunes Store? Well, apparently Apple wasn't in on that cooperation. The Guardian is reporting that the four companies' plans for enhanced full albums were rebuffed by Apple, and they are planning to release their own format in competition with the one to be released in the iTunes Store. The new file format, called CMX, was created by EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner. It will function quite a bit like a DVD, with a launch page allowing for navigation to the related artwork and video portions of the album. An unnamed label representative is quoted saying that the format was initially presented to an uninterested Apple; now, Apple is releasing a competing format under the code name Cocktail. The format's tentative launch date is set for November, will be for a small number of titles, and only available in smaller music stores and non-Apple players. It is unclear how Cocktail and CMX will be different, if at all, save for the exclusivity of platforms. Apple is largely said to be following up on the format as a precautionary measure, in case it proves to be immensely popular; as they've said repeatedly, their interest still lies with supporting the more lucrative hardware, rather than trying to profit from full album sales. Still, Apple is stepping up to the format battle, and while not on the scale of Betamax vs. VHS or HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray, this promises to be a pretty decent fight. [via Electronista]
High quality album art (from Apple)
With Apple emphasizing Cover Flow more and more in the new iPods, etc., the need for good quality album art is ever increasing. I know iTunes is supposed to grab art for songs that are in your library and the iTunes Store, but in my experience it hasn't worked that well. Fortunately, Josh Powell has cooked up a nice little site called Josh's iTunes Album Art Grabber that lets you search the iTunes album art repository and download high quality jpgs from Apple's servers. In my brief test (with Springsteen albums), most of the cover art came back as 600 x 600px. However, some albums featured art up to 1425 x 1425 or higher. The search engine is rather strict ("White Stripes" returned nothing, it had to be "The White Stripes"), but this looks like an excellent resource for filling in holes in your collection.[via Digg]
DockArt: Change your iTunes icon to Album Art
DockArt is a nice little iTunes plugin that does something simple, and does it well. When installed it will change the iTunes icon in your dock to the album art of the currently playing track (assuming of course that it has album art). The developer is on the ball and recently released an updated version for iTunes 7. DockArt is a neat little toy that'll offers a very unobtrusive visual reminder of what's playing. Best of all it's a free download from developer Greg Weston, who requests donations for Fidelco.
Get cover art from the iTunes Store without using iTunes
Who says you need to use iTunes 7 to get that sweet, sweet high res album art for the iTunes Store? Jesper Nøhr spent a little time looking at tcpdumps and headers and came up with a Perl script that will download album art for a given artist and album (there is even an online demo). It has been adapted to Python and PHP already. What language is next? I think an Applescript version would be very cool, though I don't know if AppleScript has the necessary functionality.
The I-Deck brings some old school to the iPod
Feeling like something's missing from the digital age of music, with our lists of albums and artists in iTunes and tiny deck-of-cards sized iPods that fit our entire music collections in our pockets? The I-Deck might just be the fusion of old and new school for you. The album art you see is actually a touch screen that allows you to browse your library, right down to flicking the screen to skip a song, and spinning it to fast-forward - all while giving your music's album art the face time (and space) it deserves.We received tips of this at the cool hunter, but there aren't any details on this being an actual product for sale; they simply end their post with "contact us if you require designer's contact details", so we have no idea if the I-Deck will appear in Apple Stores and Targets near you.Thanks to everyone who sent this in
Widget Watch: Album Art Widget
When I first saw Liquidx's Album Art Widget, I thought, "I don't want to have to jump to the Dashboard just to view album art." However, this widget does much more than that.It does display the album art of the currently playing track, and will retrieve artwork for songs that don't have any (adding this found artwork to iTunes is easy). You can also change the ratings of songs, flip the widget over to view a list of other songs on the currently selected album and use it to control iTunes. Lastly, it will let you jump to the current song's home in iTunes or Amazon.
New Menuet skins available
Menuet, the menu bar add-on that lets you control iTunes, view album art and more, has been updated to version 1.0.1. The update includes several new "iPod" skins in six colors. I registered a copy soon after Scott found it at Macworld in January and now I use it every day. Other changes in 1.0.1 are: Improved Growl song information bezel Fixes for the high-resolution album art grabber Fixes to and improvements for the registration and demo process Various squashed bugs Plus, this version is a universal binary. Menuet requires Mac OS 10.4 and a single license will cost you a worthwhile $12.95.
