Coming Soon to an iPhone Near You
by flubacher on Dec.30, 2008, under Status Updates
Many have expressed their interest in the station finder and the podcasts. They’re both on their way- development has been completed and we’re waiting on Apple for approval of the update. I’ve been using the new version on my iPhone for the past week, and have found it very useful. I’ve listened to Fresh Air and Car Talk, as well as the NPR Hourly News Updates. What’s really nice is that I’m able to listen to many shows that my local affiliate station doesn’t carry.
It’s worth noting here that the images in the App Store are NOT the ones that I added for the currently approved version. They’re the images I associated with v1.3, which has the station finder and the podcasts in it. For some reason, when Apple published the app, they used the wrong images. From my perspective, the result has been a lot of user confusion, and dashed expectations. All we can do is wait.
I’ve continued my contact with the folks at NPR. Per their request, I’ll be changing the name of the application.
January 1st, 2009 on 7:56 pm
It would be nice if apple would actually GET AROUND to approving the blasted thing!
I’m still on your initial release – sigh.
January 2nd, 2009 on 1:51 pm
I’ve only just downloaded your app, but is there any chance of having a “play all, in chronological order” button? When I hop on the train, I’d rather just start listening than have to click each story individually.
January 2nd, 2009 on 2:03 pm
Hi Tim,
Unfortunately, there is no _current_ way of doing that. When you choose to listen to audio, I’m launching the audio link within the iPhone’s built in QuickTime player. My best investigations led to no way of determining when the audio is actually finished playing. This leaves no way of queuing up the next audio segment, because you can’t know when to do it. To make a long story short, the basic audio playing capabilities that are built in to the iPhone’s development kit do not provide enough functionality to me as a programmer to accomplish what you’re asking.
I’ve been working on a larger solution to this problem, and expect to have a major update to the application in a few months to address this problem, which many people have asked about.
Thanks for your interest!
Brad