I have released Podrunner: Shift, an iPhone/iTouch app for my Podrunner podcast, which means I have joined the iNation of Appistan, an e-country with a clearly liberal immigration policy.
Podrunner: Shift lets Podrunner listeners change the speed of any Podrunner workout mix to whatever BPM they want, plus or minus 50% of the original BPM — opening up the entire Podrunner catalog to people who want more mixes at their own speed, and putting the mixes into the range of those whose workouts were previously outside of Podrunner’s offerings (e.g., slower walkers, speed runners, bicyclists, spinners, etc.).
Since Podrunner mixes are available from 130 to 180 BPM, Podrunner: Shift gives an effective range of 65 to 270 BPM — yikes.
Podrunner: Shift also has an “Intro Skip” button that lets listeners bypass the two-minute intro and go straight into the mix.
The free version is a self-contained manager for Podrunner listeners, letting users search, sort, download, & play Podrunner mixes directly, without any need to sync via iTunes.
Producing an app was an educational experience. Design- and function-wise it isn’t that huge a deal — except for the core function of beatshifting on the fly, which is pushing right at the limits of what the CPU of these phones can do (and that it can do it at all is amazing). That took forever.
The whole process has got me thinking about interesting ways I can implement apps as a writer. I got some ideas, I tell ya.