Most popular music apps like Spotify come with social features that enable users to share their favorite tunes on Facebook or Twitter. However, the recently released Jukebox Hero app takes this social element to another level — allowing listeners to virtually interact with their friends’ music libraries.
Announced Thursday by App Factory, Jukebox Hero lets users choose to create their own jukebox or join someone else’s as a remote. Creating a jukebox will automatically port all music from your mobile device into the app, and joining as a remote lets users log into another host’s jukebox. As a remote, listeners can browse the music library associated with that jukebox and queue up songs to add to a playlist. The free app uses a GPS to pull up a list of jukeboxes in your area at any given time.
“Virtually every consumer now carries a personal library of thousands of songs which can be accessed at the swipe of a finger,” said Woo Park, president of App Factory. “Just as the Instagram app enhanced smartphone cameras, we think that Jukebox Hero will improve the way that consumers interact with their own—and each other’s—personal music libraries.”
This is very similar to Turntable.fm, which lets users create or join rooms with other listeners and take turns playing DJ. The free music service started as a Web-only app but has since made its way Android and iOS platforms. Turntable.fm doesn’t port your entire music library like Jukebox Hero, but instead aggregates music streams from around the Web. Users can queue up playlists by typing the name of an artist or song in a search box, and Turntable.fm will pull up any matches it can find.
Jukebox Hero users can choose to make their playlists open to the public or protect them with a unique PIN, which will be required to log in, browse and queue up songs. The app is now available for iOS and Android and debuted in Apple’s App Store in the Top 10 Music Apps category.
