Email

There’s a new Audio Glow update out that adds a swipe controls feature, as well as a new visualization that’s available as an in-app purchase.  Android Police did a nice quick write-up about it.  Here’s a video:

Audio Glow - Strings

All CheckIn users:

I apologize for this, but Facebook has temporarily locked CheckIn so it cannot post checkins at all. Their automated system apparently detected an unusually high amount of spam from CheckIn since yesterday. I have issued an appeal to them and I’m waiting for a human response. Thank you for your patience.

I have temporarily removed CheckIn Lite from the store, but I left CheckIn up so users can find this message and won’t think the app was abandoned.

UPDATE: Facebook has lifted the lock on CheckIn and I put CheckIn Lite back up on the store. Still trying to get a clear answer on how to avoid this happening again. My theory is that their system considers multiple posts with the same message to be spam, and since CheckIn users most likely often check-in without leaving a message, their system might be assuming I am using it to spam everyone with duplicate messages.

Android Tapp put up a nice review of Audio Glow! I hadn’t submitted it to them for review, so it’s a nice surprise.

Android 4.2 has a neat feature that allows you to set a clock or animation or almost anything as a sort of screensaver, called a daydream. These show up when your phone is docked or plugged in.

Naturally, live wallpapers are a good fit for this feature. I just released a simple app that lets you use the current live wallpaper as your daydream. The limitation is that it must be the current live wallpaper. This is due to Android security–other apps cannot start live wallpapers on their own.

Use current LWP

Shortcut to LWP settings

Here’s an update on what I’ve found regarding the “flatline” issue on some Samsung phones for Audio Glow.

It is caused by the built-in DSP that many Galaxy phones come with. It results in blocking audio data from certain media players from sharing their data with music visualizer apps. This issue can also be reproduced on non-Samsung phones by downloading certain DSP apps. I also had a user with an HTC Rezound (which also has built-in DSP) who had the flatline issue and fixed it by disabling the DSP. He was only able to do this because his phone was rooted.

I have not seen any consistency with which media players it blocks, and many users with these phones never see the problem at all.  So I do not plan to prevent Samsung users from downloading it. If this issue comes up for you, I apologize for your time. If you purchased the wallpaper, just email me and I’ll refund your order. But I do recommend trying the free full screen music visualizer first if you have a Samsung phone or HTC Rezound.

I am still looking for a solution, but it seems to be some kind of Android bug, or bug in the DSP code.

One user told me that the built-in Android music visualizer live wallpapers do not flatline while Audio Glow does.  If this is the case for you, please let me know about it. I have read through the code for these live wallpapers, and they acquire audio data exactly the same way that Audio Glow does, so I don’t think there is a solution to be found there. But if a lot of people have no problems with these built-in wallpapers, that could be a good lead toward a solution.

I also want to thank the makers of Music Visualizer and Epic Audio Visualizer for sharing with me what they have learned about this issue. It seems to be a problem for all music visualizers, because we all use the same Android Visualizer class for obtaining audio data.

Audio Glow is now available on Google Play!

It got a great mention over at Android Police. Thank you to the staff over at Android Police for the nice write-up!

Almost ready! This music visualizer will come in two flavors: a full screen version and a live wallpaper version.

As always, many color and shape settings to tweak. This time, you can save groups of settings as themes, and use the included Tasker/Locale plugin to swap themes!

Stay tuned for the release. Should be up on the store tomorrow!

Glowing equalizer bars

Extensive color settings

Modify the shapes

Tasker/Locale plugin

Player controls

As part of a promotion with #appfriday, Animal Time will be free today! Please give it a download!

Introduce your toddler to animals from around the world with Animal Time!

This fun, interactive app for young children is a collection of scenes, brought to life with continuous motion and ambient sounds. See and hear the pufferfish inflate as waves ripple over the coral reef. Watch a toucan flutter over the treetops.

Kids will also see and hear the names of the animals as they tap on them.

Music and SFX by Gavin Keese.

Coral Reef

Bamboo Forest

Amazon Jungle

Mojave Desert

Mojave Desert – Night

I founded Cypher Cove this past month, after two years of publishing under the name D’Keesto Software. That apostrophe was a mistake for a few reasons. :)

Cypher Cove is mainly me, with some contributions from family and friends.