Software : Buying Guide: Best DJ software: 10 apps we recommend |
- Buying Guide: Best DJ software: 10 apps we recommend
- Amazon releases Cloud Player app for iPad
- Updated: Best browser: which should you be using?
- Interview: Yammer CTO Adam Pisoni
- Adobe announces Photoshop Touch for iOS and Android phones
- Hipster hurrah: Instagram hits 100 million monthly users
- Google+ gets Facebook-like app Sign-In, promises 'simplicity and security'
- Tweeting with Live Tiles: official WP8 Twitter app gets needed update
| Buying Guide: Best DJ software: 10 apps we recommend Posted:  Choosing the best DJ software can be a complicated business; it's not just a simple case of knowing what OS you're running and how much you're looking to spend. It's worth considering what you want your software to do: do you need the ability to play four or more tracks at once, or will two decks suffice? What about playing samples or loops? Then there are controllers to consider - do you want a piece of software that can work with your favourite MIDI controller? Or what about using old-fashioned turntables and a digital vinyl system? Or there's the exciting new possibility of using an iPad for the ultimate house party solution. To help you get to the bottom of the confusing deluge of options available, here are 10 of our favourite DJing applications. 1. Native Instruments Traktor Pro 2
Platform: PC/Mac
The top end of the digital DJ market is dominated by Native Instruments and Serato. Of the two brands' applications, NI's Traktor just about comes out top thanks to its endlessly flexible performance features and its all-round intuitiveness and reliability. Traktor comes in two forms: Traktor Pro, which can be controlled using a traditional mouse and keyboard or one of an endless list of hardware DJ controllers, and Traktor Scratch, which is designed to be used in conjunction with one of Native Instruments' digital vinyl setups. 2. Serato Scratch Live/DJ
Platform: PC/Mac
Serato was an early pioneer of the concept of digital vinyl DJing, and for years the company dominated the professional DJ software market. Scratch Live is probably still the most popular digital vinyl system out there, but it's only available when bought in conjunction with an official Rane audio interface. Serato DJ is the latest version of the company's controller-orientated software, and it's the first version of Serato that can be used with any MIDI controller. A free version, Serato DJ Intro, is also available. 3. Ableton Live
Platform: PC/Mac
Ableton Live wasn't initially designed as a DJ application; when the software first launched in 2001 it was pitched purely as a DAW (digital audio workstation) and marketed as a piece of music production software. It quickly proved immensely popular with DJs, however, thanks to its unique Session View - a window dedicated to launching synchronised loops - and the intuitive way it handles the retiming of audio files. For those after an application that blurs the line between DJing, live performance and production, Ableton Live is unbeatable. Read our Ableton Live Suite 8 review 4. Image-Line Deckadance
Platform: PC/Mac
Deckadance comes from Image-Line, the developer behind cult production software FL Studio (or Fruity Loops, as it was originally known.) Its two biggest selling points are its open nature - meaning it supports a huge range of DJ controllers and digital vinyl system - and the fact it can run as a VST within a host DAW. The downside is that it only features two decks, as opposed to four like Traktor and Serato. 5. Magix Digital DJ 2
Platform: PC/Mac
Digital DJ 2 is effectively a cut down, entry-level version of Image-Line's Deckadance. It's relatively basic and light on advanced features, but it certainly gets the job done. What's more, the features it does pack are all of a high quality; its auto beat matching is excellent, the effects sound good and it includes a neat little sample player. It also supports a wide range of hardware controllers, which is a big plus. 6. Native Instruments Traktor DJ for iPad
Platform: iPad
Recently launched iOS app Traktor DJ is almost certainly the best of the ever-growing list of DJ tools on the App Store. It's a stripped back version of its PC/Mac counterpart, offering two-channel mixing, basic effects and the best beat detection capabilities of any iPad app. The app makes excellent use of the device's touchscreen for intuitive track navigation and mixing. Best of all, it syncs bi-directionally with its bigger sibling, meaning Traktor users can share track info between their iPad and main DJ setup. The app requires iOS 6.0 or later. 7. Mixvibes CrossDJ
Platform: PC/Mac
CrossDJ, from French developer Mixvibes, punches well above its entry-level price point; despite being cheaper than some of its closest rivals, the software is surprisingly well equipped, reliable and nicely designed. It also has one of the best beat mapping systems of any DJ app on the market. It does, however, have a handful of minor limitations, such as featuring a maximum of just two decks and having a fairly weak collection of effects. 8. algoriddim djay for iPad
