iPhone applications featuring particular musicians have been around for a while now--Nine Inch Nails was recently in the news when Apple rejected an update to its application, and tech companies like Melodeo and The Orchard have experimented with creating iPhone apps for their clients.
In the teaser video for the new U2 BlackBerry app, this map of a concert venue appears immediately after the text "Experience the tour from all angles." My guess: you'll be able to shoot and share concert videos.
(Credit: Research In Motion)Soon, BlackBerry fans will be able to get in on the fun. Research In Motion, which is sponsoring the U2 360 tour, has posted a page on its Web site declaring the imminent arrival of the U2 "mobile album."
Although the video teaser is fairly cryptic, it looks like the app will let users listen to the latest U2 album "No Line on the Horizon," watch videos, and read news updates. A more interesting twist: it also looks like users will be able to share video clips from U2 concerts--a map will let you pick among BlackBerry-toting audience members with different stage angles.
U2 fans with BlackBerries can sign up here to be informed when the app's released. No word yet on timing or pricing. One possibility: the app might launch in conjunction with the Blackberry Tour 9630 on July 12.
Whether you're a U2 fan or not, it's great to see RIM getting serious about mobile music, and I think it'll help cement RIM's position alongside Apple at the top of the consumer smartphone heap.
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Most of Microsoft's announcements Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona were leaked weeks ago, so there weren't any big surprises.
Now where the heck's the Zune icon on this thing?
(Credit: Microsoft)There's a new mobile OS, Windows Mobile 6.5, that's supposed to be friendlier than the notoriously clunky earlier versions. (ZDNet's mobile maven Matthew Miller is still disappointed.)
There's a set of cloud-based services for synchronizing data like contacts and photos. (Although apparently v.1 will not be connected with the Windows Live or Live Mesh platforms or services, so the vision of unified data sync across devices is still a whiteboard drawing as far as Microsoft products and services are concerned.)
There's a marketplace for Windows Mobile apps. There's a brand change--the phones will be called "Windows Phones," although the OS is still "Windows Mobile." (Confused?) Oh, and the company has finally acknowledged that competing in the consumer space is important, a year and a half after CEO Steve Ballmer dismissed the iPhone as a "$500 subsidized item" that had "no chance" of gaining any significant market share.
Assuming that any of this makes you want to run out and buy a Windows Mobile phone, too bad. None of it's available until late this year.
I'll give Microsoft some credit for envisioning and beginning to build a free alternative to Apple's MobileMe service. And the mobile marketplace is a no-brainer. But Monday's announcements just underscore that Microsoft has no answer to the iPhone.
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