Led Zeppelin On Your iPhone

This Day in Music has released their first band specific iPhone app, This Day in Led Zep. It is chock-a-block full of information, supplanted by some ill advised music clips.

The fundamental purpose of the This Day in Led Zeppelin app is the daily diary portion, Zeppelin On This Day. It has three or four items every day, chronicling, according to the writers of the app, “every gig the band ever played, including set lists, recordings, gigs, TV performances.”

The items in the diary are fairly comprehensive, covering individual members before Led Zeppelin, and after as well as, of course, during the Led Zeppelin years. For example, here’s today (note: this post was actually written on Feb 8):

1968
The Band of Joy, featuring John Bonham and Robert Plant, made their first London appearance, supporting Edwin Starr at the Marquee Club in London, England.

1969
Led Zeppelin played the second of two nights at Kinetic Playground, Chicago during the bands first North American tour.

1975
Led Zeppelin appeared at the Spectrum Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to 20,000 fans during a North American tour…

2009
‘Raising Sand’ won Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Grammy Awards for all five categories in which it was nominated…

If the daily Zeppelin diary was all this app did, it would still be good. But there’s more. Trivia covering subjects from Them Crooked Vultures live debut (Aug 9, 2009) to Andy Johns’ and Sandy Denny’s relationship with Led Zeppelin.

The Zeppelin Quiz offers ten question quizzes of Zeppelin trivia (I regularly get 8 or 9 out of ten, being unable to answer British specific questions like who’s version of Whole Lotta Love starts Top of the Pops).

There is also direct links to the Led Zeppelin online store, each members personal webpage and some non-Zeppelin ringtones and wallpaper.

My favourite part of the app is the Song Notes, offering songs listed by albums with notes on every Led Zeppelin song. Each note covers any stories around the song, recording notes on the song and covers of the song among others. If you have that song on you iPhone, it links directly to it, or offers you an option to buy an mp3 through iTunes.

The This Day in Led Zeppelin app is not without it’s flaws. I could live without the music clips, all non Led Zeppelin. When you get a correct answer on the quiz a guitar riff that sounds more like one of Bill and Ted’s more excellent moments than anything Jimmy Page ever played. The ringtones sound like a bad 80’s imitator of Led Zeppelin, although the riffs themselves are Led Zeppelinesque enough. However, if you can’t use Led Zeppelin music in a Led Zeppelin app, it’s probably best to use nothing at all.

My other complaint is the Daily Zeppelin Diary’s lack of connectiveness with the rest of the phone. You should be able to cross the apps information with the calendar or have a daily pop up giving the day’s events without having to specifically open the app.

That aside, the This Day in Led Zeppelin app is a solid addition to my iPhone that I find I have been checking daily. It’s available for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and can be downloaded via iTunes