Platform: iPad
The djay app was originally launched as an entry-level Mac application, but it's in its iPad incarnation that algoriddim's software really shines. Although these days Traktor DJ is probably the most effectively implemented tool on the App Store, djay held that title until very recently, and it still has a few tricks up its sleeve. Chiefly it boasts the ability to connect to a variety of hardware DJ controllers for a more traditional mixing experience. The app requires iOS 4.3 or later. 9. Atomix VirtualDJ Pro 7
Platform: PC/Mac
For years VirtualDJ had a bad reputation, which could be traced back, in part, to the fact that its earliest incarnations were relatively naff, toy-like DJ applications. Recent versions, however, have become very impressive and have been able to compete with - and in places outdo - the bigger names. Notably, version 7 can support up to 99 decks (not that anyone in their right mind would need so many) and can live-sample incoming audio. 10. Pioneer Rekordbox
Platform: PC/Mac
Pioneer's free Rekordbox application doesn't actually handle any mixing, rather the app - which Pioneer describe as an "iTunes for DJs" - is a tool for prepping and managing audio files ahead of DJ sets. The software can be used to analyse tracks to discover their BPM, view waveforms, set cue points and edit track information, all of which can be read by Pioneer's CDJs - which are the industry standard in clubs around the world. |
| Amazon releases Cloud Player app for iPad Posted:  Amazon has released an iPad app for use with its Cloud Player online music storage service. The service, which launched last year, allows users to store their music collections online and either play them directly from the cloud or download for offline play. The free Amazon Cloud Player app is already available for Android, iPhone and iPod Touch but now iPad and iPad Mini users are finally getting their own tablet-specific version. Multi-platform playbackIt's not only compatible with mobile devices: Samsung TVs, Roku and Sonos players will also stream tunes from Amazon Cloud Player. "Our goal is to make Cloud Player the most widely compatible cloud playback solution available, giving our customers the ability to buy their music once and enjoy it everywhere," said Steve Boom, VP of Digital Music for Amazon. Users of the service can store all Amazon-bought music and up to 250 of their own tracks for free. Tune-o-philes who pay an extra US$24.99 per year to can import up to 250,000 tracks. That's about 521 days' worth of non-stop three-minute pop songs, value fans. Thinking of using the service? Check out the Tech Radar tutorial on how to float your tunes into Amazon Cloud Player. |
| Updated: Best browser: which should you be using? Posted:  Competition among browsers is more fierce than ever. Chrome and Firefox release 72 new versions every week, Microsoft has redesigned Internet Explorer to make it finger-friendly, and as we all race to tablets and smartphones we're being tempted with all kinds of alternatives to systems' stock browsers. But which is the best browser for you and your hardware? Let's find out. We tested the latest official releases of the big browsers - Internet Explorer 10, Firefox 19, Safari 5, Chrome 25 and Opera 12 - on a Core i5 PC running Windows 8 Pro. It's worth noting that Safari on Macs running OS X Mountain Lion is at version 6, but the PC version and older Mac versions are one behind. Whether you've got a Windows PC, Mac OS X laptop, an Android tablet or something in between, we've got it covered. The best browser for speed
Every browser we tested felt perfectly snappy in everyday browsing, but as ever we put them through the Sunspider benchmark tests to see how well they fared. IE raced through the tests in 97ms in desktop mode, while the touch-based IE took 113.7 milliseconds. Those numbers are amazing: it wasn't that long ago that IE benchmarks were measured in millennia. Chrome was next, at 147.2ms, Firefox was narrowly behind with 176.6ms, Opera scored 180.5ms and Safari was narrowly beaten into last place with 182.7ms. The best browser for add-ons
Firefox has always been the king here, its combination of add-ons, App Tabs for web apps and Greasemonkey scripts making it the power user's friend. That's still the case, but Chrome is catching up fast, its Web Store positively packed. Apple and Microsoft's selections are fairly thin, but Opera's selection includes commonly used add-ons such as ad blockers, password managers and so on. Opera deserves a special mention here because it's more than just a browser. It has integrated email, newsgroups and IRC chat, the Opera Unite file server, Opera Turbo to improve performance on crappy mobile connections, and Sidebar-style widgets for games, web applications and utilities. The best browser for Windows 7
