Artinoise Makes a Hardware Version of Smule’s Ocarina (Yes, the app from 2008)
Andrew Liszewski, theverge.com:
An Italian startup called Artinoise has created an unusual USB-C accessory for mobile devices that turns them into playable musical instruments. The Zefiro looks like a flash drive or a tiny vape, but by gently blowing into one end, it can be used to play simulated instruments with even less skill than what was needed to play those plastic recorders in grade school.
As soon as I saw that hero image, something clicked in my memory hole and I frantically searched back through my App Store history. Yes! I found it! Purchased back on December 31, 2008, Ocarina by Smule.
This app — launched very early on the App Store — explored using the iPhone’s combination of hardware capabilities to create something unique: a smartphone instrument. You blew into the microphone on the bottom of the iPhone while covering combinations of four “holes” on the screen to play different notes. It was one of the coolest demos you could give your friends on an iPhone at the time (besides the iBeer app, of course).
The Zefiro looks like it uses a similar interface, 16 years later, but instead of blowing into the microphone, they’ve made a plug-in mouthpiece. Admittedly, this is an improvement. I remember always feeling slightly like I was hyperventilating while playing the Ocarina app, seeing as there was no resistance when blowing just through my lips.
Here’s the best thing, though, and I’ve buried the lede here. Ocarina lives! I think you can still download it new today, but I was able to download Ocarina from my Purchases screen on the App Store. With bated breath, I tapped the ‘Open’ button once it had downloaded…and it works perfectly on my iPhone 16! I ran through the tutorial and, with surprising ease (which means I must have really built that muscle memory back in High School), played ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ on my little smartphone instrument.
It really made my day. I hope you can try it out too. If not, here’s a very of-the-time YouTube video of how it worked.