Review Of The Leonard Cohen iPhone App

Leonard Cohen – There’s An App For That

The Leonard Cohen iPhone app by DKB Productions was released Aug 23, 2012 and is available for installation¹ at the App Store.

My report on the app’s features based on my test drive of it follows.

 News

The News page appears to be linked to the news page of the official Leonard Cohen site and, is, as can be seen above, fairly limited.

Tour -  And Hidden Bonus

The tour schedule is up to date. The Sept 8 & 9, 2012 shows, for example, are listed at Wembley Arena, a venue change which was officially announced only yesterday.

The links eventually lead to a ticketing site for each show but there is a hidden bonus – clicking on any concert date first leads to a screen with a photo of Leonard Cohen, and while most of the shots are the standard performance scenes, some are unusual and there is at least one photo I’ve never seen before. A  couple of examples follow.

Music

This page is straightforward: clicking on an album takes the user to iTunes for music samples and the opportunity to purchase the songs.

Photos

The Photo page, as anticipated, links thumbnails to larger images. Most of the images will be well known to fans but some are unusual and interesting.

The Prize – “Moments Of” by Dominique Issermann

The summary of “Moments Of” (also called “Moments With” in some of the copy) on  CatchApp describes this feature as “Dominique Issermann shoot 8 videos clips for Leonard Cohen coming up album: Old Ideas.”

Well, there are indeed video sequences, all shot and directed by Dominique Issermann on her iPhone, for eight of the songs on the Old Ideas album. These range from slideshows of Leonard Cohen photographs taken by Dominique Issermann to video sequences over which Leonard Cohen sings but in which he does not appear.

There is also the occasional product placement.

A couple of scenes from “Crazy To Love You” follow.

Watching the Dominique Issermann videos justifies the installation of this app, even if the other features go unused.

Other Pages

The app also offers a selection of Leonard Cohen Videos, links to the official merchandise shops, and a “Blog” page which opens to Notes From The Road.²

The Tipping Point

All the other features are nice enough, but it’s the Links page that makes this a must-have app.

1. Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS [↩]
2. For more information about Notes From The Road, see Where To Find Current, Detailed Information About The 2012 Leonard Cohen Old Ideas World Tour. [↩]