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Soundrop listening rooms to shut down after Spotify kills its app platform
If you haven't fired up Spotify in a while, we have some big news for you: the service silently killed its App Finder platform for desktop in late October, and future versions of the client will remove the feature along with its library of apps. Because of that, Soundrop, a popular Spotify app, is shutting up shop on December 31st 2014. Soundrop provided the service's users a way to build communities with its listening rooms, way before Spotify launched its own share features. To use it, people need to log into a paid Spotify account and enter themed rooms to chat and listen to music with other fans of the same genre or artist.
Soundrop's social music listening comes to Android
Soundrop's communal listening experience is at last available on Android, hopefully in time to save those lost in the wilderness ever since Turntable.fm turned the lights out. As with the iOS app, music lovers can sign into a paid Deezer or Spotify account and join rooms with themed playlists; from there, they can both vote for songs in the play queue and discuss tracks with fellow fans. You'll need at least Android 4.0 and one of the associated streaming services to get started, but the Soundrop app itself is free to download from Google Play.
TUAW's Daily App: Soundrop
Soundrop isn't really a game -- it's more of a musical instrument, although you can play with it for quite a while. The app presents a small hole that constantly drops balls out at a certain rate, while you draw lines on the screen with your finger. Where the balls hit the lines, a tone is sounded, and by positioning the lines in the right places, you can make an interesting sort of music. The app itself calls it "musical geometry," and it is surprisingly fun, even if you aren't a musician. With headphones, you can actually hear the whole thing in stereo, which makes for another fun factor of the experience. The app is a free download, although you only get a demo for free, with the ability to just draw white lines anywhere. Paying US $1.99 opens up the full functionality, and you can change physics, add more spouts, or change the colors of the lines that are drawn, creating different musical noises with each color. It's a good time -- play with the free version to see if it hits you right, and then if you're interested, you can buy in for the two bucks and have the whole app.
