The Karaoke Player For Your iPhone

Karaoke Now! 2.0 iPhone App Review.

Karaoke Now! 2.0 is a Karaoke player for your iOS device. The songs themselves come from TriceraSoft's online catalogue or from your own computer, provided they are in the right format.

I need to begin by saying that their database of songs is huge! There's over 40,000 tunes you can choose from and new songs are provided at regular weekly intervals. With this huge a selection, your party will never be boring and will never get old!

That's the great news. The not-so-great news is that these songs cost money, a whole lot more money than if you were to purchase the original version from Apple's iTunes. In order to save you some hard-earned cash, TriceraSoft gives you the option to buy credit packs, and therefore make songs more affordable. Still, the lowest per-song price you get is $1.89, which is still a lot I think.

Increasingly-not-so-great news follow. Be warned!

Karaoke is painful even if you have a voice

Karaoke Now doesn't let you play karaoke now, but rather a bit later, after you purchase a credit pack that lets you download songs from their online catalogue, or after you import your own songs into the app.

Both experiences are a bit painful. If you choose to import songs from your own collection (ie on your computer), you need to have access to a wireless internet connection, have both the iPhone and the computer on that wifi connection, and maneuver your way from the iPhone to the computer and back to the iPhone.

How does this work exactly, you might ask. First step is to go to the Import tab on your iPhone's Karaoke Now app. There's a turn on feature there, and after you turn it on it gives you a http address that you need to manually enter on your computer's browser.

You're then presented with an interface that lets you select a zip file from your computer and upload it to your iPhone. That zip files needs to contain the MP3+G file(s) that are required by the app.

When you're done, go back to the iPhone and in the Quick Play tab, you should see the file you just imported.

On the other hand, if you choose to purchase a credit pack to download songs from their collection, you need to put up between $3.99 for two songs or $94.99 for 50 songs. You get one free song to download with the first credit pack purchase.

Essentially, the Karaoke Now is free in the AppStore. However, in order to actually use it, you need to pay a minimum of $3.99. It's a bit disappointing to see that the developers didn't give you at least one song, any one song, for new users to test out the app itself with.

Ok, but how does the app perform?

Well, I've tested it and can guarantee that it works as expected. Once you have songs imported or purchased, you can add them to playlists. You can create an infinite number of playlists to organize your karaoke collection.

When you want to start jamming along, select the song you want and hit play. The music starts to play and you have a few seconds to get ready before you see the lyrics on the screen. From then on, it's just you and the music. You just follow the lyrics along.

It's great that the app can be used on the iPad as well, because there's not much you can do to share this otherwise awesome experience with anyone else, unless you're all budging to see the 3.5" display.

I imagine myself with an iPad2, streaming content to my TV screen and a room full of my friends just applauding my insanely amazing voice. This is just my imagination, because I don't have the new iPad yet, and I'll never have the insanely amazing voice.

But I'm sure most of you do have these things, so I'd be curious to know how Karaoke Now! 2.0 worked for you!

Screenshots

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