Apps, Mobile & SMS

Appsbar: Free D.I.Y. iPhone, Andorid iPad Apps For Musicians

image from www.google.com When Matt Hirsch launched appsbar in April, his vision was to help small businesses build apps — “to fill the middle ground in costly, professionally-produced apps, and free, garbage-generating app builders,” in the words of a spokesman.

He was in for a surprise: Most of the “small businesses” that wanted to make apps with the system were musicians.

To address them, the company launched a new type of app-builder on Monday called Discography, a simple tool that lets bands, artists, labels, etc. list their music in an iOS or Android app as 30-second samples with links to buy the full songs on iTunes and elsewhere. The apps can also include news, photos, videos, tour dates, and social media sharing — in other words, most of what you’d find in a typical artist app (although clearly, you couldn’t create extremely atypical apps with this).

“We did not set out to turn songs into apps or even have apps about songs,” appsbar founder Scott Hirsch told Evolver.fm in an exclusive pre-launch interview. “We didn’t anticipate for our original user base — small to medium businesses — to create [music] apps, but lo and behold, in our original release of appsbar, about a third of the users — the largest group — were bands and musicians. They found us and started customizing the apps themselves.”

It’s a simple concept, but there seems to be a decent amount of demand for helping musicians build their own apps in this way — especially because the service is free to use (appsbar reserves the right to add sponsorships and advertising to apps created on its platform, but has yet to do so). According to appsbar, users have created over 700 music apps using the vanilla version of appsbar. It stands to reason that more of them will try it, now that there’s a version designed specifically for bands.

So far, as one would expect, the quality level of apps created with appsbar (before the launch of Discography) varies quite a bit.

Soulja Boy’s Android app, created with the vanilla version of appsbar, looks a little sparse. On the other hand, the iOS app for Billboard dance music chart-topper Kim Scozzi is pretty slick.

Appsbar’s band app creator, with the new Discography module, is available on appsbar.com today — to create your own music app, just choose the Band option. However, of course, you need to own the appropriate rights to the music you include, or must otherwise have permissio

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10 Comments

  1. Alan,
    I also had similar experience with appsbar.
    My experienec was different a bit.
    I published an app with them under Android. It is nice app. then I found out they publish under their own name and sometimes even their own people. Then I contacted customer support and Marc M from customer support said, it is their polcy to publish under their own name. First email from him was nice,but then he was very bad in emails later. Sometimes saying that “Go away”.
    I contacted google and they said that appsbar infringes on copywrite and they took my app down.
    Appsbar seems like it is a very fishy company.
    I would be careful.

  2. I don’t have any experience with Appsbar, so I can’t speak to the quality of their service. But the fact that they publish people’s apps under their own name isn’t at all surprising. It costs money to submit an app to iTunes. They offer their service for free, so the only way they can submit apps for other people is to do it under their name. Otherwise they’d have to charge everyone Apple’s developer fee.

  3. First off I have used appsbar to build several apps. I am a strugling musician and I built an app for my band. We do have music on itunes however it is hard to get my name out there. I build an app with appsbar and used Discrography and i connected a link to itunes so fans can purchase my music right on there handlheld. My downloads is up a whopping 2000% percent. I went from 200 weekly downloads to about 2,000 a week.
    I believe appsbar is the future and there product is awesome. The best part it was free!!! thx you appsbar..

  4. I own a small restaurant in Louisana and I wanted a way to stay connected to my clients. I build an app for my restaurant and I offer coupon discounts through the app. I also allow my clients to make reservations through the app. My business has def since a pop since the inception on my app. Thank you appsbar!!!!

  5. I know for a fact the people that coming on this message board and spreading spam about the company are the competitors. It is pathetic that there are so many haters out there and jeolous people. I have no doubt there will be a law suit soon.
    Check out appsbar for yourself! I have used them to build an app for my favorite NFL football team. I got 3000 downloaded. I own a lisence so I am able to sell merchandise through the app and offer deals. Its a great way to stay connected with my clientele.
    Check them out for yourself!! Very cool and easy features. Love Digi the app builder . Also the fact its free dosent hurt.. LOL Thank you appsbar

  6. who cares if it were run by an email company? Is McDonalds not allowed to sell coffee because Starbucks does??
    Its a free service and the app building experience is amazing. I built an awesome app for free and it helped increase my business tremendously. I love appsbar. Dont listen to the haters and jealoud fools on here, try them out for yourself!

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