We thought it was useless to implement a sort of tutorial the first time the user launch Ecoute on his iOS device.. but we were wrong.
Our only excuse may be the fact that we made the app, and we were used to the way it works and all the tricks it has.

Today, I’d like to share some tips about the app.

I -Let’s start with the tab bar. On the App Store, we mentioned many sort options for your music, like Artists, Albums, Playlists, etc… but you can only get 5 items at once on the screen.

The trick is simple, you just scroll it horizontally.

II - The second trick is about fast play/shuffle actions. You just need to hold your finger on a tab, or on any cover

You’ll also notice that you can re-order your tabs using the Move… action.

III - Now let’s talk about your huuuuge library. I wanna play some songs by Justice, but I don’t want to scroll through my artists until I find the one I’m looking for.
So, how do you jump to a specific letter on iOS? Well, if you’re really used to it, we instinctively know that you just have to put your finger on the right of the screen, and swipe it up or down. Well, do the same on Ecoute and letters will magically appear on the screen:

For the story, we decided to hide the letters because we think it’s too much distracting. Also, setting those letters to be always visible on the screen requires to move every covers to the left in order to have enough width available for the alphabet.

IV - And finally, let’s talk about the best thing we ever crafted for Ecoute: the player bar.

It has many features into it, you can play/pause the track, share it,.. aaaaaaaaaand :

• Change the current playback time
• Change shuffle mode
• Change repeat mode
• Display the player view
• Jump to the Artist / Album of now playing item (v1.1.1 minimum)
• Display every songs from the same album as the now playing item (when in player view)

So, how do we do that ?
Well, if you want to change the playback time, shuffle and repeat modes, just touch the player bar.

Jumping to the Artist or Album is as easy as a long pressure on the bar:

If you want to bring back the player view mode, just like in the default Music app, just swipe the player bar up with your finger.. and down if you want to get back to your library.

That’s it for the tricks. This article will be updated quite soon.
Thanks for your support.

Louka Desroziers & Julien Sagot 

Dear users,

I decided to unveil some awesome features coming into Ecoute for Mac OS and iOS.
Let’s get started with Ecoute for iOS.

Ecoute for iOS

What is coming to your mind when you ear that Ecoute will be ported to iOS? Why?
Well, I always use my iPhone when I take my car (means: everyday), so I’m using the iPod app a lot. This app is nice, simple, but it’s missing some features, and the UI became boring whereas every cool iOS apps have their UI Identity.
Ecoute for iOS is going to change the way you listen to your music using your iOS device.
It has a nice User Interface, displaying your artists/albums/playlists on a wooden shelf. BUT WHY THE HELL DID YOU CHOOSE A WOODEN SHELF UI???
Two reasons: firstly, I like wood. Secondly, the shelf-like UI allows us to put artworks. When you quickly scroll through your list of albums, you don’t have to time to read albums’ names, but when you see images, you can recognize them quickly. Every time I need to use the iPod app while driving, I have to read titles… Now, I’m using Ecoute for iOS while driving, and I just need to do a quick look on my iPhone to select the artist or album I want to listen to.

I also wanted to add some cool social features into Ecoute for iOS (share using Twitter/Facebook and also last.fm), and some other features like play next, queue re-ordering, and so on.

Ecoute for Mac OS version 2.1

Ecoute for Mac OS is nice, but Lion is coming and Ecoute must change.
We are going to Lion-ish Ecoute for the next version, and we will add the support of fullscreen for Lion and also a queue re-ordering feature.
No major changes.. but it will change everything again anyway

Now, what could we do with Ecoute for both Mac OS and iOS?
iCloud is the answer.

Apple has introduced iCloud. It’s free, and powerful, but requires OS X Lion and/or iOS 5.
Ecoute for Mac OS and iOS will sync their current playlist together using iCloud. What’s the goal? Well, let’s imagine you are at home, listening to some music using Ecoute for Mac OS. You have to leave your house, but you want to keep listening to your music.. damn, you’re loosing your time because you have to launch the iPod app from your iOS device, and select what you were listening to.. but even the playing queue may not be same as the one you had on your Mac.
Ecoute will then synchronize your playing queue, and once you’ll launch Ecoute for iOS, the playing queue will be restored on it. Magical.

Ecoute for OS X 2.1 should be released during this summer, and Ecoute for iOS should be released with iOS 5.

Stay tuned.
Louka Desroziers.

Dear readers,

Today, Apple announced iOS 5. It has great new features and I’m already loving it.
I took a look into the newest API for all the music stuff, and find some things very useful that I may use for Ecoute iOS.
That’s why I decided to re-shedule the release of Ecoute for iOS.

But don’t worry, it’s because I want it to be perfect! What I can say is that it will be independent to the iPod player, and will add some awesome features like “play next” and “queue re-ordering”

Stay tuned for this fall.
Louka Desroziers.

Dear users,

I played a lot with the iPod Player and AVPlayer APIs.

(Un)Fortunately, the best choice seems to be the AVPlayer one.

Here’s the updated list of Advantages / Disadvantages of each player.

AVPlayer

1. Ecoute’s icon replaces the iPod’s icon in the audio multitask bar
2. Possibility to implement a ‘play next’ feature
3. Possibility to implement a ‘shake to shuffle’ feature
4. Possibility to manipulate the current playing queue
5. If there’s any bug with the Player, I can fix it

• Disadvantages

1. The audio multitask bar does not display the current playing track name
2. Tracks metadata such as played count and  last played date won’t be synced with the iPod app (and thus won’t be synchronized with iTunes)

iPod Player

• Advantages

1. The current playing track name is displayed in the audio multitask bar
2. Tracks metadata (play count, last played date) are synced with the iPod, and thus with iTunes.
3. What is currently playing in Ecoute also displays as playing in the iPod app

• Disadvantages

1. Ecoute’s icon won’t be displayed in the audio multitask bar (the iPod app icon will be used instead)
2. The ‘play next’ feature won’t be implemented into Ecoute…
3. … as well as the ‘shake to shuffle’ feature
4. If there’s any bug with the iPod player API (and there’s already a lot of bugs with it..), I won’t be able to fix it and we’ll have to wait for an iOS update.

The vote results have been reset. You can vote again below, but I doubt that the iPod player will be used due to the lack of features and the quantity of bugs.

If you’d like to vote for the iPod Player, please drop a comment.

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Dear users,

I chose not to support Mac OS X Leopard anymore since Ecoute v2.0.7.
The main reason is that it’s kind difficult to support both Leopard and Snow Leopard (And the upcoming Lion) in just one app. There’s so many differences between Leopard and Snow Leopard behaviors, especially with drawing stuff.

I also plan to add many features in Ecoute 2.1 (especially a fullscreen mode for Lion), and that would be a nightmare to support both Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion.

Hope 10.5 users will understand my point of view. But do not worry, the latest version compatible with Leopard is still there : http://www.pixiapps.com/ecoute/Ecoute_2.0.6.zip

At the same time, I removed the ability to buy the app from Paypal. You can still download the trial version, and purchase it using Paypal after the 15 days-trial, but you won’t be able to do it directly from our website. The Mac App Store should progressively be our main selling point.

I brought back the ability to purchase a license from Paypal, independently to the Mac App Store. The ability to purchase a license from Paypal should be restored later today.

Edit: I just want to clarify the situation about Mac OS X Leopard support dropped. As some of you may already know, I’m not working on PixiApps’ projects everyday. I’ve got a full-time work (iOS Engineer ; not @ PixiApps), family, friends…

I’m doing my best for PixiApps: I sometimes work very late on our projects once I’m back home.

Sincerely yours,

Louka Desroziers