FullBlast – Stream music from your iPhone, iPad (mini) and iPod Touch

I’ve been a long time Playstation 3 owner, and while there are many similar features between the PS3 and the Apple TV, I just haven’t been able to bring myself to purchasing an Apple TV… yet. One of the main benefits of owning the Apple TV that I’ve found myself longing for has been the draw of Apple’s Airplay feature. Airplay enables you to play videos, photos, slideshows, and even mirror games you’re playing from your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad (mini) up on your flatscreen or jumbotron (pending on what you’ve connected your Apple TV up to). The ability to flip through your playlists and play them through your home audio system is phenomenal, but if you find yourself owning an Xbox 360 or a PS3 but not an Apple TV, you may still be in luck. FullBlast is an application available for any iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad (mini) that when connected to the same network as your Xbox, PS3, Windows Machine or DLNA device allows you to stream your music to your hearts content (and only costs $1.99). So why would you want to do this? A number of reasons, not least to mention the lack of sufficient memory on these different devices in addition to trying to keep your playlists updated across each platform comes to mind. Having your music in one central location and streaming it is a no brainer.

So what does FullBlast have to offer as a Music Player? Great question! Here the features as listed under the iTunes store:

1. Complete control in playing your music back both AirPlay & DLNA devices (including Volume!)
2. Expandable artist discography or album song lists
3. Now Playing sliding panel with fullscreen metadata and art.
4. Swipe an Artist, Album or Song to expose more actions.
5. Each Shuffle all tracks under an Artist or a Genre
6. Touch navigation bar to automatically jump back to the currently playing track
7. Background audio

FullBlast is a great application that I’ve used often… so how do you set it up? Since I personally own a Playstation 3, we’ll use it as the example for this write up. Here’s how it works:

1. Connect your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad (mini) to the same network as your PS3 and then tap on “FullBlast”
2. On your Playstation 3, make your way to the main Music Menu and then you’ll find your device listed at which point you will select it.
3. From here you’ll select the “Now Playing” song which establishes the connection
4. On the FullBlast application, go to the “Antenna” button where you’ll see your PS3 in the list of selectable media players.
5. Once selected, begin streaming your favorite playlist, artist, or song!

FullBlast has really been helpful in getting my music across different platforms so that I can enjoy my music. So if your like me, pinching pennies until you finally break down and buy the Apple TV (which is actually not that expensive at only $99 new) and want to maximize the PS3 or Xbox you already own, or you just simply want to play your music at other locations (i.e. friends house), FullBlast is a solid application that can help you stream your music when Airplay just simply isn’t an option.

So now that we’ve covered many of the Pro’s, are there any Con’s? Here’s a few I’ve personally ran across:

1. The company also put out an app called “airmusic” that seems to offer the same features – why two different apps that offer the same features and charge for each? (airmusic seems to disconnect more frequently hence the recommendation of FullBlast)
2. Sometimes getting your devices connected can present somewhat of a challenge… fortunately for me it didn’t take more than once or twice to get them connected
3. Occasionally the connection is interrupted. Although fairly infrequently, it’s still annoying, but has improved with each update to the application.

At the end of the day $1.99 isn’t a bad price for the option of streaming your music across some of the different platforms that we either own, or that we all run across from time to time. What do you think? Have you ran across a better app for streaming your music to non-Apple devices?

Click/tap here to go to the app in the app store: FullBlast