JRT Studio

Tablet Interface in Rocket Player

2013-05-23T12:36:00.002-07:00

According to Google in its Android Developers Blog post in April this year, tablet optimization is growing quickly and the opportunities for developers to design specifically for tablets has never been better!

With these things in mind JRT Studio is proud to announce its first phase of tablet optimization in Rocket Player!

Rocket Players initial tablet optimization focus's on showing you songs without a modal dialog.

We would love to hear what you think of the initial tablet optimization, please drop us an email at MusicPlayer@JRTStudio or on Twitter and Facebook.

Rocket Player 2.1 - New Themes, New Features

2013-05-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

Rocket Player 2.1 now has three new free themes to go along with its growing list of free features!

The new themes focus on the primary colors already released in the Play Store (Red, Blue, Purple) but with a flat black theme!

Themes

Holo Blue

Dark Red

Dark Purple

These themes are already available the Play Store and will be coming to the Amazon Appstore soon.

Holo Blue
Dark Red
Dark Purple

Features

Rocket Player 2.1 also brings us lyrics support for embedded lyrics as well as lock screen options return!

Embedded Lyrics

Lock Screen options (Return)

We decided to bring back lock screen options based upon the response we received via email and reviews from listeners and supporters from our 2.0 release.

We hope our listeners enjoy these new themes and features in Rocket Music Player.

Keep rocking with Rocket Player!

Rocket Player 2.0 Released!

2013-05-04T09:17:00.002-07:00

Rocket Player 2.0 now available on Google Play! The new version features:

Personalize Rocket Player with purple, blue and chrome downloadable themes
Flip through your tracks faster than ever with new album art gesture support
Shuffle smarter with a new algorithm
Add a playlist to another playlist to save time
Save the “Now Playing” playlist as a new playlist to keep permanently
Customize your lock screen with the new lock screen widget (4.2+)

We have not forgotten our Amazon Appstore listeners and supporters.

Rocket Player 2.0 is not yet available in the Amazon Appstore. Amazon is currently reviewing the update and the new theme apps.

Lastly, for our Google Play users, we apologize for the constant app updating. However, we are committed to fixing all of the issues we can. Thanks to all those that have contacted us with different crashes and issues.

Rocket Player 2.0 Is Now In Beta

2013-04-22T13:15:00.001-07:00

Today we are releasing Rocket Player 2.0, our free android music player, to the public via the XDA forums. At this time, Rocket Player 2.0 is still a beta product, but we'd love your help in testing it. In return, you will get early access to our rockin' new features such as the purple and blue themes, gesture support and more.

For a full list of the new features and to help us test the beta, please go to the XDA forum page.

Google Keep Is Tabled Optimized.

2013-04-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

I find this a little humorous and a little maddening. Neither of my Android apps, Rocket Player or iSyncr have ever been featured in the Music & Audio section of the Play Store, despite being top 15 paid applications. When I was at Google I/O last year, I asked for feedback and was excited that wheels started turning at Google. Unfortunately, I was told that iSyncr needs a tablet optimized interface to be considered for getting featured. Fair enough, I thought. Then I see Google featuring their own app, Keep. Doesn't it look optimized to you?

Am I whining a little bit here? Sure. Is Google being fair here? No way.

-Justin

Fix it February

2013-02-18T09:35:00.000-08:00

Rather than put off our Spring cleaning until Spring, February has been declared as "Fix it February" here at JRT Studio.

Check out the recent updates to JRT Studio applications.

iSyncr for PC (4.0.6)

iSyncr for Mac (4.0.6)

iSyncr Desktop (PC - 4.0.9)(Mac - 4.0.5)

Rocket Player (1.7.1)

Rocket Player Unlocker (1.0.3)

For those of you keeping score out there that's (8) new versions released from JRT Studio in a little over a month and a half aimed at improving customer experience and of course providing the features our supporters have requested!

NEW Feature: Rocket Player Search Support (1.6.0)

NEW Feature: Rocket Player Folder support (1.7.0)

Got an issue with a JRT Studio application or a feature that you'd like to see? Send us your wish list!