Safari simply doesn't cut it in this company: it's last year's browser, the slowest here, and we don't like the user interface very much. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but there's nothing particularly right with it either. Long-term browser battle fans will be highly amused by IE's performance these days: it's really, really quick, comfortably ahead of its rivals, and now everyone's making their browsers as minimalist as possible there's no horrible UI to get angry at unless you start going crazy with third-party toolbars. Please don't. For sheer speed on Windows 7 PCs, IE is the browser to go for. The best browser for Windows 8If you're sold on the new touchy-feely direction of Windows 8 then Internet Explorer is the star, at least in Metro/Modern mode: it's a very nice touch-based browser, although it doesn't support Flash. Firefox has a Metro version in development, but it's not quite ready for prime time just yet. In desktop mode it's the same story as with Windows 7: Safari knocked out first, IE winning on sheer speed and Chrome and Firefox competing on syncing and extensions support. The best browser for Windows XPInternet Explorer takes an early bath here, because it no longer supports Windows XP or Windows Vista. Our pick here would be Chrome: its system requirements are tiny (Pentium 4, 100MB of disk space, 128MB of free RAM), making it particularly good on even very modest hardware. The best browser for OS X
We tried the main browsers on a Core i5 iMac, and while the results were similar on paper - Safari went through Sunspider in a reported 197.4ms, only slightly behind Chrome's 164ms and slightly faster than Opera's 201ms and Firefox's 204ms - the reality was different: where the other browsers raced through Sunspider in a matter of seconds, Safari took several minutes. We also found its performance nose-dived when we had more than a handful of tabs open, and opening image-heavy sites such as Tumblr archives was a fairly reliable way to kill it completely. The other browsers felt noticeably nippier visiting the same sites. There's more to the browsers than just speed, of course. Safari offers a clutter-free reading mode, Reading List for reading interesting things later on and iCloud syncing with iOS devices; Firefox has Firefox Sync; Opera has the Unite file sharing system and Visual Tabs and so on. For simply browsing we think Chrome has the edge here, but you might find that your chosen sync service - iCloud? Firefox? Chrome? - makes the browser choice for you. The best browser for privacy
While each browser offers a decent range of privacy protection, they're not all enabled by default - so for example Firefox's Do Not Track button is unchecked when you install it, and so is Opera's. Safari for Windows doesn't have a Do Not Track setting - as we've already said, it's a comparatively old browser - and Chrome buries its privacy controls in the Advanced Settings section. We like Microsoft's approach here: its Tracking Protection Lists offer something more useful than a broad-brush Do Not Track system, enabling you to block specific kinds of tracking such as advertisers who really want to flog stuff to your kids. The best browser for HTML5
HTML5 is the lingua franca of the modern web, and the better your browser's standards support the happier your online life will be. Using HTML5test.com, which awards up to 500 points for standards compliance, we found Chrome the clear winner with 448 points and 13 bonus points. Opera had 404 and 9 bonus points, Firefox 393 and 13, Safari (OS X) 393 and 13, Internet Explorer 320 and 6, and finally Safari (Windows) had just 278 and 2 bonus points. The best browser for Android
Android users are spoilt for choice these days. In our head-to-head of the best Android browsers, several apps shone. Chrome shone for its speed and its integration with its desktop sibling; Dolphin Browser HD for its bulging features list; and Skyfire for its many bright ideas. Once again Chrome has the edge here in the speed stakes, but it's worth looking at rivals' features before committing to it. The best browser for iPad
The lack of tabs in Apple's Safari drove us daft on the original iPad, but now it's got tabbed browsing and iCloud syncing we think it's the best browser on the platform, especially on the newest devices. In our experience it's faster and more reliable than iCab Mobile, considerably nicer to look at than Atomic Browser, and less likely to dump you back to the home screen for no good reason than non-Apple browsers. That's unless you use Chrome on the desktop and want to sync tabs, bookmarks and passwords, in which case Chrome's the one to go for. |
