This was my first app and recently just overhauled it with a lot of the updates I had been doing to Wave Control. I've gotten great feedback from XDA members on Wave Control, so I'd like to see what you all think of this one.
Update (10/11/2012): Half of proceeds from app sales from October will be donated to Breast Cancer Research
More Info Here
Around Sound allows you to listen to music, watch movies, or play games and still be aware of your surroundings. It's meant for when you're using sound isolating earbuds like Shure or others that are basically earplugs so you have no idea what's going on around you.
It uses the mic on your headset or phone to listen around you. You set how loud a noise needs to be to trigger it. When a loud sound is detected, it pauses your music or movie for a timeout period. During this time, it feeds the outside sound through to your headphones so you can hear what's going on. After the timeout period it then resumes playback.
With games, you can use the non-pause mode which will overlay the outside sounds on top of the current audio. Usually the game audio will lower itself during this time. I would really like for games to support the pause feature. I've reached out to some developers but need everyone's help to request the feature be added to their favorite games.
Play Store Links:
Free Version
Pro Version
Some known issues:
1. Audio lag - when the outside sound is fed through there's about a 500ms delay. It's a known issue with Android. It's rumored to have been fixed in Jelly Bean (or there's some low level API's available to fix it) but I haven't had a chance to play with it yet.
2. Bluetooth Mic Option - Currently only works with mono headsets and not the AD2P kind
Some use cases:
- At the office: pause your music automatically when someone is trying to get your attention
- At home: Don't miss door slams, children crying, your dog barking, or other warning signs
- At the airport: Relax at the gate and have your music or movie pause when the gate announcements start
- Anywhere relatively quiet where you want to know if something happens around you
Permissions Needed:
Network Communications: Full Internet Access (For Ad Supported Version)
Phone Calls: Read Phone status (shuts off the audio processing during calls)
Hardware Controls: Audio Settings, Record Audio (to use the microphone, no audio is ever stored)
Coarse Location(Not GPS): For Ad Supported Version
Write External Storage: For Ad Supported Version
Billing: For in app upgrades
Bluetooth: For Bluetooth mic feature
Broadcast Sticky: For Bluetooth mic feature
Limitations:
-Needs Froyo or Above (Android version 2.2+)
-For Pause Music Mode: You can't be in a really loud environment otherwise the microphone input will be maxed out and there is no way to detect a louder sound. Use Street Mode instead
Coming Soon:
Timeout period Adjustment
Volume control of mic feed during timeout
Developed on a Samsung Galaxy SIII
Wow, very cool and unique app! Thank you! This will be very useful.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
Whoosh13 said:
Wow, very cool and unique app! Thank you! This will be very useful.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
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Glad you like it
Let me know if there are any new features you'd like to see.
This is a great idea but can you get the phones mic to work instead for people without mics on there headset?
SkillfulMmd said:
This is a great idea but can you get the phones mic to work instead for people without mics on there headset?
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It will use whatever the available mic is. If there's only the one on the phone it'll use that one. If there's one of the headset then it'll use that one instead.
I have on todo list to put the option to force use of the phone's mic even if there's one on the headset.
Awesome in tat case ill download it now and have a go
Great idea! Thank you so much!
Throwing out of the window from my flying Ferrari killer S3
I noticed in the app description:
Note: Bluetooth Mic Option (pro or pro features) currently only works with mono headsets and not the AD2P kind
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I assume my headset is the A2DP kind, it's a stereo bluetooth headset. I haven't had much luck with any application being able to use my bluetooth mic. I've tried other headsets but they were all stereo bluetooth. I'm using a nexus 7. Is this a planned upcoming feature? Is there a underlying reason why so few apps (any?) seem to support this?
sark666 said:
I noticed in the app description:
I assume my headset is the A2DP kind, it's a stereo bluetooth headset. I haven't had much luck with any application being able to use my bluetooth mic. I've tried other headsets but they were all stereo bluetooth. I'm using a nexus 7. Is this a planned upcoming feature? Is there a underlying reason why so few apps (any?) seem to support this?
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I'm actually getting mixed feedback. Apparently it does work on some phone/headset combos. The way it behaves seems more like a bug in Android than an issue with headsets. I've heard Bluetooth is one area phone manufacturers sometimes tweak so maybe that's what's going on here. I need to get more data to really be sure.
I'd say give it a shot and see if it does work. Maybe Jelly Bean handle BT better.
MarksThinkTank said:
I'm actually getting mixed feedback. Apparently it does work on some phone/headset combos. The way it behaves seems more like a bug in Android than an issue with headsets. I've heard Bluetooth is one area phone manufacturers sometimes tweak so maybe that's what's going on here. I need to get more data to really be sure.
I'd say give it a shot and see if it does work. Maybe Jelly Bean handle BT better.
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Ok thanks. Hmm, I just installed it but didn't realize it's a pro feature. Not that I wouldn't buy it, but I wanted to use it with a stereo bluetooth headset, and going by so far with my experience with bluetooth recording in general with jellybean (as in nothing working so far with 4 different headsets) so I suspect it probably wouldn't have worked.
I suspect as well it's an android issue.
New Angle
So after un-intentionally (really, I swear!) ignoring my girlfriend while playing a game, I realized... I could use Around Sound with games.
So far the non-pause mode works pretty well with the games I play. I'm reaching out to some other developers to include the ability to pause when asked by Around Sound.
I need people's help to request their favorite game dev's to support auto-pause with Around Sound
Tasker!