We've already heard from several of you, but we want to hear from everyone who has been syncing, listening and supporting us! Please reach out to us on these social platforms, or please drop us a correspondence via email.

Cheers!

Rocket Player Missing In Play Store

2013-02-05T17:10:00.000-08:00

Update 2/12/2013: After updating Rocket Player to 1.7.1 today, it seems the Play Store is allowing tablets to install Rocket Player once again. I have no idea why and still have no reason from the Play Store team.

Update 2/6/2013: The Play Store team got back to me, and said "Our records indicate that your app is currently published on Google Play at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jrtstudio.AnotherMusicPlayer If you're still having trouble, please let us know and we'll be happy to assist you further." Obviously, they have yet to read an actual sentence of my email explaining that Rocket Player has suddenly stop showing up as available for tablets. Hopefully the canned responses will end soon and they will begin looking into the issue.

2/5/2013: Rocket Player is not showing up in the Play Store for tablets at this time. I am convinced the issue is on Google's side. I didn't update any filtering parameters for Rocket Player during this update. I have contacted Google about this issue on 2/5/2013. I'll update this post when they fix the issue so that everyone can enjoy this update.

The better news is.... Rocket Player got an awesome update to version 1.7.0 today. This update adds two great features. Feature one is a folder view. You have been asking for folder view. So I added it. As this feature is brand new, I want to hear back from you about what you think of it. The second new feature is the ability to select which folders Rocket Player will scan for new music. While the defaults should do you justice, it is no longer a deal breaker if they don't! Just update Rocket Player to scan where you store your music.

Cheers!

Justin

The Rise of Android

2013-01-05T14:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.mbaonline.com/

iSyncr Featured on BBC Click

2012-12-15T13:41:00.000-08:00

The BBC program Click, a tech program about how digital technology affects our lives around the world, released a glowing review of iSyncr.

"It couldn't be easier to manage your music through whichever Android player you favor. . . It just works."

Kate Russell, points out that iTunes does not cooperate outside of its Apple platform. However iSyncr allows iTunes to be unlocked and accessed on the Android platform over USB or WiFi.

There are other applications that may seem to be just as easy as iSyncr, but as Kate points out:

"The beauty of this app is that you do not need to go through the pain of transferring your music, movies and podcasts over to another music management platform . . . Automatically, with zero drama or complication, which is just how it should be when it comes to listening to your music."

We could hardly agree more Kate!

Take a look at the full Webscape segment with Kate

Google Now Degrades Android To Sell Music

2012-12-13T09:05:00.000-08:00

Android was only 2-5% of smart phone sales back when I first wrote an app. Back then, I fell in love with Android's openness. If one of the shipping apps had a bug, no problem! Just download the source code for the app and fix it. Andy Rubin, the father of Android, went so far as to call Android "the definition of open" on Twitter.

But this openness is dying. The web browser app you used to be able to view the source code for? It's now Google Chrome. You can't have the source code. The "Music" app has become Google Music. Want the source code? Google says, "no." Can third party music players stream music? Google says, "no, music bought from the Play Store needs Google Music." The 50+ music players that already exist have to compete with this built-in competitive advantage. In the same store, no less.

Google close sourcing most apps that ship with Android is one thing. Google keeping its streaming service to itself is another. Google Now takes it to a whole new level.

Here are the steps to use Google Now to play something in Google Music.

1.) Type a song name
2.) Press on the song

Here are the steps for all 50+ aftermarket music players, including a top 10 paid app.

1.) Scroll to the bottom of Google Now
2.) Press the three vertical dots
3.) Press "Settings"
4.) Press "Phone search"
5.) Select that you want to see results from the app and uncheck Google Music
6.) Back all the way out to the original search screen
7.) Search for the song on the whole world wide web
8.) Scroll all the way to the right of the bottom bar
9.) Select "Phone"
10.) Select the song to play

Want more proof they are lowering Android's integrity in Google Now? Just do a voice search and say "What's this song". While I have SoundHound and Shazam installed on my Nexus 4, Google Now only uses Google Music to match the song and show me an ad. It doesn't bother to ask which app I'd prefer.

