Sorry I haven't been posting as often as I'd like to - I've been wearing two hats for the past few weeks here at the office while the Web editor is on vacation.
But finally, two nights ago, I had the opportunity to try out a new app that I've had my eye on, and, well, I couldn't wait to tell you all about it.
It's called Moodagent
(iTunes link) and, well, you need to download it. Best of all, it's currently free.
Click through for more.
So what is Moodagent?
Consider it a way to create playlists from your iPod based on the mood of the song - either sensual, tender, joy, aggressive or tempo - or any combination thereof.
So you aren't actually creating the playlist. You are deciding how much of the above moods you want to have part of your playlist and the app chooses the music accordingly. There are 5 sliders - each a different color - and you slide them like you touch control any other app.
I'm not sure of the exact mechanics, but the app syncs with what's in your iPod and gathers song profiles. It uses those song profiles to classify a song.
I got a note that about 100 of my 800 songs couldn't be classified and was directed to Moodagent's
web site to download a free helper called Moodagent Profiler, which is a desktop application that runs on your PC or Mac. It's recommended if some of your tracks on the iPhone does not have a matching track profile. The software ensures that mood profiles have been created for all your tracks and are ready for fast identification by the Moodagent application.
I couldn't really tell the difference between using the app with the profiler and without, although I assume I have access to more songs now that there are more profiles created for more tracks.
And here's another positive - when you open the app and play a song, the song is actually playing through the iPod. So, if you exit out of the app, the song still plays. And to change or do anything with the current song, you don't have to open the app - you can just access it via the iPod (although opening the app is fine too).
Here's a roundup of the main features from the Web site:
-- Instantly syncs your music to get track profiles based on emotion, mood, genre, sub genre, style, tempo, beat, vocals, instruments and production features
-- 5 sliders let you choose the unique mood, rhythm and style of each playlist
-- Creates playlists that match the profile of any song
-- Lets you save and name your favorite playlists
-- Lets you remove songs from playlists
So to do some testing, I tried mixing the different moods. But then I tried something a little more challenging - I turned all the sliders down except for tempo, assuming I'd only get pretty fast-paced songs in my playlist. And yes - that's exactly what I got. Plus, you can select any song and base a playlist on that song and then save that playlist for later use.
And as I mentioned earlier, it's free for a limited time - according to iTunes. It's definitely worth money, so if you can grab it while it's free, well, that's just awesome.
On top of all that, I think Moodagent has one of my favorite icons ever - it's really colorful!!
Bottom line is this. It's cool in iTunes that you can create playlists based on just about any specification. It's uncool that you can't do anything like that on an iPhone and the only way to get a really good playlist is to do it on a computer and then sync the iPhone.
Cover flow is awesome and looks great, but managing music based on mood might just be the next big thing. Definitely give it a try and let me know what you think either in the comments or on
Twitter.
Thanks for calling.
2 Comments
Norm Bona said:
Just messed around with this for a bit, and Scott this is easily one of the best apps I've ever seen. I wish it saved a playlist you made in MoodAgent in your regular iTunes playlists, but launching the app itself to get to the playlist is just fine too. I can't recommend this app enough!
skup said:
Scott,
I downloaded this app based on your recommendation, and it seems pretty cool initially. I'll have to play around with it some more. It's like it takes the Genius feature and the smart playlist to a whole new level! Plus, as you mentioned, it works on the go!!!
Have a great new year, looking forward to new iPhone, your column, the tablet, what the Nexus phone will do to competition in 2010, and I know you'll be the best source for that info!!!!!
Brian
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