iPod/iPhone dev blog

iPhone ultimate music player is coming soon :)

2008-09-23T07:19:00.000-07:00

Visit pwnPlayer.com for more infos ;)

Music Player for iPhone (update)

2008-09-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

Hi,

To avoid poeple to contact me about this I take you updated:
After talking with some persons on the Saurik's IRC chan, I've learned that Errrick was already on a project of open Music Player so I've contacted him for informations and provide help if needed...
He confirmed me that (he started the project to play files downloaded by his iSlsk app actually). His work is already very impressive, for an (old now) preview see: http://www.vimeo.com/1662301
He included many awesome features (that i didn't even think of) such as the LockScreen gestures control ...
He also planned to include plugins support, imagine the possibilities :).
All we have to do now is to wait to see that wonderfull app in Cydia, please don't annoy him with mails about asking a date of release I would feel guilty (but you can support him by paypal if you want to: http://www.errrick.com.ar/ ).

Remote app for Rhythmbox

2008-09-11T06:38:00.000-07:00

Rhythmbox is the default mp3 player for the Gnome environnment ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/ ). I'm on Ubuntu and I've had the idea ( before Apple ^^ ) to make an App to control my favourite player from my iPod Touch...

I did it on old firmware (1.1.4) with jiggy but with the new Firmware i've had to port (completely rewrite actually) it to iPhone-Java (easier for me). The Rhythmbox part is a little python plugin (basically a small web server).
Features:

Browse thru Albums
Browse thru Artists
Search for songs (live search)
Play/Pause/Next/Prev/Volume control
See Playlist
A tap on a song to add it to playlist
Swipe style navigation to browse back (Albums<-Tracks)
Left Swipe on a nav window to clear playlist
Left swipe on cover to see playlist

Screenshots:

I have still to do :
Covers retrieve
many more things...

Installation:
download these two zips:
plugin
app

unzip the first one in ~/.gnome2/rhythmbox/plugins
install iphone java package from cydia
unzip the second archive to /Applications folder
restart springboard
set your computer ip in the .properties file (in /Applications/JRemote.app/ )
Launch rhythmbox
launch JRemote
enjoy :)

[project] The Ultimate Music Player for iPhoneOS

2008-09-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

I'm a linux user, i don't like to reboot on Windows (vista is slowwwww) to launch iTunes and then upload one song. Unfortunaly since the 2.0 firmware Apple changed their itunesdb hashing method and all the open source alternatives can't work anymore (look there for explanation: iPod hash ).

I'm also a jailbreak user, and I like to dev, so I think that a brand new (open source) music player would be awesome, i've made a list of the features i'd like to include:

Manage music :
- Drag &Drop songs in a folder and it's working (Linux ssh/Apple dav/Windows smb ready ^^)
- Auto check the folder for new/deleted songs and refresh library DB when launching player? or a function to refresh?
- Get last.fm tags when adding tracks to DB
- Check for covers in the matching folders
- Get karaoke files (Tune wiki style)
- Web page to add songs/manage library from a computer

SQLite database:
- classic library db (don't forget the cover field for albums)
- songs and artists tables have foreign key to Last.FM tags (->tags table)
- lyrics field for songs (get lyrics from internet)

Dynamic playlists:
- auto mode: fill the playlist with matching songs by tags (fast one tap function)
- create personal dynamic playlist: choose one or several tags/artist name/blabla with AND or OR statements

Last FM:
- scrobble songs
- switch to last.FM radio ( via last.fm.app? ) via tags or artist ( could use lastfm:// links to do it easily )
Podcasts:
- get updates via wifi (hypem.com rulez)
Infos (usual things):
- artist info from last.fm/wikipedia
- events from last.fm that can be added to the calendar
- lyrics from web
- etc
Browsing:
- usual iPod stuff
- search tab
- Last.FM account's top tracks/albums/artists
- no more genre browsing, Tags are Genre 2.0 ^^
- playlist (created on the go, saved dynamic playlists, classic m3u etc)
- a gesture to add a song to queue (play me next)
- ability to delete songs/albums
Sharing:
- share library and browse other ipods libraries to listen/download songs
- stream music to any computer over wifi (stream to http)
Download/Streaming:
- web radios/shoutcast support
- seeqpod.com-like websites integration to download over internet (plugins structure?)
Video:
- link/show the music video clip (launch youtube app?)

So what do you think of that? I'm a big user of Last.fm i think you noticed it :).
Everything here is actually possible on iPhoneOS, it would be really a killer app, the amarok of the mobile devices...
I don't know yet if I'm going to start this week, I have to take a look in the open toolchain and choose between coding it in objective-c or in Java via bootstrap (dev would be a lot faster that way, but the app a little slower...). I've already used Java for iPhone but I didn't used yet classic objc.
All comments, people who want to help etc are welcome, speak of that project on forums/irc around you. I'd like to know if people are interested in that...

PS: actually i'm a bit afraid of starting it in Java since i don't know yet how to run in background an app and i'm not sure it works in Java... so if you have info about that leave a mail or a comment please :)