AllThingsD » Instinct

Guitar Teaching App Instinct Rocks Your Browser (Video)

Drake Martinet — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 21:15:39 +0000

The road to rock stardom used to begin with a pawn shop window, a beat-up six string, and mom’s garage — or at least that’s how the song goes.

But Instinct, a stealthy start-up based in New York, is hoping to add “Web browser” to the list of future-rockstar prerequisites.

That’s because the company is building a full-fledged instrument training tool that runs entirely in a browser window.

The company’s first Web app, Instinct for guitar, has been designed to be very simple, at least for the budding musician.

Users log in, pull out their own guitar and play along with the digital lessons presented on screen.

The whole thing is very visual, with deftly simple animations of fingers, strings and fretboard, all designed to take a potential player through the motions of learning a new riff.

The kicker is that Instinct is one of very few teaching tools that can also listen to what’s being played and provide live feedback.

Founders Blake Jenelle and Brian Stoner started building the project about six months ago, hoping for a tool that was not complex. “Anyone could open up and shortly be playing guitar,” Jenelle said.

Today, Instinct is far enough along to be raising a seed round of capital and counts Gabriel Weinberg, founder of DuckDuckGo, among its early investors.

If the concept behind Instinct’s app sounds vaguely familiar, it may be because of an Apple iOS app AllThingsD covered called Rock Prodigy, that used a sort of Guitar Hero-like interface for teaching similar skills.

Instinct is similar in that its developers have also solved the pitch detection problem, Jenelle said.

Pitch detection is what makes these teaching tools smart, and lets them listen to and differentiate among the various notes a guitar can play.

But just as Instinct’s similarities to Rock Prodigy may make it a viable competitor, there is a key difference.

“We’re looking to tackle the problem of listening to [a user] play, and creating a lesson from that,” said Jenelle. “That way users will be able to take any audio and have Instinct create a lesson for them.”

This is a difficult problem in computing.

And one of the major barriers to scaling apps like Rock Prodigy and games such as Rock Band lies in the difficulty of licensing content and converting it for use in the app or game.

And while other apps rely on expensive licenses and employing specialized labor to churn out lessons, Jenelle and Stoner are attempting to build Instinct to accumulate that precious content more quickly and, theoretically, more cheaply.

If it works, it will be a compelling argument for developing more broadly useable Web apps, rather than native apps, when crowd-sourcing content is part of the growth strategy.

The underlying need for content not withstanding, Jenelle thinks that good technology is just the barrier to entry in the market.

Ultimately, he said: “This is all about usability. The market leader will be the product that is most usable.”

Instinct has no firm plans on when the app will launch out of closed beta.

Whether or not Instinct gets it right, I’d be willing to bet that the millennial generation’s Slash will hone his or her skills by the light of a laptop.

[ See post to watch video ]

Sprint Expands $10 Data Surcharge to All Smartphones

Ina Fried — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:32:05 +0000

Sprint said Tuesday that starting Jan. 30 it plans to charge an extra $10 a month for all smartphones getting unlimited data. The new charge will apply to all Android, BlackBerry, Instinct, Palm and Windows Mobile devices.

Previously, the company had charged extra only for its 4G phones, such as the Evo and Epic.

Sprint said the charge will help it keep its network running smoothly for all the data-hungry customers, and tried to put some happy talk around what is, essentially, a rate hike.

“Sprint wants its customers to experience the range of entertainment and productivity possibilities available with today’s wireless technology,” Sprint consumer business President Bob H. Johnson said in a statement. “While some of our competitors impose overage charges and complex plans, Sprint continues to provide a worry-free, unlimited data experience while on the Sprint network. This is responsible, sustainable and reflects our commitment to simplicity and value.”

Existing Sprint smartphone customers are not affected unless they upgrade to or activate another smartphone, the company said.

Now at Sprint–66 Percent Markdown on Initial EVO Sales Figures

John Paczkowski — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:05:12 +0000

Sprint’s new HTC EVO 4G smartphone is a big seller–just not quite as big as the company first claimed. Last week, the carrier claimed the EVO was its fastest-selling device ever, moving more than three times as many units on its first day as the Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre over their first three days on the market combined.

Turns out, that’s not quite the case: Sprint’s claim was off by a factor of three. In its first day at market, the EVO sold as well as the the Instinct and Pre in their first three days combined, not three times as well.

“We originally reported that the total number of HTC EVO 4G devices sold on launch day was three times the number of Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre devices sold over their first three days on the market combined,” Sprint said in a corrected press release today. “We inadvertently erred in the comparison.”

A bit of an embarrassment for Sprint (S), which has been hyping the EVO and its presales for some time now. That said, the device is selling quite well. In fact, it has reportedly sold out at a number of outlets and is in short supply at others.

Not that that’s good news, as BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk notes. “It should be disappointing to investors that the company was not prepared to sell more phones given the demand,” he wrote in a note to clients today.

“While sales of the HTC EVO were much stronger than the Palm Pre last year,” Piecyk added, “Sprint had been assuring investors that they would be well-stocked with inventory and that the component shortages that Verizon had experienced with the HTC Incredible would not impact their launch of the EVO. We understand the value in just-in-time inventory, but would it have hurt to have an extra 100,000 phones ready even if it meant carrying some inventory through the end of the quarter?”

