After using MorphWiz-Play I seem to be in a music mode, always on the hunt for the latest and greatest music apps. Heck, maybe I’ll even start a band or become a DJ! Okay, probably not, but why not have fun with creating crazy tunes? Maybe someday I’ll get better at it. Today a new music app has been approved for the BlackBerry PlayBook called NodeBeat. I must say that this app has an interesting take on music creation. Essentially what you are doing is placing little nodes on the screen with some creating the beat and others create the tone. But put them together and you can have some sweet sounding music.

Features

• Friendly, Intuitive and Easy to Use
• Record and Save Creations
• Drum and Octave Generators
• Preset Layouts to Help Get You Started
• Sleep Timer for Falling Asleep to NodeBeat

Audio and Rhythm

• 20 Musical Scales
• All 12 Musical Keys Signatures
• 7 Octave Range
• Multitouch Background Keyboard/Piano
• Audio Waveform Adjustment (Sine, Triangle, Sawtooth, Square)
• Creative Sound Sculpting (Echo, Attack, Decay, Release)
• Adjustable Tempo (BPM) and Note Beat

NodeBeat can be found in BlackBerry App World and is currently set at a nice low price of 99 cents. If a DJ career is in your future, or you're like me and just enjoy seeing what you can create, you'll want to check out NodeBeat for the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Purchase NodeBeat for the BlackBerry PlayBook

 It's Health & Fitness Month at Mobile Nations!

Trying to keep myself motivated during Mobile Nations Fitness Month has been the hardest part of the process for me personally. Changing my diet wasn't quite as difficult as I thought, and while getting in better physical shape has been a bit of a challenge the hardest part is how to keep pushing myself to do better. When I first started off I was doing 15 to 20 minutes a day of activity and struggling through that, but once that started getting easier I knew it was time to make it more challenging on myself, but I lacked the full motivation to get that done.

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Earlier in the month we saw that Rogers customers could download BBM Music and get 6 months free service. This offer has now been opened up to more customers around the world. If you live in Canada or the US you can get up to 4 months free BBM Music service and if you live in the UK, Spain or Italy, you can get up to 6 months free.

One thing to note is that this is only available to new users and those still currently in their trial period. If you have already starting your subscription payments, unfortunately you are no longer eligible for the free service promotion. 

The latest update to BBM Music is to version 1.1.0.12. With this update comes a whole lot of new features including subscription gift request and the ability to invite Facebook and Twitter friends. 

Don't forget this offer is valid if you download during the month of February, so if you're looking to give BBM Music a try, now is the time.

More information / Download BBM Music 

The WOWee line of audio devices is one of those things you have to hear to believe. Even that video up there really doesn't do it justice. The WOWee folks have designed a small box - for lack of a better word - that makes great sounding music.

Holding the WOWee in your hand, you don't experience the full joy that is the WOWee ONE. When it's placed on a flat surface - preferably on a hollow object, but it's not required - the surface is transformed into a sort of sounding board. This drastically amplifies the sound; it's almost like the object is turned into a subwoofer for your music and other audio.

Music sounds great on this thing; absolutely great. Pair it up with the upcoming WOWee ONE VUE, and you've got yourself a mobile presentation kit. And a mobile movie watching kit. The rechargeable battery on the ONE is rated for an incredible 20 hours. There are two more versions of the WOWee, a slim and a Bluetooth enabled device. All three sound amazing, but the WOWee ONE Classic has the best of that low bass sound, down to 20 Hz.

The good people of WOWee set us up with a WOWee ONE Classic (the one with the really good bass) to give away to our CrackBerry Nation, so leave a comment this article to be entered to win. Contest ends this Sunday at midnight Pacific time. Good luck, you're really gonna want this.

Spotify for BlackBerry has taken the US by storm the last few months, and today their BlackBerry app has left the initial beta phase and is available for everyone. The app requires you to have the premium subscription which will run you $9.99 in order to use the service on your device. For now Spotify only supports the Bold 9780, Bold 9700, Curve 9300, Bold 9000 and Curve 8520. No sign of the Bold 9900, Torch 9810 or 9800 from what we can see, and if you have a CDMA device you're out of luck all together. So if you fit into any of the tight criteria, you can grab Spotify for BlackBerry at m.spotify.com from your device.

More information/download of Spotify for BlackBerry

Source: Spotify Blog

Good news for those of you in Italy and Spain that want to try out BBM Music as the app has now been updated to work in your countries!