| Interview: Yammer CTO Adam Pisoni Posted:  Salesforce is doing it. Even stodgy old SharePoint is doing it. But Yammer was there first, building social networks for business – so successfully that the company was snapped up by Microsoft last year. Microsoft will offer Yammer as part of SharePoint Online through Office 365 and the two products will get much closer integration – but Yammer isn't switching to the forward planning and long release cycles of Microsoft's business software. In fact, says CTO Adam Pisoni, Yammer is teaching Microsoft how to work in the faster paced world of online services, as well as picking up useful ideas about what larger businesses actually need. The key, he tells TRPro, is to remember everything is changing – and to assume you're wrong. "One of the core things we have to optimise for is constant change," Pisoni says. "Historically integrations have not been optimised for that; they've been optimised for you integrate once and then nothing can change." Traditional enterprise systems like SAP and Siebel take a long time to deploy so they stick around for a long time, especially if you add custom code for your business works that does not always work with new versions. Web platforms don't stay static in the same way. "Twitter has backed off of having people build clients on top of them, Facebook backed off of their platform where you could build stuff. The high velocity players are moving to a world of data integration; let's agree on a vocabulary to describe what's happening in our applications and then each build on top of that in a way that doesn't break the other." That means the Yammer service can be always changing. "We begin with the idea that whatever we do, it shouldn't slow us down. And we start with the assumption that we're wrong about - well, most things." That assumption means trying things and measuring results. "If we're wrong, how do we find out?" As a result, Pisoni says: "Yammer is not a product with a set of features. Yammer is a set of experiments at any given time." There is no grand plan for the future, he claims. "A company could get our whole secret product roadmap and it wouldn't make any difference to us, because it's going to change so fast. We're going to implement it so fast it doesn't matter." Product engineering has to move faster, he says. "Part of the debate about why you do a lot of planning up front is you want to catch the pitfalls before you get there. "The problem there is if you make assumptions about the pitfalls and build against those assumptions that are wrong, if you're doing any kind of long term planning and you're building for the long term thing, your mistakes are enormous because before you realise it was a mistake, and you're too far out." Pisoni says that changing things faster doesn't mean you're always right. "If you're iterative you're also going to make mistakes, you're going to build some of the wrong things but you're more likely to have smaller mistakes because you have more checkpoints. "There's an idea you can have a long term plan and built iteratively. I don't believe in that because you're still not flexible in what you're building, you're building towards this end state. But I know I can't predict two years out." You can't just start out blindly though. "What you do is have a general idea of the value you provide and a way to measure that value and then you build towards that and know that you're going to be wrong. "Yes, you make some assumptions; that's OK. We have some big bets we want to make in the next few years. We are going to figure out how to test those, quickly and iteratively, so that we don't just build the whole thing and hope it's right." Microsoft's description of itself as a "devices and services" company involves delivering new products faster (like new features in SharePoint several times a year), as well as charging for subscriptions rather than licences. Can Yammer teach the software giant some new tricks? "We've helped Microsoft spin up a team internal to Office that is focused on product driven analytics," Pisoni told us. "Everybody realises that it's not just about delivering more value any more; if you can't ship quickly the data is almost useless." Software has to change this fast because companies have to change at the same rate. "People are using Yammer to work in less structured ways," Pisoni explains. "Companies used to have the leisure of organising in really fixed ways and assuming the world wouldn't change so fast that that wouldn't work well. "Now they're realising that in order to spot opportunity fast enough and to react fast enough, they have to be much more flexible in how the organise. "The promise of the enterprise social network is that it lets you organise more organically, find the people that can help you or surface information that's relevant to people." Doesn't changing things too often get disruptive and inefficient? To Pisoni, efficiency isn't an advantage. "Companies are driven towards efficiency but they don't calculate in what we call the friction for change. If you make something more efficient you may make it harder to change. It's efficiency versus throughput - if you're focused on efficiency you could actually get worse throughput because things need to change. "We want to focus on throughput. Who cares about efficiency?" Looking forward to how Yammer's market may change, he says enterprise social networks could be very different in two years. "Right now, when we think of enterprise social networks we tend to think primarily of the web interface. But we're pretty sure web is going to be less important than it is today as mobile devices become more important. "Mobility gives us all these sensors like location and calendar. If the goal is maximum utility of information and organic organisation then the thing we have to improve is getting you the right information when you need it." As usual, what he's most certain about is change. "There's a million theories about how this is going to happen, and it's probably not going to be any of the ones we think of today." |
