Have you ever been driving around in your vehicle when “your” song starts plays on the radio that you love singing to? I haven’t but I’ve had plenty of friends that do. I always hold up a pretend microphone to their face so that they can sing their jam to the world… this usually quiets them down and gets a good laugh. So you can imagine the utter thrill I got when I heard that anyone can turn their iPhone into a pretty decent public address system – using Megaphone

Now I know what you are thinking… how loud can this baby really get? I’ll say that it got loud enough when testing the volume on a pair of DLO Portable Speakers for iPhone in my office that I saw the “gopher” effect happen throughout the cubicle farm. I then got too close to the speakers, resulting in that classic high pitched feedback that drives everyone nuts!

Folks started to line up to hear themselves talk through my iPhone and it was a pretty fun Friday afternoon break away from the grind.

After you install this app it takes you through a 35 second tour of how to use it and the features it offers; easily explained in these four slides.

You simply plug in your external amplified speakers, turn the iPhone upside down so that the microphone is facing up to bring up to your mouth and then talk/sing. The app is even themed to look like a big classic microphone and has a snazzy oscilloscope to show the sounds you are making and give positive feedback when it is ON.

This app is really simple for the user as it really only has two settings. ON and OFF. When started, Megaphone is in the ON position and quietly mutes your other audio applications. For example, it’ll stop your song if you have your iPod app running.

To control the volume you either use your iPhone volume settings or your amplified speaker settings. Overall this app has one handed control functionality and simple to use.

• Features I’d like to see in future versions of the app include the following:
• Volume control on the microphone
• Voice changing options (robot, male, female, variable)
• Recording options

Originally when I received Megaphone for review I had an older version installed. I then upgraded to 1.0.1 a couple of days later. The update explained it had improved performance – I’ve been in contact with the developers over the past 24 hours & they tell me they are constantly working on improvements.

Reading the reviews on iTunes for this app some users explained that they were confused in how to get the app to work as it doesn’t have much documentation other than the 4 slides that you can access at will by pressing the multicolored circle under the OFF/ON switch.

There really isn’t much to this app, it’s simple, effective and loads of fun. I had a small issue with the version on my iPhone & when I contacted the lads at Smudge Apps they were surprised I had a hiccup and were very keen to help look into what the issue is. (Sometimes Megaphone won’t recognise my iPhone Mic – seems isolated to my iPhone). Myself & Mr K worked with the guys from Smudge testing different scenarios – I was surprised how really friendly the guys there are (they are still looking into this).

At $1.99c it’s not going to break the bank, it’s fun & if you ever do need to use your iPhone as a microphone to throw your voice around a room – then Megaphone is what you need.

Buy Megaphone in the App Store