This is not Android's style. This goes against everything Google preaches. The Android way is interoperability for customization and choice.

I guess I was fooled. For a couple of years, Android was fair and open. Now only the bare bones operating system is open. And if your app's market cap is big enough, Google is going compete with you and win by pushing your app to the bottom. In the old days, I would go submit a patch to the "QuickSearchBox" app that ships on Android, but guess what? That's gone closed source too. It is now called "Google Now" and it is Android now.

Unable to Download from Google Play

2012-12-11T09:40:00.001-08:00

Update: 12/12/2012 : Google Play Store has contacted us to let us know the problem should be resolved now.

This morning, December 11, 2012, we have received numerous complaints from Google Play customers being unable to download JRT Studio applications, some receive an "Error 941", others simply pay for an app, but it never downloads to their device.

Fixing "Error 941"
If you are seeing the error message "Error 941" Try the following to resolve:

1. Try clearing cache and data in the Play Store app. Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> All

2. If that does not work uninstall the Play Store update and try to update again.

Fixing "App Not Downloading With No Error"
If you are not receiving an error, but the app is still not downloading, please try using one of the following links to re-download the app. We have a confirmed case where this worked.
iSyncr for PC
iSyncr for Mac
Rocket Player Unlocker

If you do have a purchase that shows up multiple times on your Play Store bill, contact us at iSyncr@JRTStudio.com and we will work to issue you a refund of the additional purchases. In the cases we've checked this morning, the Play Store automatically canceled all second attempts at purchases the app.

iTunes 11 Support

2012-11-30T07:05:00.000-08:00

You've spoken up, and what did you say? You want to know iSyncr works with iTunes 11 before you upgrade from iTunes 10. After a day of running iSyncr/iTunes 11, Chris and I are not seeing any issues! Well done Apple!

On an aside, I really like iTunes 11. However, I've spent time scratching my head trying to figure out how to do some things in the new version. The great news is that I have eventually gotten there, so feel free to email us with any questions like "How do I add a podcast to a playlist in iTunes 11?".

If we do end up seeing an issue with iTunes 11, I'll post that information here.

-Justin

Galaxy S3 Jelly Bean Update

2012-11-21T12:16:00.001-08:00

Updated 1/4/13 with our latest information.

Hi All,

My Samsung Galaxy S3 has been updated to Jelly Bean. Obviously, I went straight to testing our apps with this update. While I immediately saw that our awesome big notification for Rocket Player works, I've run into some issues with MTP.

Every time I attempt to use MTP to transfer files with iSyncr, Samsung's MTP application force closes. I see this force close when using my phone with Windows or Mac. Once I click "OK" on the force close, I won't be bothered with another force close, but Samsung's MTP isn't working.

Here are the facts we have as of 1/4/2013.

Samsung's MTP application is crashing, if you've ever used iSyncr's Live Lists.
iSyncr 4.0.4 will work around this issue. Just update to 4.0.4 then reboot your Samsung device and Samsung's MTP application should stop crashing.

Email me (Justin@jrtstudio.com) if iSyncr 4.0.4 does not fix the issue.

Thanks,

Justin

The Hits Keep on Coming, Rocket Player 1.3 Released!

2012-11-09T15:24:00.000-08:00

Our recent release of Rocket Player brings several great features. We are so thrilled about it we are also doing an unlocker giveaway in this blog post! Our latest and greatest features include:

Enhanced Genre Support

Supported Audio Formats

Tag Editing

Album Compilations

x86 Intel supported Androids

Enhanced Genre Support

Rocket Player now supports genres outside of the supported Android genres. If you have a whacky genre like "Light Switch Rave"or a non-generic genre like "Vocal Concerted Music", these will now be displayed accurately in Rocket Player's genre tab. If you do see an unknown genre, simply edit the genre tag.