BBM Music makes your music collection social! With BBM Music, you can create a music profile of your favorite songs that all your BBM Music friends can listen to – and in return you can enjoy all of your friends’ profile selections. That means the more friends you have, the more music you can enjoy! You can listen to full tracks, create playlists, have conversations about music, and even listen to music offline.

• Create your music profile from a catalogue of millions of songs and keep it fresh by swapping songs every month
• Make friends and listen to their music selections
• Play single songs or entire playlists created by friends. Listen to a giant playlist that includes all tracks from all your friends
• Create playlists that are all your own – using songs from all your friends’ profiles
• Post comments about your friends’ music and chat with them about music in real-time
• Discover what your friends are doing by watching the timeline - friends adding friends, new songs, playlists, comments
• Listen offline, while not connected to the wireless network (listen on subway, airplane, cottage, etc.)
• Try Before You Buy. Enjoy a free trial offer that allows all the perks that come with the paid subscription.

You can find more information and download BBM Music in BlackBerry App World at the link below. The app is free to download and comes with a 1 month free trial after which it will cost you $5 a month to subscribe for all the features.

More information/download BBM Music

After a great stretch in the BlackBerry Beta Zone, BBM Music has officially launched today. The social music app from RIM will be available within 24 hours for users in the US, Canada and Australia with more countries to follow. BBM Music has had great feedback from beta users thus far, and I'm sure many of you who haven't had a chance to use it will be excited to get your hands on it. Currently there will be two subscriptions offered:

• PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION: The Premium ‘full track' BBM Music experience is available for a monthly subscription of $4.99 USD ($4.99 CDN and $5.99 AUD). The Premium version will feature a free Premium trial offer. Free Premium trial offer*: With the free Premium trial offer, you can use all the features of a Premium subscription for a limited time. Get up to 2 months* free in US and Canada, and one month free in Australia.
• FREE SUBSCRIPTION: There will also be a Free subscription to the service that delivers the same social experience as the Premium subscription, but with 30 second song previews versus full song tracks. After your Free Premium trial offer period ends, you can opt to continue using BBM Music without a paid subscription by using this Free subscription. You can upgrade from a Free subscription to a Premium subscription at any time.

BBM Music is available for download from BlackBerry App World from the link below. If you're a BBM Music user - what are your thoughts? Love it? Hate it? Hit the forums and let us know!

More information/download of BBM Music
Discuss more in the forums

Source: BlackBerry Blog

*UPDATE* - Looks like the mobile apps portion is still limited, bad wording on their post. @RdioHelp confirms mobile access still requires a Unlimited accnt. But they still offer a 7-day free trial.

While we could debate the streaming music services available these days, including BBM Music -- I'm personally fond of using Rdio. For a number of reasons really. They have a great selection of music, support multiple platforms and their mobile apps are great -- including their support for BlackBerry devices. Now, they've gone ahead and made things even better for those looking to get in on the services:

Some of the best things in life are free, and starting today, Rdio is one of them. New Rdio users in the US can take advantage of many of our popular features for free, including streaming full songs without hearing a single ad — a meter at the top of your profile will show you how much free music you have each month.

An email address or Facebook account is all you need to start listening for free, and no application downloads or credit cards are required. Just sign up at rdio.com or through one of our mobile apps to get started. 

You can sign up using your Facebook account but they do offer the email sign up as well in case you don't have a Facebook account. Overall you can't really beat ad-free music which is available for streaming to your device. Give Rdio a shot, it's a really great service.

Click here to learn more about Rdio

There are several options for streaming music on your BlackBerry, one of the newest being Rdio. Developed by the creators of Skype, Rdio is cross-platform and packed with great features including playlist and people support as well as music caching for when you are away from wifi or have no signal.

Rdio was recently updated for BlackBerry 7 devices, and today they have become the first service to offer digital music family plans. Families can add up to three accounts to one plan for a discounted subscription rate. Two accounts cost $17.99 per month, a 10 percent savings off the regular Rdio Unlimited monthly rate of $9.99; three accounts cost $22.99 per month, a 23 percent savings. No other digital music service currently provides discounted rates for families. Full press release and details can be found after the break and if you're interested in taking Rdio for a spin, head on over to www.rdio.com.

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The news of RIM working on a "BlackBerry Music" application isn't exactly new -- we've heard the rumors in the past but new information is suggesting that RIM has come to agreements with major music labels for the new service and development is going as planned. According to CNET:

RIM has signed a deal with at least one of the top-four record companies and is close to signing at least two others, the sources said, adding that a test version of the service could be rolled out within the next few weeks.