| Adobe announces Photoshop Touch for iOS and Android phones Posted:  Would-be graphic designers rejoice: Adobe has an app designed just for your smartphones. Announced today, Photoshop Touch for mobile brings the core functions of Photoshop to the form factor of a phone. Those who've been paying attention will know that Photoshop Touch for tablets has been around since last year, though Adobe has planned about bringing the app to life on handsets ever since. "We wanted to make the app more accessible and available for situations where you don't have a tablet available," Stephen Nielson, product manager at Adobe, told TechRadar. "We wanted to bring the same core features of Photoshop to millions of pockets worldwide." Shop talkThe app features are virtually identical features as Touch for tablets, yet shrunken down to pant pocket size. Users can utilize layers, advanced selection tools, adjustments and filters as they manipulate images taken straight from their phone's photo gallery or redacted from the cloud. The app can edit images as large as 12MP with layers. There's also a phone optimized version of Scribble Select that allows for precise selections and cropping even with a finger. The Camera Fill feature lets users blend layers in real time using their camera as well as add textures. Adobe has gone to great lengths to make sure everything is accessible within a thumb reach: tool bars around the perimeter make for quick swipes and taps to all the image manipulation tools you'd expect of Photoshop. What would be mobile without easy share options? Touch users can quickly post their creations to Facebook and Twitter or send via email. Instagramming it?Though Photoshop tends to run in fairly graphically advanced circles, Nielson said that the mobile app is appropriate for someone who doesn't just want to apply a filter to a photo. "Photoshop Touch is more of an advanced app in a lot of ways," he said. "You can do a lot more with it than any other app, but it does require a little more learning. You can pick it up very quickly, though." When asked if Adobe is trying to do a little jockeying with Instagram, Nielson noted that what is central to the social site isn't Touch's focus. "Our focus is the core features of Photoshop – the layering, advanced selections. It does include filters and adjustments, but those aren't the core features. "We have some unique features, like more transformative tools that transform an image into something different rather than overlaying a filter." Creative CloudWhat really stands out with Adobe's app offering is the ability to start a project on a desktop, tinker with it on a tablet, then finish it off and share on a phone. Flip the steps around or skip from one to the other, it doesn't matter thanks to the Creative Cloud. If users do start a project on their phone, the image is first saved there and then is transmitted to cloud storage (there's even a loading bar to let you know when the transmission is complete). Though there are several cloud subscription models, ranging up to US$50, a free cloud account comes with 2GB of storage. The app will work on iPhone 4S's and higher and Androids running Ice Cream Sandwich or later. iPod touch (5th generation) owners can also get a taste of Touch. Except for China, the app is available through the App Store and Google Play for US$4.99 globally, though Adobe noted there may be some lag time between the initial announcement and availability. Stay tuned for our full of review of the app, and be kind if you want to critique our photo skills. We're sensitive, you know. |
| Hipster hurrah: Instagram hits 100 million monthly users Posted:  The popularity of Instagram spread like wildfire as more and more mobile phone users adapted smartphones with better cameras. Since its debut back in 2010, Instagram has grown by leaps and bounds, going from start-up photography app to part of the biggest social network in the world. Shocking then that it took until this week for Instagram to announce it hit the 100 million user mark, when you consider just how many millions of smartphones and Facebook users there are in the wild. Still, it's an impressive milestone for a service jokingly known for its photos of cats in various states of annoyance and stills of food ready to be eaten. Look at this InstagramInterestingly enough, Instagram wouldn't be where it was today without the inclusion of the Android consumer base. Prior to launching for Android in April 2012, Instagram was only able to cultivate around 30 million users from the iOS market. Fast-forward 10 months, and you can see just how much of an impact broadening its horizons had on Instagram's success. Despite the outcry and threats to leave the app from users worried that joining forces with Facebook would somehow impact the service, that vocal minority didn't affect Instagram's growth much if at all. The launch of the browser version of Instagram earlier this month has only helped more people discover what's possible with smartphone photography, and there's no telling how much more the app will grow over the next two years with the growing adoption rates of smartphones. |
