App Review: O2 Tracks, the Top 40 oriented music app

O2 Tracks

O2 and MusicQubed Ltd

Free on Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry for two weeks; charges after that

O2 Tracks is a good offering if you’re into pop and Top 40 charts.

The cross-network app offers three types of lists: Just In for new songs, the weekly Official Top 40 (work out what that one means) and Our Playlists, with 60 songs on offer in total which are downloaded automatically.

There’s also a News section, which delivers snapshots of pop music news, generally revolving around celebrity news.

If you’re not a fan of pop, this app is likely to be more painful than anything else, unless you luck out in the Playlists section, which, and I do have to give props to the app here, does occasionally feature the likes of Outkast’s Ms Jackson. Plus, sometimes the Top 40 has acts like Psy in there.

Apart from that you’re looking at Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, The Saturdays and more of music’s creme de la creme.

The app is easy to set up – enter your number and then a six digit code that is texted to you.  It’s well set out, has useful tips and instructions and looks good.

But the main feature worth mentioning about O2 Tracks is that the music is downloaded to your phone, so there’s no streaming and you can listen without a connection.

O2 says the app is the only music service that can include the whole Top 40 Chart each week, but it’s worth noting that this updates automatically via WiFi or 3G overnight – so remember to check that the setting for WiFi only download is selected (this was automatically set to ‘on’ for me).

The app is powered by MusicQubed which offers a white label music service for the operator and  well done to them for developing a multi-platform app, since it’s available on all major platforms.

There’s no restrictions on how many times a song can be played and no ads, much like Nokia Music (but with less variety).  There’s the option to buy a song, which will take you to the given platform’s store (ie iTunes for Apple etc).

O2 customers get the app for free for two months and then pay £1 a week after that. Other network users get it free for two weeks and then pay £4.99 per month after that.

Considering Spotify is £9.99 a month but offers a much wider range of music, if you’re not an O2 customer, this app is not worth your money, unless you’re a huge Top 40 fan.  If you are an O2 customer but not into pop, it’s not a bad way to find some new music for a fairly reasonable price ( £4 a month for 240 songs), but probably won’t offer you much.

If you are however in that ideal Venn diagram of being an O2 customer who loves pop music, then this is ideal for you and worth four stars as such.