This changes everything, again.

Wow, what a great week in San Francisco at WWDC. Apple certainly had lots to say to a lot of very excited developers.

By now many blogs are full of opinions on iOS7, the two best ones i've come across are Marco's post at http://www.marco.org/2013/06/11/fertile-ground and Jeff LaMarche at http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/ios-7-update-or-languish.html.

I won't repeat all those points here, but I will try to make it clear what this means for users of my apps.

Firstly, the easy bit. If you are using Shared Calendar, iSitter or another more obscure one of my apps that is NOT RSSRadio you will get an update which will adopt the visual look of iOS7 some point in the next year. The basic function of the app you are using will not change however. These updates will support only iOS7 and will be a free update to the existing version.

However RSSRadio requires special attention, for the following reasons:

  • still has a lot of users on iOS5

  • its my most popular app, and therefore gets the most attention

  • there are exciting changes in the iOS7 SDK which allow for continuous background updating and automatic content download, something RSSRadio very much needs

  • the layout of the application is not optimised for the most common use cases - it has been around since 2010, so there is a lot of old code and things that can be done better

So, the plan is to create an iOS7 only version of RSSRadio, this will be a complete redesign, rewrite and rethink of the user interface for the new iOS7 metaphors. This new version will update continuously in the background and use custom transitions between screens to create an advanced interface worthy of the new iOS.

The "new RSSRadio" will be a separate, free with in-app upgrade version on the App store. Users will not be obliged to update and the existing versions will get a minor visual update so they don't look too out of place on iOS7. I will continue to run the (now redundant) push notification server for 2 years after the launch of iOS7 at no cost (I had plans to make this a subscription service).

This is an exciting time, and the apps you love and use each day have to change to survive. I hope that small independent developers such as myself can count on your support so we can bring you these apps.

 

WWDC 2013

Sitting in Heathrow Airport waiting for my plane to San Francisco. 

Answers to support questions will be a little slow or non-existant for the next week, but it will all be worth it for the new features I can learn about and put in my apps.

Any users who want to meet up and "offer feedback", drop me an email.... 

Thanks Kurt!

Here is a review that arrived on the US App Store today - thanks for this review Kurt, hearing how my Apps are making peoples lives just that bit easier makes it all worthwhile!

It's a workhorse! - "I'll just conclude with this: do you listen to more than a half hour podcast per week? Then, absolutely, positively, you deserve to buy RSSRadio.Five stars: well deserved!"...Okay. I am an IT nerd and very stingy with my five stars. It is not that this app is perfect, though it does do everything that I can think of that I might want it to do.It's not even that this developer just continues to work and work at new features every time I download the latest version.
No, it is really, simply put, that I use RSSRadio every single day. It's a workhorse! Add to the fact that I discovered dar.FM through this app; I now do maybe a couple dozen hours of listening a week with RSSRadio.Further, earlier this week, I discovered a new feature that allows me to squeeze out just the core content of a show without all of the hemming and hawing of long-winded, inarticulate, dead-air-time pod casters, saving me almost 25% time, for one show—without having to speed up dialogue… which, BTW, does that too.
But today, was the coup de grace. I stopped everything I was doing and decided to talk to Siri to write this review, which is something I almost never do—write reviews, that is. "Siri, "I said, "take a memo."I was listening to an MP3 that I had legally downloaded, and needed to be able to skip back and repeat what was just said by 10 seconds or so. The British speaker was difficult to understand and I knew I would be doing this a lot. I was bemoaning the idea that I couldn't just listen to it in my iTunes (no way to get it there without a computer) or in RSSRadio where I can easily skip forward and back.
Then it hit me: I realized I could simply open the file in RSSRadio and build an entire playlist and listen to it there.Although the process was a bit tedious, it was worth it. When I was done, I had a beautiful, hand-crafted playlist, ready to go in RSSRadio with all the forward and backward skipping I could ever want!Add to that a little preset equalization and Bam! Beautiful, relaxed, listening.
Honestly, I could say even more about features such as customizing number of downloads, episode retention, playback gestures … so much more.
I'll just conclude with this: do you listen to more than a half hour podcast per week? Then, absolutely, positively, you deserve to buy RSSRadio.Five stars: well deserved!-Kurt

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