Idea: 8
Thursday, 08 January 2015
By. Francis Pedraza and Megan Lathrop
Duet
Listen with a friend to the same song, but on different phones — on a walk or run, for example. Duet works with any music service on your phone — Spotify, Rdio, Soundcloud, Hype Machine, Pandora, iTunes, etc. — and lets you broadcast a song to their phone, so you don’t have to share headphones or use a splitter.
Months ago, Megan and I went on a run. Short of breath, neither of us wanted to talk. On our own, we would normally wear headphones. But together, that’s just rude. We wished that there was a way for us to listen to the same song, but on different phones. After doing some research, it appears as if there is not a solution for this problem, although it seems relatively straightforward. A spillter doesn’t work, because on a walk or run you cannot be physically attached to each other. Music rights issues shouldn’t be a problem, as it merely involves one phone broadcasting to another, as if it were an external speaker. On Facebook chat, there’s a way to listen to the same song as a friend, but it hasn’t been updated in three years, and doesn’t appear to be available on mobile.
Experience
Duet would connect to your Spotify, Rdio, SoundCloud, Hypemachine, or Pandora account, then allow you to rebroadcast the song you’re listening to on your headphones via Bluetooth to your friend’s phone. Charge $0.99 — $10? These four apps — PairShare, MyStream, ListenWith, TuneMob — are both poorly made and limit you to only sharing songs from your iTunes Library. For example, TuneMob has Facebook and SoundCloud integrations, but they don’t actually work.
References
Spotify Kills Soundrop (& App Store?), Listen To Music With Your Friends (Not On Mobile?)