Given Sprint’s revelation, Piecyk now believes Sprint sold about 150,000 EVOs during its first weekend at market, down significantly from his earlier forecast of 250,000 to 300,000.

What's Up With Sprint?

Eric Savitz — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:49:53 +0000

Like the headline says … what’s up with Sprint Nextel (S)?

The telecom company’s shares are up today for the fourth session in a row; in that period the stock has gained $1.21, or 15.8%, to $8.92. (That includes a gain of 8 cents today.) The move has pushed up Sprint’s market cap by $3.5 billion. Just why the stock is rallying is not entirely clear.

What we do know is that the company is apparently seeing robust demand for the Samsung Instinct, a new touch screen phone offered for $129.99 (after a mail-in rebate of $100) that is supposed to be Sprint’s answer to the Apple (AAPL) iPhone. According to Bloomberg, Pali Research analyst Walter Piecyk says high demand for the new phone is creating shortages in some markets.

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Samsung's Instinct Doesn't Ring True as an iPhone Clone

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:01:00 +0000

The parade of iPhone lookalikes continues. Soon after Apple (AAPL) announced the first iPhone a year ago, factories in Asia, at the behest of U.S. phone carriers, were asked to respond to the sleek, touch-screen device. Some already have reached America; more are coming.

The latest to arrive is the Samsung Instinct, to be introduced by Sprint (S) on June 20. I’ve been testing the Instinct, and while it isn’t a bad phone and has some features the Apple product lacks, it’s no match for the iPhone. The manufacturers haven’t replicated the iPhone’s greatest strength: beautiful, powerful, breakthrough software.

Samsung Instinct

Also, the timing of the Instinct is unfortunate. It was designed to go up against the first iPhone. Sprint even has a Web site (nowisgood.com) comparing the two devices. But the Instinct will go on sale only three weeks before Apple and AT&T (T) start selling the new 3G iPhone, the second-generation model announced earlier this week. This second iPhone model corrects some of the first model’s main weaknesses, wiping out some advantages Sprint hoped the Instinct would have.

Before getting into the details of the Instinct, a few words about the new iPhone, its main competition. I don’t do full reviews of products until I have tested them extensively, but my first impressions of the 3G iPhone are largely positive.

The price of the new iPhone’s base model, which comes with 8 gigabytes of memory, is $199, a 50% price cut from the comparable first-generation model. Yet, it now works on AT&T’s fastest data network, promising anywhere from two to five times the speed of its predecessor. It also has GPS for tracking your location, and fully supports over-the-air synchronization of email, contacts and calendars — through Microsoft (MSFT) Exchange in corporations or via a similar new consumer service from Apple called MobileMe. And you’ll be able to download directly to the phone a whole universe of third-party programs, from productivity software to games.

On the downside, the new iPhone’s camera remains very basic and still can’t capture video. For people who prefer physical keyboards, the iPhone will still fall short. It continues to include only a virtual onscreen keyboard. And the iPhone remains locked to a single carrier in the U.S., AT&T, which will charge $10 more per month for unlimited data consumption on the device.

The iPhone, along with some competitors like the BlackBerry, are really hand-held computers that happen to make voice calls. And they’re getting more powerful and innovative. So far, competitors like the Instinct, while trying to look like iPhones, are still mainly voice devices with so-so computing features tacked on.

For instance, while the Instinct is a touch-screen device, it lacks the iPhone’s “multi-touch” system, which includes features that recognize multiple fingers and gestures, and allows actions like shrinking a photo by “pinching” it. The touch system on the Instinct is more like that on an ancient ATM than a cutting-edge gadget, even though it has a gimmicky feedback mechanism that gives you a tiny vibration-jolt when you press an icon.

Physically, the Instinct looks a lot like the iPhone — a dark slab without a physical keyboard or many buttons dominated by a large screen. It’s a bit longer and thicker than the iPhone, but a tad narrower and lighter. Its screen is smaller than the iPhone’s and has lower resolution.

[ See post to watch video ]

The Instinct has the same $199 price tag as the new iPhone, after a rebate and with a two-year contract. Service plans are likely to start at around $70, in line with the minimum monthly fee AT&T will charge on the new iPhone. But it comes with just one-quarter of the memory the base iPhone includes.

Like the 3G iPhone, the Instinct runs on a fast cellular network that promises speeds similar to what people get with slow home DSL service. In my tests, it seemed to deliver this promised speed. It also has GPS and navigation. But, unlike the iPhone, the Instinct lacks Wi-Fi wireless networking, which can often be faster than the cellphone networks or available where there is no speedy cellphone coverage.

The Instinct has a removable battery, something the iPhone lacks. And Sprint claims 5.7 hours of talk time on one charge, more than the five hours that Apple claims for its 3G model. Sprint’s new baby has a few other features that even the latest iPhone omits, such as a built-in service for viewing TV shows and a voice-command system.

But I found its email system and Web browser to be less sophisticated than the iPhone’s or the BlackBerry’s. I also thought the phone’s onscreen keyboard was harder to use than Apple’s. It would flip unpredictably from landscape to portrait mode. The Instinct does allow handwriting recognition as an alternative, something the iPhone doesn’t.

If you’re a devoted Sprint customer, or want to avoid AT&T, the Instinct is an OK choice. But it’s no iPhone.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.