UPDATED: Help Me Choose an Ad Design

I have created 2 ads. I am having a hard time choosing one to submit to advertising. I want to hear your opinions on which one you like more.

#1)

#2)

Please help me choose. If you think you can do better, then design your own ad and send it to us. If you use it, we will send you a gift card for iTunes.

UDPATE: I have chosen ad #2. It will be going on http://iphoneapplicationlist.com starting March 1st, 2009

March Madness Gift Card Giveaway

We will be giving away a gift card for the iTunes app store on March 1st, 2009. To reply to @iphonepodcaster on twitter.com with the following tweet

RT to enter RSS Player March Madness Giveaway. http://rssplayerapp.com

I will choose a winner March 1st at random. Good luck.

RSS Player and podnova.com integration

Over the next few months, I have plans to integrate with many different podcast services on the web. Last week, I told you about castroller.com integration. Well now I am happy to announce that podnova.com, a really handy podcast catcher site, has added import to RSS Player ability.

It's easy to use. Simply go to podnova.com on your computer, setup an account (for free), then import your feeds. Finally open podnova on your iPhone or iPod touch and click the import to RSS Player button on podnova.com subscriptions page. RSS Player will open and start importing all your feeds. I use this method as a backup of my subscription list.

Rss Player and CastRoller.com intergration

I'm very happy to announce that castroller.com, a popular netcasts directory, has made it easier then ever to subscribe to netcasts via Rss Player.

They have included a subscribe link that opens Rss Player on your device and imports automatically. You can search castroller.com and import individual casts or you can setup an account using your computer and then import your entire netcast list with 1 click of a button.

To get started, go to www.castroller.com on your iPhone or Touch.

This is also a great way to backup your netcast list just in case your iPhone has to be restored.

Thanks to Will from castroller.com for making this possible.

If you are a netcast owner and want to add a subscribe using Rss Player link, check out this post. It gives very easy to follow instructions and a button image.

UPDATED: Rss Player 1.2 - Screenshots and descriptions

I have submitted 1.2 to the apps store and it will be out soon. We worked really hard to add features to this app and we are happy with where we stand. I'll give a brief explanation with each screenshot.


We brought back the Podcaster default image.


Adding feeds has never been easier with our build in search. You can still import using a url.





The My Favs tab has been improved to include multiple edit mode.



You can now rearrange, unsubscribe, mark all played and refresh just a portion of your feeds from here.




The download tab has been renamed to Queue. The function of this view is to show items that are waiting to be downloaded or are currently being downloaded. You can rearrange the items here. This is also the place you come when you want to sync your feeds (automatically download and delete items based on the sync settings)




After downloads are complete, you go to the Agenda tab. Here you can filter for all, unheard or saved casts. You can also reverse the order so you can listen from old to new. Gray background indicates a downloaded item.




This is our details view. Audio feeds will remember the play position and resume after app restarts.

And finally, this is the options tab. Here you can control how casts are downloaded and deleted when you press sync.


We are huge netcast fans so we need a lot of control and flexibility. We built an app that is meant for heavy netcast users but if simple enough for everyone. Other app might pretend to play netcast but Rss Player is the only app in the app store that does is designed for serious netcast listeners. Available soon in the app store.

UPDATE: Someone asked how to control the volume in the comments, Just touch the volume icon to make the volume controller popup. look here http://twitpic.com/1tgjh

Adding a button to your netcast so that it opens Rss Player and imports

As a netcaster, you want as much exposure as possible on as many netcast client as possible. I'm going to describe in detail how to add a button to your feed that will import directly into Rss Player as well as give some examples.

Here are some example (You need Rss Player installed in order for anything to happen)


Subscribe to Buzz Out Loud



Subscribe to the 404

When a user clicks on the link above on there iPhone, Rss Player automatically opens and imports the feed.

Here is an example of the html required to make this button.



Subscribe to Buzz Out Loud


You can copy this code and simply change the feed url to be your own and that's it. Give the code to your web guy and he can put it into your site.

Don't let a listener pass you by, if they use Rss Player and see you have a link to import, they will subscribe to your feed.

The winners of the Valentines Day Giveaway

I have selected a winner at random from the comments made on our Valentines day giveaway. The winner is 

Podcast Mike from the comments. 

I'll be sending you that iTunes gift card on behalf of Rss Player, the best  way to enjoy netcasts on the iPhone, very soon.

