George W. Bush presidency, iPhone launch year, financial crisis brewing
Web 2.0 peak, social media explosion, mobile revolution beginning
iTunes dominance, music piracy debates, streaming services emerging
Mobile would change everything, discovery was broken, community could solve it
The Problem We Saw
In 2007, music discovery was broken. iTunes had everything, but finding new music felt like searching for a needle in a haystack. Radio was dying, blogs were fragmented, and social recommendations were scattered across MySpace and early Facebook. We believed the iPhone's always-connected nature could solve this.
Our Solution
We built a native iOS app that combined algorithmic recommendations with social discovery. Users could:
- Get personalized recommendations based on listening history
- See what friends were discovering and sharing
- Preview tracks directly in the app (revolutionary at the time)
- One-tap purchase through iTunes integration
- Create and share discovery playlists
Technical Challenges
Building for the original iPhone meant working within severe constraints:
- 128MB RAM and limited processing power
- No background processing or push notifications
- Objective-C and early iOS SDK limitations
- Slow 2G/3G networks requiring aggressive caching
- iTunes API integration challenges
Discovery Feed
Social Sharing
Player Interface
Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's