Sparrow for iPhone is out now!

I got a small preview of Sparrow for iPhone a few months ago and I’ve been really excited for it to hit the App Store. It’s $2.99 and well worth it. Those guys did a great job. Watch the video below.

sparrowmail:

Sparrow iPhone is now available on the App Store.

Source: sparrowmail

Spotify is Microsoft. Rdio is Apple.

I started using Rdio almost 13 months ago, according to my account statistics. I was working at Next Big Sound, everyone around me was raving about Rdio and Spotify had yet to launch in the US. I gave Rdio a casual spin, dropping $5 on a monthly subscription and using it occasionally in addition to the limited iTunes library on my MacBook Air.

Somewhere around April or May, I noticed my Rdio usage ramping up. I was continually sharing music and finding new things to listen to in the activity stream. The friction to discover a new, unknown album was practically zero. I’d try a new album every morning as I biked to work, occasionally stopping to change albums because my morning experiment had gone so horribly awry.

Then Spotify launched in July in the US. So I gave it a try for a few days. I didn’t really like it and went back to Rdio, without thinking much of it. 

You don’t even have to pay attention to music, startups or their intersection to realize that Rdio is incredibly quiet compared to Spotify. Spotify is everywhere you look. You hear about it; people talk about it; it’s plastered all over Facebook in that CNN-like ticker on the side. 

I think Spotify initially felt so sexy to everyone who used it because they couldn’t have it for so long. It’s like everyone had one or two friends in Europe with a legal version of Napster for the 21st century and everyone in the US felt left out. When Spotify opened the gates in July, we couldn’t get enough.

You always want what you can’t have. 

The funny thing is, Rdio is a better product. Far and away better. It almost feels like a secret to those of us who use it.

But when I look at both products side-by-side, Rdio has soul. It’s got color. There are album covers and user avatars everywhere that attach a human side to the music. Albums that you know nothing about sit there waiting, inviting you to listen with their album covers and recommendations from friends.

Rdio feels human. Spotify feels sterile. It’s the same feeling I remember having right after I got my first computer from Apple (a PowerBook G4). The Dell I had before it was cold, gray and bulky. My Mac was sleek, silver and somehow just felt more personal.

The one feature that I think Spotify does much better is the music inbox. The fact that I can send someone a song, directly to them, without email, Twitter or Facebook, is fantastic. Plus, Spotify is everywhere. They have an incredible marketing department that makes sure Spotify is in your face, all the time. When you think music subscription service, you think Spotify, not Rdio. 

Just playing the odds of my audience here, I’m guessing you’re reading this post on some Apple device. And you know that thought that goes through your head when you see a person that you really like using a Windows machine, How can they actually stand that thing? That’s what I think when I see people using Spotify. 

Give Rdio a try. You won’t look back.

"

CEOs should care about details. Even shades of yellow. On a Sunday.

To one of the greatest leaders I’ve ever met, my prayers and hopes are with you Steve.

"
– Vic Gundrota - Icon Ambulance

OS X quick tip: Single App Mode

I love running the old school single app mode on my Macbooks. If you open a new app on your computer, OS X auto-hides the rest of the apps running. 

To activate, go to Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.dock single-app -bool true 

Then type “killall Dock” and you’re set. Give it a go.

If you don’t like it, change true to false in that first line of code, kill the Dock again and you’re back to normal.

What Apple did in 10 years to its main product (via TUAW)

What Apple did in 10 years to its main product (via TUAW)

How iTunes play count should work

All songs are not created equal. I’ve got the standard song that’s 2:33, one that I listen to start to finish every time. Then I’ve got other songs that are the same length but the ending isn’t good. So I stop listening. Or songs from bootlegs that are 8 minutes long, extending 4 minutes of applause past a 4 minute song. 

As it stands now, iTunes demands that I listen to the file all the way through to count as one play. But sometimes I don’t listen to the whole song, especially when I’m listening to live shows or bootlegs.

What this leads to is an inaccurate representation of my listening habits. It’s not a big deal but I’m curious about what I listen to. 

The way it should work is this:

I listen to 10 percent of a song. It records as a play. Or maybe we go with 50 percent counts as one play.

Either way, I doubt people are gaming their own music listening habits.

I wonder if an AppleScript could fix this.

The Startup Student: How Ping should really work

Ping: A flaccid, barebones representation of the music you remember to share.

Source: thestartupstudent

Follow me on Ping (iTunes 10)

I’m giving this Ping thing a try. Feel free to follow me. I’ll most likely follow back.