Supported Audio Formats

Rocket Player is now able to support audio formats outside of the Android supported formats. These formats include:

APE (ape)

Musepack (mpc)

Free Lossless Audio Codec (flac)

True Audio (tta)

Waveform Audio File (wav)

Windows Media Audio Non-Lossless (wma)

These audio formats are only available to Rocket Player Unlocker users.

The first 3 people to retweet this blog post with #RocketPlayerRocks will receive an unlock code, to be able to use these new audio formats.

Tag Editing

Tag editing has been on our feature request list for a long time and is now available to everyone. With tag editing, edit a song title, artist, album, even track numbers and years. As mentioned before, "unknown" in tags can be edited to display the correct or desired information in your media.

Artist Compilations

Additionally, a feature that all of our listeners can now enjoy is artist compilations. Album compilations is a sorting feature that will now display
albums in the order they were released by the artist.

x86 Intel Supported Android

Rocket Player is now ready to support of x86 intel based processors for Android devices. This does not affect many devices yet, since ARM processors are still dominant; never the less, x86 processors in Android devices are coming to a store near you.

We also want to thank our Rocket Player beta testers who will be mentioned in a separate blog post. Without our beta testers this release and subsequent hotfix would have taken much longer! Find out how you can be a beta tester.

Follow @JRTStudio

Memory Syncing by iSyncr!

2012-11-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

iSyncr for photo/video syncing

If you have been following our blog you know that several weeks ago Justin and I attended ACL here in Austin, TX. This was a great experience for JRT Studio as we got to be around music lovers and listen to some talented musicians! This was one of the reasons that JRT Studio relocated to Austin, several months ago.

These photos and video are now stored in multiple locations

After the music festival was over, we were left with videos, pictures and sore muscles! Once our soreness subsided, we wanted to post our photo's and video's on our favorite social media sites like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook for our friends and family to view to keep track of what is happening in our lives and to keep these memories safe on our home computers.

How did we do it?

It's a little known fact that WiFi allows you to quickly and easily sync photo's and video's taken on your Android device to your computer. Simply by toggling a setting in "Reverse Policies" called "Upload New Photos" you can bring those memories into your own virtual photo album or store them on your computer. It does not get any simpler!

Sync your memories captured on Android to your PC or Mac with iSyncr.
http://www.jrtstudio.com/iSyncr

Toss us a Tweet or Like!

Help Justin Roll Out a New Rocket Player

2012-10-26T13:11:00.000-07:00

Justin is currently creating a new build for Rocket Player v1.3, but we need your help by testing our latest beta. We only have so many devices to test on (below).

If you believe that this is a lot of devices, well, you'd be right! But compared to the growing list of devices as reported by open signal in May of 2012, it is just a small fraction of the available devices.

What's in it for you?
Besides our eternal gratitude, you get a chance to preview some of the newest features that we are bringing to Rocket Player. With this release we are working on creating our very own media scanner to help resolve issues that individual devices' media scanners cannot handle!

Email us at MusicPlayer@JRTStudio.com or sign up using this form below and we will send you a copy of the beta build.

http://jrtstudio.us5.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=80fb89dbf83deb395fc6ccd9a

iSyncr Sale on Amazon

2012-10-23T12:57:00.000-07:00

Hopefully you have already seen our tweets that iSyncr is currently still on sale on Amazon.com for $1.99! Amazon is also running a promotion with with the application, purchase iSyncr and receive $1 Off MP3s! There really hasn't been a better time to sync iTunes with Android.

This price promotion dropped Friday, October 19th and was widely reported by LifeHacker as well as Redmondpie and several other blogs which we truly appreciate!

We do want to point out that Amazon product description says that iSyncr for Mac is only compatible with Leopard and Snow Leopard. This also got reported in a couple blogs. But rest assured! iSyncr for Mac also support Lion and Mountain Lion on OS X too!

Toss us a like or a tweet!

Rocket Player 1.2.7 Released!

2012-10-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

Although Justin and I were busy jamming out to at Austin City Limits this past weekend, we still found the time to crank out a new release of Rocket Player 1.2.7!

Feature 1: Audio Focus
(First requested by: Anonymous user who Rocks!)

