Tech Talk: Introducing the Official UK Top 40 Chart App - A New Way To Have the Top 40 in Your Pocket

by Raj Rudolph

As an avid Apple iPhone fan since the beginning, I was a little hesitant to try out the new Samsung Galaxy S3, but the fact that it had this nifty official Top 40 app on it piqued my interest as a lover of all tech that makes our digital lives easier. After all, the S3 dominated the UK mobile phone market in November, giving the iPhone 5 a run for it's money. So I asked myself, "why not check it out at least?". And let's be honest, I needed a new backup phone for my temporary move to Barcelona. So begrudingly, I decided to give the S3 a test drive.

Now you may be wondering why I even care about an app that features the Official UK Top 40 since I shun anything that overtly Top 40, but the truth is that I need to constantly keep abreast of the Top 40 as part of my job. Being a music blogger, promoter, manager and a constant source of what's new and hot in pop music, the knowledge that Olly Murs, Conor Maynard and Maroon 5 are ruling the charts also comes with the territory of "doing what I do". If anything, I always need to know what's number one so I can make a joke about it or even moan about it to my friends and industry cohorts - tis the way of us blogger snobs.

I do have to say though that after spending a few months with the Official Top 40 Chart App and becoming "more friendly" with the Galaxy S3, it's not a half bad app and the phone itself - surprisingly spectacular. Every night the app syncs with the latest chart information so you can INSTANTLY hear and download each Top 40 song. Quite cool if you don't recognize a song on the Top 40 that's sneaking up the charts or if you need to take a sneaky listen to that Justin Beiber track all the kids are talking about - occupational hazard if you will. Each week, the app also offers some cool bonus tracks which are being heralded by the big wigs of the music industry and every so often a celebrity musician (ugh, Tulisa, this week) takes over the app similar to when celebrities offer up their playlists in the iTunes store. 

All-in-all, The Official Top 40 Chart App is pretty cool. Nifty even. Whilst I won't be relying on it for my latest picks and heatseekers here on EQ Music, I won't be deleting it from my phone. It sure beats having to take the time to look up the information online and offers up a great alternative to making sure I check out the Top 40 downloads on iTunes.

Confession time - I quite like actually reading the app's celebrity gossip section too.

The official Top 40 Chart App is available in the Google Play store and comes pre-loaded on all Galaxy S3 phones (just in case you were thinking about ditching Apple for Android). Now if only we could get this app for iPhone, then the world would be at harmony.