By Lisa Bernier
If you’re into music, you’re probably already familiar with Hype Machine (either the blog or the app). The newest version of Hype Machine as an app for iPhone and Adroid recently came out, and it markedly improves an already handy app.
The Hype Machine App and blog (developed by The Hype Machine Inc) combines social media and real time music trends to great effect. The basic idea is one place to get all the latest music that’s trending on the web and on blogs. Both the App and the Blog allow you to listen to the music as well. Basically it’s a great way to keep track of old artists, discover new, keep your pulse on the next big thing to hit the music scene—and then share it with your friends.
The newest update has revamped the App. As usual, you can sign up via the site, or sign in with Twitter or Facebook. The new home screen is very visual, and scrolls album art while showing you popular tracks. Down at the bottom is the feed which is continually updating to show you the latest music blog trends.
Hit the bar on the top right corner, and you are brought to a Menu. Via the Menu you can scroll through from What’s New, to Popular, to different Genres and a Blog Directory. You can also get to your own tracks, the feed, friends who are also sharing, your History, what Album’s are Premiering, the Hype Machine Radio Show, or access the Settings menu. Via settings, can also now enable Last.fm scrobbling.
It’s a lot of options, and perhaps some of them are extraneous—Album Premiere is strikingly similar to What’s New—but the Blog Directory is a nice touch, and Favorite and Popular are standard for these kind of apps.
Once you enter a category (or feed), the visual turns less busy. Each feed shows you a song list, no matter what the category. It also provides them with a small snapshot of album art on the side. It’s easy to scroll up and down, and the app is very fast. The connectivity and stability problems seem to be mostly solved, and tracks load extremely quickly.
The audio quality of song playback is clear, and songs continue to play even if you close the app. The app now also includes remix filters for the Latest and Popular feeds, so you can now find both original tracks as well as the different mixes that have been applied to them. It also gives you the option to do “No Remixes” or “Only Remixes.” This change was due to listener feedback, and it’s nice to see a maker actively incorporating changes from its app audience.
With the Friends feed, you can see what Friends are tuned in, as well as see what they’re listening to at the moment.
In essence, Hype Machine was always one of the better radio apps available. It’s unique approach to featuring music and artists via blogs instead of say, popular radio or Billboard, is the 21st century way of being on the pulse of the music scene. The update has only improved a great app. Speedy, not as prone to crashing, and a clean, user friendly design, this is an app any music lover ought to have on their iPhone. Bloggers will find it useful to, in keeping track of what other music blogs are saying—and hopefully, by getting on Hype Machine’s radar to be included on their feed.
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