100 000 downloads for MusicRoom

MusicRoom, an app which streams music from your computer to your BlackBerry, has been downloaded over 100,000 times since its launch 10 weeks ago.

MusicRoom allows BlackBerry owners to play their music without having to copy music files onto their phone.

Using the household Wi-Fi network and by streaming music, rather than copying it, even vast music libraries can be browsed and played without taking up storage space on the owner’s BlackBerry. The app has been a hit globally, with users in Malaysia, the Virgin Islands and New Zealand, as well as tens of thousands of downloads in the US and UK.

For many users the real benefit of MusicRoom is that it eliminates the need to sync music between devices, a common hassle with standalone MP3 players and smartphones. With MusicRoom if the user’s music library changes on their PC their BlackBerry instantly sees it, allowing them up-to-date access to their music library wherever they are in their house. Initial feedback suggests most users have tens of gigabytes of music stored in their iTunes or Windows Media Player library which they play on their BlackBerry.

To many people’s surprise BlackBerry devices have excellent audio playback capabilities. As well as supporting all common audio formats like MP3, they also play many formats which other smartphones don’t, including FLAC (the audiophile’s choice) and Ogg Vorbis (an open source alternative to MP3). This audio support makes apps like MusicRoom perfect for creating a low-cost multi-room audio solution, especially when the phone is plugged into an external sound system using the headphone output.

Indeed, MusicRoom was conceived with this very use in mind. Don Turner, director of app development company Chonk and inventor of MusicRoom came up with the idea while trying to play music to his baby daughter.

“When our baby girl was born I set up her nursery with a pair of portable speakers and an iPod so I could play nursery rhymes to her. One day I forgot the iPod and had the idea to use my BlackBerry to play the music on my PC instead,‚ Turner explains. ‚But I couldn’t find an app which did this and so the idea for MusicRoom was born.‚

On the success of MusicRoom, Turner said: “”We have been overjoyed with the response to MusicRoom. We took a risk as the BlackBerry app market is not nearly as big as some others, however, we have been pleasantly surprised by both the demand for MusicRoom and the quality of feedback which we’ve received from our customers all over the world.””

MusicRoom can be downloaded from BlackBerry App World here: https://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/43760

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