I plan to have more giveaways in the near future so if you want to find out when they are and participate, follow me on twitter.com @iPhonePodcaster

If you are already an owner of Rss Player, please leave a review in the app store.

If you dont own it yet, what are you waiting for, go get it now! 

Thank you everyone for participating.  

App Store Search Manipulation

It has come to my attention that certain developers are continuing to stoop to dirty tricks to get there apps to appear higher in search results in the app store.  Specifically, tacking on other, more popular app names on the end of the app description. Because Apple uses the text in the description to search, the unworthy app now come up for search terms that have nothing to do with it.  The worst offenders even enter app names that are not even in the same category and in no way related. The app names they choose usually come from the top 100 list. I am all for SEO but behavior like this is beyong the pale and should be dealt with quickly by Apple.  How long can this go on for? What is preventing me from putting all 100 app names in my description and bam,  Rss Player comes up for the term monkey ball or iSteam or Koi Pond. As I see it, the developers are misleading Apple and iPhone owners and shaming there own name in the process. Do you think it's wrong to act like this? If yes, what can be done to stop it? 

Rss Player + Valenties Day = $1.99

Rss Player at half price for 1 day.

This year for valentines day, we want to do something special for you. Starting 2/14/2009 at midnight and lasting for 24 hours, we will be offering Rss Player for only $1.99. This way, you can get yourself a copy and get a copy for a loved one.

I also want to give away something to the users that already purchased the app. I have a $20 iTunes gift card. If you want a chance to win it, simply leave a comment in this post. I will be picking a random winner on sunday and post the name to this blog so please check back.

UPDATE: the contest is over. The winner is Podcast Mike

More Rss Player for all - coming to App Store

We have been working overtime thinking of ways to bring Rss Player, the best iPhone netcast player, to even more users. We have taken the Microsoft approach and made several versions, so that users have more options to fit there habits.

For the unsure, we have create the Rss Player Lite (Orange Icon). This version allows you to subscribe to only 2 feeds. This will allow you to try before you buy.


For the impulse buyer, we have created the 99 cent Rss Player7 (Green Icon) version. This is for lite users. Caped at 7 feeds.



For the serious castheads, we will continue to provide the original Rss Player (Blue Icon). There is no limit on how many feeds you can subscribe to.


All three versions have identical functionality and only differ in the amount of feeds you can subscribe to. Rss Player (Blue Icon) is already in the app store while the Green and Orange versions will come on a few days.

RssPlayer version 1.1.2 accepted to iPhone App Store

Today, the first update for RssPlayer has made it into the app store. This update adds a lot of new functionality, interface changes and background improvements.

• Swipe to Delete (unsubscribe) on My Favs View


• Swipe to Delete downloads on download view


• Swipe to mark as played on the New view


• Added url schema rssplayer://podcaster.com?feedurl=[netcastfeedurl]
  
  When a link like this is clickedin safari, RssPlayer opens and imports the feed url.Can also be opml url. You can even email yourself the link and open it from mail.


• Changed the crawler to crawl up to 250 items on first crawl


• take automatic pausing off when app goes offline


• Changed the way My Favs displays refreshing feeds status


• autoplay


• sync settings


• song tracking (only downloaded items for now)


• Show notes are now viewed inside a browser. An address bar is present so you can navigate to any website


• Revised icon to make it good.


• BUG FIXED: Did not allow downloaded audio to play when offline.


• BUG FIX: went to sleep after first download was complete. Now, stays awake during all downloads


• BUG FIX: Not resuming Now Playing item correctly fixed

I hope that I have addressed most of the concerns users have expressed in the reviews of the app store and I would appreciate a revisit.

The next feature I am going to include will be Playlist and better management of My Favs

Updates to RssPlayer - Version 1.2

I have been working hard to improve RssPlayer. Here are some screenshots of what I have managed to code so far. You can pickup a test version at http://groups.google.com/group/rssplayer/files. You are going to need a jailbroken iPhone.

Also, version 1.1 has been submitted over a week ago and still has not been approved so I am not sure what's going on but I hope it wont take that long to get each update into the App Store.

UPDATE: 1 minute after I wrote this, I got a response from Apple regarding my app. Seems that they found a few minor issues that they want resolved before approval so I guess i'll be submitting 1.2 sooner then later. Probably tomorrow night if all goes well during the day.