Archive for the ‘Music’ Category.
6th November 2008, 10:49 pm
Like Snow Leopard, the next release of MPoD will focus on performance rather then on functionality. Allthough the startup performance was improved a lot in version 1.1, it still takes a long time before the lists of artists, albums and songs are available. For my own 10.000 song library it takes about 15-20 seconds.
By using a locally cached sqlite3 database in combination with lazy loading, the loading now takes about 3 seconds, which is really a massive improvement. In the coming week additional testing will be done, and I hope that this release can be available in the AppStore in 2 weeks from now.
4th October 2008, 02:50 pm
Based on some of the comments I received on MPoD I’m looking at ways to improve the user interface. One thing I’ve been thinking about is to use gestures for some of the actions, e.g. swipe left => previous song, swipe right => next song, swipe up => increase volume, swipe down => decrease volume.
This could be combined with a 2nd now playing screen that shows the album cover art. Then this screen would not have buttons, instead the swipes would do the work.
Do you think this would be a useful addition? Or do you have a better idea? Then please post your comments and I’ll see what can be done.
27th September 2008, 09:45 pm
Today was ’shake-day’ at Katoemba. First I bought the new Wii game Warioworld - Shake It! for my kids. And staying in that shaking spirit, I implemented a shake’n’shuffle feature in MPoD that will choose a random album to play if you shake your iPhone. Not very original given that the new iPod’s already do this, but still a nice feature.
Also this week I’ve made improvements to the now playing screen, to get rid of the sluggish performance that various people have been reporting. I expect to submit the new version for AppStore review in the coming week.
12th September 2008, 07:27 pm
Version 1.1.1 of MPoD is available in the AppStore. This is a minor bugfix that prevents the startup crash in case you have upgraded from a previous version.
It doesn’t add any new functionality, so if the previous version runs fine for you there is no need to upgrade, allthough it won’t hurt either.