Other then that, solid details have been rather slim. The new service, when rolled out -- is said to be BBM connected and set for subscription based pricing that will cost users $4.99 once out of beta. The information is rather interesting especially when you take into account that right now, all BlackBerry 7 devices rolling out have a "Music Store" icon loaded but that store is powered by Amazon MP3. We're reluctant to say expect a beta within the next few weeks though, reason being -- We've heard RIM themselves have only been testing it internally for a short period if time.

Source: CNET

As much as I would love to have all my music readily available on my BlackBerry devices, I really don't want to have it take up a lot of space. Cloud Player is the answer to my prayers. Cloud Player is a free application that turns your BlackBerry into an MP3 player with unlimited storage. Once you've set up your account online (www.CloudPlayer.me) and uploaded your music, you're ready to go. Your music will always be up to date with automatic syncing and available to access over your WiFi or carrier internet connection. With Cloud Player, you can search your music by artist or playlist and best of all, the app is FREE!

In an update coming soon, online users will have access to a "social" section with the option to view your friends' music libraries (including stats like recently uploaded, recently played, most played, etc). The folks over at Cloud Player LLC are wanting to explore the same option with their BlackBerry app at a future date so keep your eyes peeled for that possible update.

Cloud Player is supported on pretty much every device (including the 9900 & 9930) as well as all countries and carriers. A PlayBook app should be released sometime around September/October. If you're looking for a great way to have all your music at the tips of your figure without using up your device's precious space, check out Cloud Player today.

More information / download Cloud Player

Like Slacker Radio? So do we. While slacker offers their basic free version to everyone, there is nothing like having on-demand access to Slacker’s whole music library in addition to ad-free
customizable radio. Not forgetting the many other great features
Slacker offers:

• Search and listen to specific songs or albums
• Cache radio stations, albums and playlists to your smartphone so you can listen without a connection (better battery life, no data usage and uninterrupted playback)
• Create playlists by typing in songs or by adding them while you listen to Slacker Radio stations and even share them with others.
• View and listen to real-time "top 50" charts for all Slacker genres based on listener and Slacker DJ interaction
• Listen to an artist-specific station that will only play songs from a specific artist or band (i.e. Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix etc..)

The Slacker Premium Radio service does cost $9.99/mnth but -- we like you guys and luckily, Slacker likes us. That said; they've given us 5 3-month subscriptions to give away to some lucky readers. Drop a comment on this post, we'll pick 5 of you all at a later time as winners. In the meantime, check out the Slacker website to download their free version.

TuneIn Radio user? If so, you'll want to hit their website for the latest update available -- which, is now v2.1. Quite a jump from the previous version being 1.9. Unfortunately, no changelog has been created to go along with this update but we're guessing as soon as it hits BlackBerry App World the CrackBerry forums post will be updated with release notes.. But for now, you can grab v2.1 directly from the TuneIn Radio link below.

Download TuneIn Radio v2.1 directly

Source: BerryReview

I know there is a lot of Pandora for BlackBerry fans out there and it's been quite some time since we've seen any sort of updates to the app. That said, Marc from Pandora dropped by the CrackBerry forums today to let everyone know a new version is now available for download. While the new version lacks a change log at this point, for the most part it's just a bug fix release according to the info available.

Download Pandora for BlackBery v1.1.8

Media App Preview: A quick video look at the native music listening and purchase experience on the BlackBerry Playbook

If you've been wondering what the native music listening and music purchasing process is like on the BlackBerry PlayBook, you'll want to check out the video above which walks through the Music app and 7Digital Music Store which both come preloaded on the BlackBerry PlayBook.

The 7Digital Music Store app allows you to easily purchase songs and download them over the air directly to the PlayBook, from which they are transferred into the Music app for listening. Note, you will have to setup an account with 7Digital for this (I'm waiting anxiously for the day where I can also use my BlackBerry ID to buy music and videos and not just apps). And as is the case with BlackBerry Smartphones, you can also sync over your iTunes music via Desktop Manager software (you can also drag files onto the PlayBook when connected via usb cable to a computer or over WiFi thanks to WiFi File Sharing).

One of things I really like about the PlayBook is the way music controls have been integrated into apps via the status bar. When you have music playing in the background and are in a non-music app, you can diaganol swipe from the corner of the top bezel to bring up the status bar, which will now have a music button on it, allowing you to pause and skip tracks. Of course you can use the physical buttons too, but I'm finding I tend to forget about them as I'm fixated on the touch display. Check out the video above to see get a solid overview of the app!