Can’t Sleep? Your iPhone Can Help!

Can’t sleep? Warm milk not working? Ambian not doing its thing?

Why not try some quiet soothing sounds? Two of the most popular applications in the iTunes App Store are waiting to help.

Ambience and aSleep both  to sell for a low price and do pretty much the same thing: they offer various soothing sounds that can help as you try to relax or fall asleep. Both have countdown timers that turn off the sound after a certain period of time.

aSleep-
aSleep offers an incredibly simple and, in my opinion, not very attractive, interface. From the single screen a total of six different sounds- rain, beach, wind, forest, relax, and meditation can be started. From that same screen you can activate and set the countdown timer. (Touching it brings up the typical iPhone/iPod touch hour/minute scroller. From there you can set the timer and off you go. It simple, easy and it is quite pleasant

Ambience-
Ambience offers a much more attractive and polished interface. It also offers significantly more sounds. There are, in fact, 14 in all, including birds, blue noise, clock, cliques, crickets, fan, machine, pink noise,  violet noise, waterfall, rain, forest, white noise, and wind. They are found by scrolling through the list (similar to the clock/timer scroller). The button to start the sound is right below it is aptly named "Noise!"
Touching the small information circle in the upper right brings up the timer which has the nice additional feature of having a simple button to turn it on and off.

On the surface it would appear of the two, Ambiance is the better program. For me, however, that is not the case.

Because the timer is on a separate screen Ambience takes more time to set. In addition, because Ambiance uses the same "scroller" for selecting sounds as it does for the timer, choosing the sound you want results in a familiar, but not the most sleep inducing sound, in my opinion. What could be more relaxing than listening to the "click click click click" as you scroll through to try to find the right sound. To my mind it has the potential to defeat the purpose.

Moreover, aSleep offers the main sounds that I would actually want anyway and it does so on one screen. (You don’t need to go to a second screen to get to the timer.) The extra sounds Ambiance offers aren’t  ones I would choose so it isn’t a benefit for me.

While I believe both applications are decent and well worth the price, for my money (not to mention insomnia) I prefer Asleep. (Or a good single malt.)

Quick Take: aSleep
Value: Good for just $.99
Would I Buy Again: Yes
Learning Curve: Simple
Who is it for: Anyone who wants soothing music/noise to relax or fall asleep
What I like: Works well. Works with ease
What I Don’t: Screen looks cheesy
Final Statement: A good program. Worth a buck.

Quick Take: Ambiance
Value: Good for just $.99
Would I Buy Again: Yes (but I prefer aSleep)
Learning Curve: Simple
Who is it for: Anyone who wants soothing music/noise to relax or fall asleep
What I like: Polished. Numerous selection of sounds
What I Don’t: Scroll to get to the sound you want
Final Statement: A good program but even with the more polished interface I still prefer aSleep..