[digg-me]If you have been looking for a free alternative to the mobile iTune’s store, or just wanted an easy to use free music downloading application, look no further. From that crazy world of Cydia comes one of Apple iTune’s worst nightmares, MewSeek, a P2P client and Pwn Player, a playback software for your iPhone.
For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, let’s do a quick review. P2P is short for Peer to Peer in regards to file sharing. Think Napster, think Lime Wire, think Lars from Metallica screaming into the cameras that illegal music downloaders are costing him money (feel free to chuckle a bit). Peer to Peer softwares share all of your mp3s (and other file types) with everyone else who are using the P2P program over the internet. And with thousands, sometimes even millions of users logged in, each with their own impressive mp3 collections, it can make for a pretty wide selection of free music.
MewSeek itself is anything but stable as crashes during song downloads are inevitable (though it does pause and pick up where it left off). Logging in was a breeze by simply setting my username and password, and before I knew it, I was searching for songs. Though, the search by keyword box is the only way to sift through the enormous music database, so cross your fingers for categories or even a song title/artist search option in future updates. Right along with it should be a working ‘Downloads’ tab, as the present one says unavailable, check future updates.
Errrick, the architect behind MewSeek, said Apple has made some changes to the iPhone firmware, that disable the import-into-iTunes feature of his earlier P2P app, iSIsk, but he’s working on it. I have to say it would be a lot more convenient to play downloaded mp3’s from the same player as my iTunes library.
Enter PwnPlayer. It states in the description on Cydia that it is still in Beta but I have yet to have problems with stability. Not only does it play my regular iTunes library like a champ, it loads the folder of all of my mp3’s I have downloaded with MewSeek, so they are always readily available for play. It also adds a neat feature, a search box that will search your library by artist and song title. Pretty handy for the folks that have managed to take up a 16gb hard drive with music.
Only time and usage will tell, but I could see this being a music player replacement. It shares a lot of the same features and even looks like your default music player, but it lets you recognize music that wasn’t synced through iTunes, and search your entire library by artist or song title. Sweet.
So when it comes to iPhone P2P software, it seems that MewSeek has come to the table with its poker face on. It’s fast and easy to login, and downloading is a breeze. On my home wifi network, most songs took 10-20 seconds to download. This application from Errrick is definitely worth a try as an alternative to the mobile iTune’s app, something I don’t think I have ever opened. I’d like to see downloaded music imported into my iTune’s so I could keep everything synced with my PC, but it works great for when I’m in the car and hear a song that I would want to jam out to later. I have to say though, I’d like to see full album search options in the P2P future so I can quit scowering the torrent sites like a homeless puppy.