New in "Audio Settings" is a feature called "Audio Focus" that allows users to select how Rocket Player operates when another application is attempting to take audio focus from Rocket Player. Settings like "Pause on Phone Call," and "Pause on Focus Lost" allows users to automatically pause Rocket Player when a phone call comes in or another application takes control of the audio focus.

You can also adjust how Rocket Player performs when notifications from other applications come in. Toggle the setting "Ignore Other Apps" to allow Rocket Player to play regardless of other applications notifications. Additionally, the "Temp Focus" setting will allow you to "Duck" or "Pause" the player when important notifications come in like an email, text, or a message from a navigation app.

Feature 2: Keep Notification
(First requested by: hansen.wong and alex.a.vasilescu)

We decided to give you the option of allowing Rocket Player notifications to be toggled on or off. Toggle this setting "off" and you can now pause and exit Rocket Player. Toggle the setting "on" to keep Rocket Player active even if paused and press the power button on the notification to exit from the player.

Feature 3: Support Volume Controls
(First requested by: clintonf)

This feature is designed specifically those who were struggling to change the volume using their headsets. Previously pressing the volume up/down on your headset would act the same as a button press (Pause/Pause, Next, Previous), now these volume controls can be used as they were intended, to change the volume!

Feature 4: Translation

Our final addition to 1.2.7 was translation work done by Rotem Maya! Rotem went to work translating Rocket Player into Hebrew for us and was a great help. You can help us by translating Rocket Player into your own language at http://www.getlocalization.com/JRTStudio/

Improving customer experience is vitally important to what we do here at JRT Studio. Please contact us at MusicPlayer@jrtstudio.com with your thoughts and opinions on the update.

Toss us a like or a tweet!

iSyncr 4.0.2 Released!

2012-10-09T17:38:00.000-07:00

Happy Belated Columbus Day!

Yesterday October 8th, we released iSyncr 4.0.2! Unlike Columbus traveling for 70 days until he sighted what he thought was Asia, we have released 2 updates for iSyncr in just 20 days!

This version of iSyncr has several bug fixes and a feature enhancement:

Issues with playcounts not functioning on PowerAMP
License looping messages in some scenarios
Uploading Amazon MP3s over WiFi is now fixed

The enhancement we brought back from iSyncr WiFi, is Tasker support. Follow this tutorial for syncing with Tasker!

Get the latest version from Google Play.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jrtstudio.iSyncr4Mac

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jrtstudio.iSyncr

Samsung Galaxy Music Devices Leaked

2012-09-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

According to telekom-presse, and now being reported by a number of other media outlets such as techradar and CNET, Samsung will introduce two lower tiered smart phones on October 11 in Frankfurt that focus on music. And since we are all about the Android music experience around here, we wanted to keep you guys in the loop.

These devices are aimed primarily at audio consumers who want a better audio experience out of their smart phone without throwing down an extra bundle of cash. These are low end devices but what makes them special is dual front facing speakers.

I can see it now... use Rocket Player equalizer to set up the perfect sound and then blast it with the speakers on these new phones. Now you can start a dance party anywhere!

Oh and also cool: the news, coming out of Germany, coincides with Rocket Player being translated into German all sourced by our awesome German speaking users!

Want to help us with the German translation or another translation? Head on over to http://www.getlocalization.com/JRTStudio

Thank You to Our Beta Testers

2012-09-24T08:01:00.000-07:00

It's not quite turkey time, but we are very thankful for all of our beta testers!

Some of the testers of iSyncr 4.0 were:

Karl von Muller

Justin Williams

Mark Derricutt

Dan McMillian

Otto Kottler

Joshua Lee

James Dawson

David McDanal

Andrew Young

Brian Hartsfield

Ryan Marx

John Gardner

Noah Stahl

Clinton Fernandes

Augusto Paes de Barros

Dirk Melchers

Jim Barrington

Dayvid Jones

and many more.

Thanks to these beta testers and their feedback, we were able to smoothly rollout iSyncr 4.0 and release a hot fix iSyncr 4.0.1 in one day, fixing manual connections and faster WiFi performance.

