Marcelo's Blog

Ocarina is an App Store classic. As the App’s website states, it’s one of the Apple’s all-time top 20 apps, and as of the time this lines are written, it’s the 10th top paid app.

Roughly speaking, Ocarina is a musical instrument. A flute-like instrument, regarding the sound it produces, and a trumpet-like instrument regarding the interface. Well, in fact you can breath the iPhone mic to play if you want, but it’s better to enable the touch option, so you can play by just touching the 4 points of the interface, in the combination you want.

Sounds Good

1. The fact it’s a “social application”. Touching the globe, you can hear someone else’s song. It’s usually a bad song, but the concept is interesting. (By the way, it seems everything in this days should be “social” to work.)
2. Well designed (I mean, simple) interface.
3. The price: 99 cents.

Sounds Bad

1. It’s not that easy to learn how to play it, despite of the many lessons on-line.
2. It’s not possible to play along somebody else’s song.
3. You can not use it seriously as a musical instrument.