As band iPhone apps go, it can be difficult to know exactly what kind of content should be included. Certainly, song clips are an absolute must, but outside of those, how much do you need to know about a band?
The Antennas are banking on your desire to connect with their music. In addition to the usual audio and video clips, the band puts a heavy emphasis on content designed to reach their fans directly. Twitter is, of course, the go-to for any direct connection these days, and The Antennas iPhone app (free) obliges, albeit in a more unique way than I’m used to seeing.
The button on The Antennas iPhone app that takes you to their Twitter feed breaks up the way you read their tweets. You can see tweets written directly by the band’s official username, “The Antennas,” but there is also a button to see any tagged references to #TheAntennas, not to mention a button that specifically lists fan replies to the band. I like the separation of these tweets so much that I will politely gloss over how according to their own iPhone app, nobody is tweeting about The Antennas at all.
The Antennas iPhone app also features a band blog that updates fans on the day-to-day goings on of the band. It’s nothing remarkable, but visually, the blogs are easy to read and blend into the iPhone app layout well.
Stylistically, the biggest place the iPhone app falters is when you click the “Store” button. Entering the band’s store doesn’t take you to the iTunes store or any sort of in-app store. It takes you to the band’s actual Web page, which may have a store on it, but you’ll never see it on the iPhone because the iPhone doesn’t support whatever it is that fails to load in the middle of the page. The choice to load your actual, clunky, not-for-mobile viewing Web page inside of an app specifically designed for mobile viewing is very confusing, and a huge strike against an otherwise serviceable band iPhone app.
There isn’t much personal information to be found here either. No “photos from the road” or video blogs or anything that might make this band slightly more human. In this way, The Antennas iPhone app feels like it was designed for a band, not by a band.
Despite the novel approach to Twitter feeds, The Antennas seems like an iPhone app that only the most die-hard of fans need to check out.
