The Sword and Laser discussion

We now have an iPhone app!

Download and let us know what you think! Our wonderful friend Nicole built it for us.

One thing you may notice is that the forums aren't the Goodreads forums... they're actually our secret, other-dimensional forums over at Extralife.

If anyone can find a way to make an RSS feed of the Goodreads forums, please let me know!

V

You can actually see groups in the Goodreads app. Go to 'My Books' on the bottom, then 'View My Profile' on the top. I'm guessing they just parse html?

Nice app, all in all, but I'd prefer, if possible, that it wouldn't shut off my audio when it opens. Ideally, it would only shut off my audio when I try to stream a podcast episode.

I allowed it to use notifications; what will it notify me of?

For the RSS feed, I tried out this trick of using Blogger's "post by email" feature to automatically receive the daily email digest of forum updates. Here's the feed:

http://swordlasergoodreads.blogspot.c...

Seems to work, but not sure the format will be right for Nicole. We could run the feed through feedburner for extra formatting, too - or try the same trick with a WordPress blog.

Alright, one more nit! I am using the app AS I TYPE to listen to the latest podcast (otherwise I'd have to wait until I get home to download).

Somebody called me on my office phone, so I wanted to pause the stream of the podcast. Double-clicking the home button didn't give me audio options for what was playing (didn't expect it to, but thought it was try), so I unlocked my phone and went into the app.

The audio progress wasn't shown by default, though, while it was playing, so I clicked the "Audio" button to pull it up. And that restarted the podcast...there was a pause button, but the progress bar went away so quickly, I couldn't pause, or try to move back to where I'd been.

So now I've listened to the first half of the show three times (I assumed there was some operator error the first time, so tried it again). So if there's a way to, when it's streaming, default have the progress visible (and larger and maybe not grey on black...), see the progress easily, easily rewind and pause (and maybe fast forward), that would be uber helpful.

I'll share this thread with Nicole, thanks!

Awesome app! All of The Sword and Laser goodness in one place ;)

But I have a problem with it: When I click on the "Suggest a book" and then tried to go back to "More" it didn't work. I clicked Cancel, the again and again and again and noting happened. I'm stuck ;(

If Nicole is able to use that RSS feed, here's a few things the app should tweak in the feed before presenting it to the user:

-- Remove the "Tralfamadorian," at the beginning of each post (that's the name of the dummy goodreads account subscribed to the email digest)

-- Each new post will be titled "New discussions from The Sword and Laser", since that's the subject line of the email digest. Maybe the app could replace that with the date of the post

-- "Want to control which emails..." to "Posted by Josh Lawrence" at the end of each post should be removed

Nice app, very thorough.

So cool. I am downloading the app right now! Thanks!

terpkristin wrote: "Alright, one more nit! I am using the app AS I TYPE to listen to the latest podcast (otherwise I'd have to wait until I get home to download).

Somebody called me on my office phone, so I wanted ..."

Nicole says: "the audio player works by living in the header." I guess that's the only way she could get it to work?

I'm not sure I understand...

It did reside in the header...

So, when I click on a podcast ep, this is the screen: http://kristin.seidelmann-owners.com/...

Then I click on the Audio button and it brings up the audio at the top: http://kristin.seidelmann-owners.com/...

But, that header bar very quickly goes away, reverts to: http://kristin.seidelmann-owners.com/...

So you'll see a few things:
1) It doesn't actually tell you it's playing once the header disappears
2) Image 279 shows that the grey on black can be hard on the eyes, especially on the smaller screen

Also, once you're back to the screen shown in Image 280, if you want to pull up that menu again, it re-starts the audio from the beginning. And the header bar disappears too quickly to hit the pause button (it displays a loading indicator for a second or two, by the time the pause button pops up, the header is minimizing again), or to swipe the progress bar (which is small) to go forward or backward.

I compare this to the MLB app, for example. When you pull up the audio stream, it's a big header that stays until you hit the "Hide" button: http://kristin.seidelmann-owners.com/... You'll also notice that the "play" indicator is in the top "AT&T" bar near my battery indicator.

When you hide the audio player, it still lets you know via the "AT&T bar" and also the blue bar on the top of the screen that something is playing and what it is that's playing: http://kristin.seidelmann-owners.com/...

Also, I can't screen cap it, but when I double-tap the home button with an MLB audio going, it lets me pause the audio stream from the app.

Now all that said, I think the S&L app is a GREAT app and if these things can't be fixed, it's really not going to change the fact that it's a great app. I know that MLB has been doing this for a few years and probably can throw more resources at it. And honestly, I know nothing about iPhone app development. It might not be all that hard to make some usability enhancements. If not, won't stop me from using the app, especially for streaming new release shows. :)

Thanks everyone for the great feedback! I'm traveling right now so I'll try the rss feed when I return this weekend. Also the suggest a book will be updated to just sent the show an email. If your in that tab you need to cancel and then hit the more button. Kind of annoying I know, but it shall be fixed soon.

Now for the audio player. When you click the button to play the podcast you'll see the play quicky drop and then go back into the header. If you click the header the player will come back. This actually should work through most of the app.

Hope this helps!

Nicole

Aha, there was some operator error! Thanks Nicole!

Windows Phone version coming soon? :P

I know you guys are kindle enthusiasts, but you should get your app on the nook color.

Just got the new update.