Tunewiki for Android: Why Didn’t Google Think of That?

By: @Hilzfuld

There are some mobile apps that have become a leading name on one mobile platform, and then there are apps that have become leading names on multiple platforms. A few apps that come to mind that are relatively successful on various platforms include Fring, Waze, IM+, and Tunewiki. All of these apps have one thing in common, they all include a social aspect to them. Tunewiki was one of the first apps on the iPhone platform, in fact it was available even before the App Store existed. It became a huge success on the iPhone in no time, and it has now become the most dominant music player on the Android platform as well.

Tunewiki includes some seriously revolutionary features, such as the one it is most famous for, Karaoke-like lyrics streaming across your display as you play your music or watch a music clip on Youtube. The lyrics are taken from their user generated online directory of lyrics, and they are streamed in real time as you use the app. I found that 90% of the time, the lyrics were in sync with the music, but then there was the occasional lag.

So Tunewiki is first and foremost a media player for the  music you have stored on your device. This can and should replace the default Android player, which let’s be honest, is nothing to write home  about. However, Tunewiki is so much more than a media player. It is actually an entire social platform for which you sign up on the Web, create a profile, and connect with others. You can see what other members are listening to in a Twitter-like real time feed, as well as many other social features. You can supposedly contribute to the lyrics directory, although I could not personally find this option on the site. The site in general was a little all over the place in my opinion, not sure if it was the abundance of ads or just a lack of proper organization, but I found it hard to navigate.

With the Android app, you can listen to your own music, open the corresponding Youtube video clip in one press (lyrics are displayed there too), and listen to online radio. You can easily share  your music and playlists on Twitter or Facebook from within the app, adding yet another social aspect to Tunewiki. Another cool feature in Tunewiki is the ability to view the lyrics in other languages, but that too is dependant on the network, and if no one translates the lyrics, they will be unavailable.

The app also comes with a home screen widget for your Android device, which is a nice touch. The free version of Tunewiki displays ads throughout the app and for $4.99, you can get an ad-free version. There is also the ability to view a map and see what people are listening to and where. Very cool feature. Based on this map, there is no shortage of global Tunewiki users and any place I checked on the map had a nice presence of users.

The app is not perfect, and I would have liked to see the option to listen by genre for example, along with some other missing features (bigger icons). The site I found to be hard to use, and the app displayed some minor bugs, but all in all, the concept is an amazing one, and the implementation is pretty darn impressive too. I will most definitely be using Tunewiki as my main media player on the Android platform, and I am excited to see what lies ahead for this company.

Our Rating: 3/5

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Developer: Tunewiki

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