Look Ma, No Hands! iSongAnnouncer Tells You The Song Without Looking
iSongAnnouncer ($0.99) by mdlRSOFT.com is a music player that announces the title and artist of each song as it plays. It uses text-to-speech technology and accesses songs, artists and playlists from the standard iPod app.
Because most apps these days do so many different things, it seems that the days of the single purpose app are fading away. Soundboards have mostly replaced iFart and Appzilla is now much more common than single flashlight apps.
While this movement is in a good direction, every now and again an app comes along that has a specific job it does well enough to justify its existence. iSongAnnouncer simply gives a verbal introduction to each song played so that you can know exactly what you are listening to without looking.
A few seconds into each song it fades out and the title is announced before fading back to the music. It features a realistic human voice if you have a live data connection and a more robotic one if you don’t have web service. You can also shake to hear the name announced again. Gestures are also supported including swiping left and right to change song and up and down for volume controls. Shuffle is available as well.
I have a rather expansive song collection. Not the type that will fill an iPod Classic, but enough that I don’t know the name and band of every song without looking. There have been times when I have liked (or disliked for that matter) a song and have been driving or jogging and have not wanted to wake up my phone to see what is playing.
These occasions aren’t daily, but they do happen. Similarly, many won’t find the need to spend money on an app they may never use. But I believe there are users that will find that iSongAnnouncer is exactly what they have been looking for. I am unaware of any other apps that do this, so if there are sound off in the comments.
iSongAnnouncer fills a very tight niche, but it does it well. If you have a large music collection that you frequently listen to while driving or working out, this may well be just what you need to get to know your songs a little better.
