The iZen application for the iPhone and iPod touch has some serious flaws. While visually appealing, the audio aspects of the application suffer from a lack of craftsmanship that is downright annoying. I like relaxing music to accompany my entire day and this application completely misses the mark: it should never be used for meditation, relaxation or even as a soundtrack to work.
iZen for iPhone by higher-music
iZEN AUDIO SAMPLE
The audio is 5 Minutes long, and you can download it here if you are so inclined. I used the sleep timer, and at five minutes, the audio very abruptly cuts off. Personally, I find this to be distracting and I would have preferred a fade out.
I selected the piece called “Zen Garden” because it is the default and, I presume, a reflection of what the designer figures is the best that the iZen application has to offer.
The track was recorded from an iPhone 3GS onto a MOTU UltraLite
THE iZEN MUSIC SELECTIONS
I thought about providing a track-by-track review, but the truth is, it isn’t worth my time or effort. Here are some of the general failings of the application as I hear it:
- Musical elements just sort of turn on and off without any sense of composition.
- Many of the tracks have high frequency components that are screechy and painful to listen to.
- Most of the tracks are at tempos that are too quick to facilitate true states of meditation – your heart will be going too fast to feel rested or meditative
- The nature samples on many of the tracks are so poorly looped that they are repetitive and distracting.
- Sometimes you can hear digital popping, indicating that the waveforms have been cut poorly.
- While this is entirely subjective, I found that most of the musical elements sound cheap
1.1 UPDATE
- 50 new motivational quotes
- Zen music titled “Oriental Spring”
- Zen music titled “Rainy Night”
1.2 UPDATE
- Motivational quotes now total 120
- User can see new quotes now simply by touching the Zen window.
- Motivational quotes now total 120
- User can see new quotes now simply by touching the Zen window.
REQUIREMENTS
Compatible with iPhone 3G/3GS and iPod Touch. Requires iPhone OS 3.1.2 or Later
