Thoughts on the great white iPhone, and a karaoke app that can win you cash

If you have a decent voice and don’t think it’s weird at all to sing into your iPhone, your time to shine may finally be here. If not, perhaps you’d be interested in more discussion and confirmation of the elusive white iPhone!

Finally, the white iPhone is here

If you’re reading this, it’s probably already too late. By now you’ve already crushed some poor person just to be first in line to grab the finally-released great white iPhone. You don’t even care about the criminal charges likely to be pressed against you because you finally have the iPhone 4 you’ve always wanted, with a white shell that you cannot wait to put inside of a strangely colored case.

And that’s fair. Excitement for new tech is as routine as the passing seasons. And it does look really cool. But as you cradle your white iPhone 4 and remark to no-one in particular how great it looks, let us not forget our old friend, the original white iPod.

The blocky, surprisingly heavy, white iPod Classic. It, too, was the belle of the ball at one time not so long ago. But you haven’t even been able to get it in white since 2006.

Do you remember how excited you were in the mid ‘00s when the Nano and the Shuffle came out in all sorts of colors? Weren’t there weird commercials suggesting maybe you’d need to own more than one color iPod so you could accessorize better?

But here we are, in line for our white iPhones like we never cast the white color scheme aside in the first place. Sure, we can fool ourselves, but history has shown white Apple gear is simply a gateway into a rainbow of color choices. With that in mind, I’d like to officially begin the countdown for the blue iPhone.

Karaoke app singing contest could give you some extra cash

First you sang in the noisy bar, and most of your friends couldn’t hear you so they said you sounded great. Then you got a group together and sang in a private karaoke room and it was your birthday so your friends still pretended you could totally be on American Idol. But now you might have to put those pipes to the test thanks to Vocoo CP3 Studio’s new singing contest.

Vocoo CP3 Studio is a unique karaoke app that lets you sing thousands of songs and record your performance using your iPhone. What makes it different from other karaoke apps is that you’re not exactly limited by a sparse song selection. The Vocoo library has nearly 3,000 songs you can choose from. All you need is the song already in your music library and a buck to convert the song into the app’s special “CP3” format.

Aside from a rather convoluted conversion process to get the CP3 file into the app in the first place (at least if you’re using a Mac), it’s not difficult at all to get your karaoke version of the song recorded and uploaded to the Vocoo network if you so desire.

And that’s where the megabucks come in. To celebrate National Karaoke Week, Vocoo is sponsoring a contest where you can upload your karaoke version of a song and win $1,000 if you are chosen at the first-prize winner. Second prize will take home $500, third and fourth prize will net $250, and 25 runners-up will get $20 iTunes gift cards. Just be sure to have your entry in by May 15, 2011.

The only catch is that you’ll have to know your song pretty well. Although I’ve found the Vocoo app records its user vocals much better than other karaoke apps, it doesn’t show the lyrics of the songs you’re singing. There is no bouncing ball or anything of the sort to keep you on the beat, either. While you can opt to hear the original artist vocals while you sing if you’d like, you’re going to have to know your song fairly well to win that first place dough.

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