Glow Beats for iPhone Provides Some Good Old Fashioned Fun
By: Hillel Fuld
The brilliance of the iPhone OS is in many of its characteristics. There is the revolutionary touch interface, that, fanboy or not, you have to admit every company since the release of the first iPhone is trying to imitate. Yes, I know the iPhone has its shortcomings (ahem, multitasking), but let’s be honest, you can see a lot of the iPhone’s personality in Android, certain versions of Symbian, Maemo, and other mobile platforms. The thing is, no one does it as well as the creator, and everyone else seems to be playing Catch with Apple.
Another iPhone trait that makes it stand out from the crowd is its target audience. Let’s take a quick look at some of the other platforms. BlackBerry… Let’s say it as it is, BlackBerrys are not the “coolest” devices on the market, nor are they able to handle Web browsing and multimedia the way a smartphone should in 2010. So, the one thing BlackBerrys do right is email. What that means in terms of the market is that its target audience is very specific. I know many teenagers still use BlackBerrys, but that is changing fast with most of them drifting to iPhone or Android.
Moving onto Symbian, well to be honest, in today’s market, I am not sure who the billions of people still using Symbian are, it doesn’t make any sense to me. Android is also not suitable for hardcore business users, and Palm Pre, although it does appeal to many different segments, is still not where it needs to be in order to compete.
Now, let’s talk about the iPhone. I was witness to a long and heated debate on Twitter yesterday (which I actually started by recommending the Nokia E72 over the iPhone to a friend who has business in mind when using her mobile phone) about whether or not business users can use the iPhone the way they use their BlackBerrys. I am not getting into the details and arguments both sides presented, but I will say that the fact that there were iPhone users debating the fact that the iPhone can function as a business oriented device says something about the iPhone and its capabilities.
Everyone knows it is an amazing gaming device and everyone knows it is the best multimedia portable player, but it seems many people still view the iPhone as a “toy” when it comes to email and business use. The fact of the matter is, I can argue both sides of the debate, and that is the brilliance of the Apple mobile platform.
Glow Beats (about time I stopped rambling on and got to the app itself) is an app that proves this point perfectly. We have all seen and read about the best Twitter iPhone apps. We are all familiar with the Facebook app that makes the actual site seem so 2009. We’ve seen hundreds if not thousands of challenging and entertaining iPhone games that provide a gaming experience like no other. Glow Beats is none of the above. It is an app without a detailed UI, it does not present a challenge of any kind, and it will not help you communicate with your friends. Yet, somehow, it is a great app that will keep you occupied and smiling for an extended period of time.
So what is it? Glow Beats is a simple app that enables you to create your own beats by pressing on drum-like pads and choosing from tens of different sound effects. The sounds created by the app are extremely impressive, especially when using earphones and not the speaker, and when you finally create your perfect beat, you can easily record it from within the app.
So, next to each “drum” there is a little dot which when pressed brings up a long list of different sounds from which you can select. The sounds are categorized into Hip Hop, Electronic, and Ethnic. Each one of the three categories has at least fifty different sounds. I found that once you select your desired sound, the little check mark in the top left corner, which is supposed to bring you back to the main screen is less responsive than I would have liked. Generally speaking, the basic interface needs a little tweaking, but nothing too major.
I have to be honest, I like me some tunes from time to time, but I am not one of the music freaks that tweets blips every five seconds. However, I did find this app highly entertaining, and the sounds were impressive and professional sounding. Will I be using this app on a daily basis? Probably not, but I will most definitely allow it to stick around on one of my iPods nine home screens. If nothing else, my kids will love it.
So, what was the point of all the rambling above? My point is that what is so amazing about the iPhone is that it supports apps like Doodle Jump, Facebook, and Echofon, which all fill a certain “need”, whether it’s communication or challenging game play, and on the flip side it provides users the ability to use an app like Glow Beats for some pure and pointless fun…
Our Rating: 4/5
Developer: Iyedah
