If you love listening to music, or even want to make it, then our essential apps deserve a place on your iPhone. We’ll feature an amazing app that enables you to discover new artists every single day of the year, complete with biographies and tour dates. Alternatively you may want to simply tap the screen to compose tracks and record them on the move – there’s an app for that too! If you’d rather consume music than create it, then there’s an app that will tell you the track and artist that you’re listening to by sampling it through your iPhone’s mic, so you won’t miss out on discovering new bands. You can rediscover old music too by listening to music-streaming apps, and use the Internet radio in one app to listen to a whole host of music that is tailored to the sort of thing you like listening to.
01 GarageBand
Price: £2.99/$4.99
Developer: iTunes S.a.r.l. When it comes to music-making apps there are few apps that can compete with GarageBand. There are the incredibly fun to use intuitive instruments – complete with Smart settings to help you sound like a pro instantly. Then there is the producing and editing suite which effectively gives you a professional music studio in your pocket. Mind blowing.
02 Spotify
Price: Free Developer: Spotify
Take your music, and all those Spotify playlists, with you on your iPhone. When you first download you can trial the Premium version for free for 48 hours or you log in using Facebook, or simply listen to your own music on your normal account. There are radio stations to try out for free if you live in the US, and you can even listen to tracks offline if you download them.
03 Band Of The Day
Price: Free Developer: 955 Dreams
The interface may be a simple calendar, but on each day of the year this app will present you with a new music artist to discover and fall in love with. There are full biographies to read in order to help you get to know them, as well as an impressive number of full tracks to listen to for free, in addition to videos. You can also try out the mixtape for a host of free music from within the app.
04 Shazam
Price: Free Developer: Shazam Entertainment Ltd
The app that ends the need to ever again ask the question: who sings this? Shazam takes over your iPhone’s mic, listens to what is playing and within a few seconds gives you the answer, as well as the lyrics. You can tag music, watch videos from YouTube, and even use Shazam to get extra content related to TV when you see the icon on-screen. Essential.
05 Hitlantis
Price: Free Developer: Cognitive Maps
Another impressive music-discovery app based around a quite stunning bubble interface. Each individual blip on your screen represents a new and unsigned artist, and with a tap you can find out all about them, listening to their tracks via the in-app radio. You can favorite different bands and effectively create a playlist.