New Tasker Support
V2.20 has just been released
-New: Profiles: Save all settings like Target Media Player and trigger level
-Tasker Plugin: Change Profiles, Start and Stop control (Find it in Tasker's Plugin section)
-Bug Fixes and UI Tweaks
Let me know what you guys think
Great work! Really good thinking mate
I spend 80% time in my office on music and this would definitely help :good:
Just installed it. will test for couple of days and go for pro version, Keep on innovating
October Experiment
Been taking a break from development... though not really by choice.
From my dev blog:
I just got home after a 10 day stay in the hospital for an unexpected (but luckily) minor surgery. Medicine and disease have unsurprisingly been on my mind.
I want to contribute to fields that really help people. But, I’m no doctor or medical researcher. I’m an app developer making apps that I hope people find useful but are hardly life changing. So, how to reconcile these things?
To fill the days during my hospital stay, I began to read Walter Isaacson’s excellent Ben Franklin Biography. (Recommended from here) In it, I was inspired by Franklin’s effort to tie private enterprise with the public good. Creating a win/win situation where both benefited.
And so, the idea was born to give away half of the proceeds from my app sales. This month being Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a perfect time to start. For the month of October, 50% of my earnings from the sales of my apps (including in app purchases) will be donated to breast cancer research.
I hope this will start a trend and other developers will do similar offers.
This is an experiment for this month. If it proves successful and I can still afford to eat, then next month can feature a different cause to support.
I’m excited to finally be able to give back more and make app development have a meaningful impact. This truly gives me real motivation to keep innovating and working hard.
Ideas and comments are most welcome,
Mark
Can you guys help me spread the word about this? Maybe we can change the economics of app development and charity.
Hey everyone,
It seems as if track information is not being passed to my Ford Sync system from my Telus Galaxy S3 when using Slacker Radio or any other app. I have also tried JB without luck either which has me concerned that this is not going to be included in the next update (I'm back running ICS after too many bugs with JB)
I use Slacker radio all the time and not having track information on screen is a huge bummer! (Album art would have been nice too).
iPhone seemed to work flawlessy in that regard.
I cannot find any info on anyone putting in a different bluetooth stack that supports AVRCP from third party apps like there was for CM9 for other android phones....anyone have any idea how to get this working?
There are many many games out there that are playable on the new Atom powered tablets. Mafia 1 for instance looks great, probably better than any sandbox game for tablets.
And there are many more, think of diablo 2 for example.
The problem is, we lack the controls without a keyboard and mouse.
What I have in mind is an overlay control set including mapable keys and directional joysticks, like the ones most Android games come with by default.
Does anybody know if such an app exists? If someone were to make one, I'm sure it would sell like hotcakes provided the vast array of legendary titles windows can boas with.
So far all I have found are Comfort on-screen keyboard and hot virtual keyboard. They're quite expensive but I managed to play Need for Speed 5 and carmageddon TDR
What we need is joystick emulation, to be able to aim, even though without auto aiming, gaming on a tablet can be quite tricky.
Someone make a gummy stickonscreen Bluetooth capable dpad and buttons for our win8 tablets
Thankyou
I've been working on something like this.
It's all in .net, so it runs fine on Windows 8 and Windows RT. I still need to get it loading configs up properly (for customization), but I've got all the hard/tricky parts done.
It doesn't seem to like Quake, but it works great with DosBox.
So where do those keys come from? Are they built in dosbox?
Bec07 said:
So where do those keys come from? Are they built in dosbox?
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No, it's a program I made. See http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2142997
UK poster here.
I'd be really interested to hear the experiences of those running the Matepad Pro out of the box without a 'hacked' version of the Google play store running.
Being Google free (ok, almost Google Free) isn't a bad idea in principle - as long as I'm not totally hamstringed by the alternative. Given I've other devices running the full compliment of Google services it may not be a deal breaker.
Plus I'm mainly interested in purchasing it for the M-Pen functionality - I can't afford the more expensive devices that come with a pen - I've had a Samsung S3 + S-Pen and it didn't particularly impress me anyway!
I do have a Huawei M5 and have installed the Huawei app store to get an idea of what to expect - plus I'll do my due diligence but it would still be really useful to hear from someone who uses it without any hacks to get Google working fully.
I have the Matepad Pro WiFi now from July and I think it is outstanding allowing the fact it does not have Google services. I tried all the hacks to date to install them with no success so settled for VMOS virtual machine and find it allows me to use the Google apps I need/use with no problems.
Other than Google I am running Amazon, Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Twitter, Disney and a lot of other apps natively.
Hi everyone,
I want to ditch my first and last Samsung phone because of the obnoxious Galaxy store pushing. Uninstallable, Samsung chosen, system level 3rd party apps that require many permissions, pop-ups asking for constant permissions with a cancel button, but no way to choose "Don't ask again" so repeat ad-nauseam etc etc.
What is the Sony Android experience like?
My last Sony was the era before smartphones so I've really no idea, but am considering getting one soon.
Hi, it's very stock Android experience. Depending on what Xperia you get it comes with few Sony apps (camera, launcher, music, news) that's it.
Good Luck
Sony is premium and its quality of product is amazing , hardware or software you will be amazed
however if you are looking to mirror the phone ( Desktop mode ) then SOny still lagging behind Samsung ( samsung Dex ) which is an amazing way to use your mobile phone as full fledge PC like experience on the go with just a USB C cable needed ( for USB c supported monitors )
however Sony alwasy allows the air mirroring ( mira cast ) so there is a way but for less latency ( gaming ) wired option is much needed which is not available in sony for now.
pintspin said:
if you are looking to mirror the phone
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No, I've completely uninstalled Dex. I don't use anything except for basic features.
I do like to root though so I'm also wondering about that with Sony phones.