| Google+ gets Facebook-like app Sign-In, promises 'simplicity and security' Posted:  Google announced on Tuesday that users of its social network, Google+, are now able to sign in to third party apps using their Google+ credentials. Similar functionality has existed in rival social network Facebook for years, and Google+ finds itself once again playing catch-up, fledgling venture that it is. Google's touting a number of improvements over Facebook's app sign-in functionality, without specifically calling its rival out by name. But when Google's director of product management for Google+, Seth Sternberg, promised not to let apps "spray updates" all over the place in a Tuesday Google Blog post, we all knew who he was referring to. Making promisesSternberg promised that Google is focused on "four key principles" for the initial release of Google+ application Sign-In. Those principles are "simplicity and security" (which sound like two principles to us), desktop and mobile being "better together," sharing content vs. "spraying" it, and "sharing is for doing, not just viewing." The first is self-explanatory: With Google's various services becoming increasingly more connected all the time, a log-in for Gmail, Youtube or any other Google service can be used as well as Google+ credentials. And users can easily review the apps they've signed in to at plus.google.com/apps. "Google+ Sign-In also comes with the protections and safeguards you've come to expect from your Google account," Sternberg wrote. Being selectiveApp Sign-In comes with some other features that benefit from Google's ubiquity across devices and service, like the ability to connect mobile and desktop devices in new ways. For example, when users sign in with Google+ credentials to a desktop app that has a mobile equivalent, they'll be able to install the app on their mobile devices with a click. Google also teased new "interactive" Google+ stream posts that will invite users' friends directly into third-party apps. That sounds a lot like those annoying Facebook notifications that ask users to allow third-party apps to access their profiles, but at least the Google+ equivalent will stay in the stream and out of your inbox (hopefully). Most importantly, perhaps, Google promised that with help from Circles, it will be easy to determine which apps will share what information with whom on your Google+ profile. "Google+ doesn't let apps spray 'frictionless' updates all over the stream, so app activity will only appear when it's relevant (like when you're actually looking for it)," Sternberg wrote. Judging by the number of inane and pointless third party items that appear in our Facebook news feeds, we'd hazard that it's easier said than done. That or maybe our friends just really don't understand what's appropriate to share. Several apps will soon roll out or have already integrated Google+ Sign-In, including Flixster, OpenTable, The Guardian, Shazam, and USA Today. Developers who want to integrate the Sign-In feature should head to Google's developer docs. |
| Tweeting with Live Tiles: official WP8 Twitter app gets needed update Posted:  The Windows Phone 8 official Twitter app received an update today, bringing it more in line with other mobile versions and adding a few WP8-specific features to boot. The most immediate changes are features transplanted from the iOS and Android Twitter apps, such as the new Home, Connect, Discover, and Me tabs at the top of the app. The four tabs give users quick access to their main timeline, mentions, trends, direct messages, and personal lists. Also bringing parity to the Windows Phone app is the addition of search and compose tweet buttons, which will appear at the bottom of the screen regardless of which tab is open. Live Tile tweetsWhile much of the Twitter app update relates to existing features on other smartphones, Windows Phone 8 gets a unique edge. With the update, users can now pin their friend feeds, lists, and searches directly to the Windows Phone home screen as a Live Tile. The Live Tile support is a small addition, but should make it quicker and easier to check lists and searches without shifting through tabs in the main app. Windows Phone 8 users can download the update to the official Twitter app starting today. |
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