Posts Tagged ‘Apple iPad’

Last.fm ON AIR is officially rebranded to ON AIR powered by Last.fm

Friday, September 16th, 2011

There were some confusion in the Last.fm community, that my Last.fm application for PlayBook, iPad and Android Tablets is an official Last.fm application. I decided to rebrand the application using the new name “ON AIR powered by Last.fm”. ON AIR wasn’t only a hit about the used technology, it is also a common term in the broadcasting world. When a radio station produces their program, they switch on a red light with the letters “ON AIR”. So when starting the last.fm application, you are “ON AIR” with your personal radio station.

The rebranded apps are available as an update at Android Market, BlackBerry AppWorld, Apple iTunes App Store.

Amazing launch of Last.fm ON AIR on the three App Stores!

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

I really overwhelmed of the amazing launch on the different App Stores, especially on Apple’s iTunes App Store: Last.fm ON AIR for the Apple iPad was downloaded 872 times in the first 27 hours after the launch! The  Last.fm ON AIR for the BlackBerry PlayBook was downloaded about 470 times in first 8 days since release on BlackBerry AppWorld. As the Android Market has an problem to display the correct number of installations, I can’t really tell you how many installations of the Last.fm ON AIR for Android Tablets were downloaded. But I guess the number isn’t as high because the app was designed to run on Tablet using Android Honeycomb (3.x) like Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 or Motorola XOOM.

This afternoon, I also checked some of the international iTunes App Store in the following category: iPad Apps > Music > Free > Bestseller:

Germany: 13th place
UK: 15th place
US: 33th place
Switzerland: 20th place
Brazi: 19th place
Australia: 29th place

Overall, I think was a great start for this project, because I’m sitting in front of my computer and can’t get the smiling out of my face! The main reason for it, I’m working on my Last.fm projects quiet for a while, because it was also my private project to test new stuff coming to the Flash Platform. So I really happy that I finally launched the project.

Last.fm ON AIR is available for BlackBerry PlayBook, Android Tablets and Apple iPad now!

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

Finally, last night the last App Store approved my application. Last.fm ON AIR is available at all three App Store: BlackBerry AppWorld, Android Market and Apple iTunes AppStore.

Information about all my Last.fm projects include the Last.fm ON AIR can be found on my Labs page.

Last.fm ON AIR allows you to search or listen to your favorite artists, tracks or albums. You manage your music library and scrobble the music you currently listen. Find nearby events and upload your tagged event photos directly to Flickr linked to the Last.fm event page.

A Last.fm subscription (PAID) is necessary to use the radio capabilities of the application.

The application provides following functionality:

  • Listen to stations and Scrobbling (Paid Subscriber Only!)
  • Love and Ban Tracks
  • Add Artists, Albums and Tracks to your Library.
  • Search and Viewing informations about: Artists, Albums, Tracks, Events and Users
  • Attending Events
  • Landscape and Portrait Mode
  • Location based services (Find Events)
  • Uploading tagged Event Photos to Flickr
  • Add support for shouts
  • Device Integration: Use the buttons of the device to control application (Play/Pause/Skip/Change Volume). (Only BlackBerry PlayBook)
  • Open Music store to buy and search for artists, tracks and albums. (Only BlackBerry PlayBook)

Here are the links to the application Last.fm ON AIR at the different App Stores.





I also created a group on Last.fm, where you post and share infos: Submit bugs, make feature requests, etc…
http://www.lastfm.de/group/Last.fm+ON+AIR

Credits

Thanks to the Last.fm team for allowing me to use their logo for my application.

Development and Design

The application is based on Adobe AIR 2.7 using Flex 4.5.1, which is optimzed for iOS application for Adobe AIR. As part of this project, I created my own Flex Library for the Last.fm. This library is implementing the latest Last.fm webservice API using OpenSource Flex MVC Framework Parsley. I will release this library as soon as I have finished the documentation for it.

For Design, I used Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. I also used Adobe Flash Catalyst for my transforming my design into assets, because Flash Catalyst is a great tool to convert assets into FXG files for ActionScript Skins(Create Workflow to create FXG assets for ActionScript Skins). The reason why I didn’t used Illustrator for step is that I found no way to export multiple FXG files from Illustrator file.

In the next days, I will write some blog post about what I learned in this project. For example: How to create Progressbar for Mobile AIR applications.