Play For iPhone Coming Tomorrow, AOL Pitches Me Over Instagram

Back in March, we noted that the mobile-first group inside of AOL was pushing forward with a pretty nice new music app called “Play”. The timing was good, they released it just as SXSW was kicking off. Unfortunately, it was Android-only — meaning myself and millions of others were unlikely to use it and instead would favor something like rival Soundtracking. Well, tomorrow Play is finally coming for iPhone.

As far as I can tell, Play for iPhone looks great. But “looks is the keyword. I haven’t actually used the app myself. Instead, I’ve only seen it because AOL decided to pitch it to me over Instagram. Yes, knowing my no-email stance, AOL smartly found me on another network I’m always on and highly engaged with. Well played — and smart. AOL has been pitching their app as a sort of “Instagram for music”. And that seems to be working for them so far.

AOL’s senior director of mobile projects, Sol Lipman, prepared and sent me (publicly, of course) the following set of Instagram images to show off and explain the new app.

Again, the app looks great. Can’t wait to try it out.

Update: And behold, Play for iPhone is live now!

thesolster: So @parislemon we’re launching PLAY for iPhone tomorrow – this is the music tab.

thesolster: And this @parislemon is the PLAY tab – it is rad.

thesolster: the feed @parislemon, rules

thesolster: hey @parislemon look at this awesomeness here

thesolster: We have a full-on local music player @parislemon

thesolster: Hope you enjoyed it @parislemon – for everyone else sorry to clutter your stream, just trying to take care of business