Amazon Cloud Player now has an iPad app, which just hit the iPad App Store today. This is a very nice alternative to the built-in Music app – especially for anyone who does not enjoy dealing with iTunes. Once you sign in with your Amazon account the app lets you play any music you’ve bought via Amazon and any music you’ve imported from iTunes or other sources.

Of course you can’t purchase new music directly within the app, due to App Store rules, but you can do so in the Safari app.

Here are more details on Amazon Cloud Player via its App Store page:

Your music. Everywhere. Listen to your music collection from the cloud on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad anywhere you are. You can download or stream your library from the cloud – or play the music you already have on your device.
To listen to your music in Cloud Player:
• Start with music you’ve bought from Amazon in the past – when you first sign in, eligible MP3s will be added to your Cloud Player library for free. So will MP3 versions of any AutoRip CDs you bought from Amazon since 1998.

[click to continue reading…]

I’m no musician, not by any stretch – but Tonara really looks like quite a groundbreaking app to me and certainly looks very impressive in the demo video above.

It’s touted as the world’s first interactive sheet music app …

which follows along as you play, shows your exact position on the score, and turns the score pages automatically, just in time. Tonara is smart enough to ignore misplayed notes, background noise and other interference and can adjust to variations in tempo or repetitions in the score.

Tonara’s co-founder and CEO, Yair Lavi, has lofty ambitions for the app and the impact it can have:

Our dream is to redefine the way people read sheet music … The idea is so simple and accessible – we show it to musicians and they are immediately hooked. The ‘old way’ of reading music involves so much disconnection and there is a lot going on that distracts you from the music. That’s why we’re thrilled to let people focus on just the main objective. We believe that the interactive features enabled by our technology will transition the sheet music market from the era of print and static PDFs to fully digital, interactive and downloadable scores, and we are proud to be at the forefront of this transition.

It’s a free app (for a limited time) that comes with six built-in scores. Additional scores are available via In-App purchase at $0.99 to $3.99 each.

Here’s an App Store link for Tonara.

If we have any musicians in the house, so to speak, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this app.