While the band members themselves aren't big fans of the iPhone — both Billie Joe and Tré Cool post on the official Twitter account with a BlackBerry — I know and have seen at concerts many Green Day fans with an iPhone or an iPod Touch.
Already searched for Green Day apps in the iTunes Store? I did but haven't found anything transcendental so far. Some bands have pretty nice official apps, like Nine Inch Nails or Dave Matthews Band, where you can view exclusive multimedia content, or find and interact with other fans of the band. Green Day doesn't have such an app (yet?). I still found very unofficial Green Day related apps, and review two of them here.
Green Day Electronic Guitar Tab Songbook by Release Mobile, UK £0.59 UK, €0.79, not (yet) available in the US
This app lets you learn Green Day songs on the guitar or on the bass, with so-called « DigiClef » interactive tabs. Basically it's like a tab in a songbook but scrolling at an adjustable speed, with a red bar showing the current chord.
The speed is set in one of three different ways:
A slider to adjust the BPM value
+ and – buttons to change the BPM value
« Tap Tempo control » button by tapping in beat
Overall, the idea of this app is interesting, it enhances a paper songbook. Currently only two songs are available, American Idiot and Boulevard Of Broken Dreams (the latter only for the guitar). They have songs from other bands too.
There are drawbacks though. While playing your instrument, both hands are busy and you really need to figure out a holder for your iPhone/iPod, if you don't have one. Obviously, the screen size is rather small compared to a songbook, but you can hold this one in your pocket! This app will be much more attractive on an iPad screen, by the way. I also found the scrolling rate to be irregular at times, especially when jumping back in a loop.
You don't get any audio in this version. Release Mobile tells us however the latest version of the underlying DigiClef engine does support audio with a midi-style playback — not the playback of the original Green Day audio. There are some legal questions to be resolved before audio versions can be released onto the App Store. Hopefully, you already have the songs and know how they go anyway!
This app is currently available only in European countries. Distribution isn't allowed in the US yet due to copyright restrictions, but Release Mobile is « working on it ».
Get this and you'll learn « Which member has only one testicle? ». Ah, ah, who cares? This app is a simple text-based quiz. Exactly 100 multiple choice questions, each worth 100 points, with a limited time to answer. A fast and correct answer rewards 100 points, then decreasing down to 0 for a wrong or too late answer.
An online highscore table — « leaderboard » — lets you compare your score with others. One named Chloe armstrong is currently leading with 9,895 points (hi Chloe!). Out of 10,000 possible points, not bad! Since it's the same 100 questions asked every time you play, it's kind of easy to learn the answers and improve your score…
Overall, I found the questions trivial and not so funny: « Greenday is composed of how many band members? » If you don't know the answer, it's probably you downloaded this app by mistake! Or full of spelling mistakes, with Greenday in one word written all over the quiz, or Billy instead of Billie.
Some questions even have wrong answers. 21st Century Breakdown is indeed a song on the album with the same name (Track 2). A question about the number of Grammy Awards won by the band is wrong as well, since it recently increased.
Still, there were a few questions on the quiz I found interesting or fun, because I didn't know the answer and actually learned something new (« What does the EBPM tattoo of the three members stands for? »).
There isn't a single picture of the band or Green Day music in this app. With the multimedia capabilities of the iPhone/iPod, it would have been enjoyable to see questions based on photos, or on music excerpts to recognize.
Plus the app isn't very well designed in my opinion, with a tiny font size hard to read, and not so beautiful background colors. I don't recommend spending a buck on this one.
Let me know if you come across any interesting or have ideas for Green Day related apps!
Green Day Electronic Guitar Tab Songbook