Join up today!

We want to give you the opportunity to be a beta tester next time! We are gearing up for future beta tests with our products Rocket Music Player as well as iSyncr. If you would like to test the latest and greatest and be the first to see our new features, please sign up with us using the links below!

Sign up to be an iSyncr beta tester

iSyncr 4.0 Is Big, Bad and On the Loose!

2012-09-18T14:13:00.001-07:00

What is iSyncr 4.0?
iSyncr 4.0 is my latest revision of our popular Android <-> iTunes syncing application.

What changed with 4.0?
First and foremost, iSyncr 4.0 combines USB and WiFi into one easy to use application. Secondly, iSyncr 4.0 includes a refreshing new interface that follows the latest Android guidelines. Lastly, iSyncr 4.0 includes numerous bug fixes and improvements.

Why the new update?
The reason for this update is largely because we believe this will give our new and existing users a much better syncing experience. Syncing over USB and WiFi allows those who have a large iTunes library the speed to update over USB and those who want to make incremental changes to the library sync easily and quickly over WiFi.

Won't combining iSyncr and iSyncr WiFi take up more space on my Android device?
Not really, in fact, iSyncr 4.0 saves space on your Android device if you used iSyncr WiFi Add-On before.

What are some of the other new features?

Slicker ICS notifications when WiFi syncing. I think we've found a good balance between being informative and annoying with this update.
You can now view a WiFi Sync Log, to see exactly what happened during your last sync. Great for finding out what happened while you were doing something more fun then syncing!
In the settings, you now have the ability to force the Android device to rescan for media. This keeps you from having to download a third party application if your device fails to find new songs.
These new features also come along with WiFi features users have already enjoyed like automatically uploading new photo's and video's from their device and setting a synchronization interval or daily sync time.

How about older devices?

Unfortunately, in order to move forward with our latest design we are no longer supporting Android 1.5, 1.6 and 2.0.

What else?
We haven't made a big deal about it, but we rolled out support for MTP (a USB protocol) over a year ago. At the time, only Android tablets supported MTP. Now most new phones use MTP, so we just want to point out that we support MTP on these new phones and tablets while other syncing solutions lag behind.

Enjoy iSyncr 4.0!

Update to iSyncr 4.0 for PC
Update to iSyncr 4.0 for Mac

Improving customer experience is vitally important to what we do here at JRT Studio. Please contact us at iSyncr@JRTStudio.com with your thoughts and opinions on the update.

Follow @JRTStudio

-Justin

We are looking for iSyncr Beta Testers

2012-09-13T15:32:00.001-07:00

We are looking for beta testers for our new release of iSyncr!

Beta testers will get a first look of what is coming with our upcoming release and help us make a rock solid version.

We have been testing iSyncr, but we always find that our users have different and complex ways to use our program that we simply have not tried and can help us track down some well hidden bugs and quirks.

To receive the beta, email us at iSyncr@jrtstudio.com.

Change is Coming

2012-09-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

Something new is coming...

Stay tuned.

Follow @JRTStudio

Rocket 1.2.6 Released August 17th

2012-08-19T13:06:00.003-07:00

We have just released version 1.2.6 of Rocket Player! Here are the details of the update and some people who helped Justin and Chris with testing, requesting features and finding bugs.

Rocket Player 1.2.6 has updated translations for: Brazilian Portuguese, Korean and German. Big thanks to everyone who contributed using http://www.getlocalization.com/jrtstudio/.

1.2.6 also has an update to for podcasts that were playing slowly. Special thanks to Rajesh Gandhi and Clinton Fernandes for testing and pointing this out.

Widget support for Jelly bean was not displayed properly in using the 4x1 widget. Special thanks to Oliver Diekmann, Richard Harper and Lily Guo who notified us of this error.

Remove Podcasts from the songs tab a feature request from Domenick Ciccotto, and others.

Thanks to everyone who helped us create a better product!

1.2.5 Podcasts were displayed as songs.

1.2.6 Podcasts are now no longer displayed.