Multilingual iPhone App with Audio - iphone

I'm currently developing an ios app with a lot of audio. I want to release versions in different languages but this means having all the audio in every language, which would take up too much space.
Is there a way to release different versions of the app to the different app stores, including only the relevant audio? Can this be done under one app name/id?
Thanks!

I believe that the short answer is 'no', but there are work arounds.
Each app id has one binary associated with it, although you can change the app name by localisation.
Audio is a resource, so there is no reason not to download it separately from a web server under your control. I don't believe there is any restriction on downloading media.
Alternatively, you can store the audio on Apple's servers and call it downloadable content for a freebie in app purchase.

I think you should use webservices to get the audio files from the server and get the relevant file from the server so this may help you to achieve only the relevant data in the application.

Related

Sencha Touch and Saving Local Media

Does anyone know if it is possible to save media from the internet on the local device using Sencha Touch? From what I've seen so far, I understand it's definitely possible to save XML or JSON data locally on the device, but I have had no luck finding ways to store media locally.
To be more specific, I am looking to program an app that provides the user with a series of audio seminars - like podcasts, really. The user would be able to stream those audio files directly from the internet, but I also need to provide the user with the ability to save an episode/seminar for later. This will be important for when a user is traveling and does not have a reliable internet connection or data plan.
The primary delivery device would be on iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) and I would hope to be able to use the same technology on Android devices - but that would be a secondary phase.
If this is possible, how would I go about saving material? And what, if any, would be the limitations on doing so? Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
I have done something similar using Sencha Touch 1 and PhoneGap to produce a hybrid app.
Basically, I use Sencha Touch to download the JSON, etc and LocalStorage to hold the data. Downloading media/files/etc to the actual device is not supported in Sencha Touch as the framework doesn't have access to a file system.
I then use PhoneGap's API's to tap into the device's native file system and download files to the app's Documents directory and pass the file names/paths to Sencha Touch for use in the app.
I'm assuming you are looking to create a hybrid app based on your question but if this is strictly a web app then there isn't much you can do.
TO add to the above point, you possibly could base64 encode the file and store it within LocalStorage but this isn't a sustainable model as LocalStorage only gives you 5mb of space. If you go over 5mb, the user is prompted (yes, no) to allow LocalStorage to use more space (in 5mb increments). Since the files your reference have the potential to be 5mb each, you can see how this could quickly become unmanageable for both you and the user.
EDIT:
See http://phonegap.com/ for the native wrapper
http://blog.clearlyinnovative.com/post/2056122828/phonegap-plugin-for-downloading-url-all-the-code for the phonegap download plugin
and https://github.com/aaronksaunders/FileDownLoadApp for the code
Check this website out. Scroll down to storing data offline. They discuss Sencha Touch provides a set of data store and proxy classes that make it very easy to work with data from (and going to) a variety of sources - both server- and client-side... hope this helped, cheers.

Making ringtone of music files on Iphone

Is it possible to edit music files stored on iphone in app and create ringtone from them?
Any help would be appreciated.
If I understand correctly, you want to extract the music from an existing iPhone app, and then turn that music from the app into a ring tone?
The short answer is no, not if you keep your iDevice up to date and within apple's licensed operating paradigm.
The longer answer is maybe. If you jailbreak the device, you may be able to hack access to the application and extract the desired data.
If I don't understand correctly, and you're just looking to change any old mp3 into an iPhone ringtone, try googling for iPhone ringtone hacks. Of course your mileage may vary but google is again your friend.
Sorry to not provide any code. This question didn't seem to warrant it.
No, for a number of reasons. The SDK doesn't give you access to the actual file data from the music library (just an object that will play music back for you), and while you can probably export an M4A file, with an "m4r" extension that iTunes will recognize as a ringtone, you'll have to get the user to take the file off their device and import it into iTunes manually for it to be usable as an actual ringtone on their phone.

iPhone SDK: Is it possible to process audio file from local library

Well, I will try best not to make it as a 'I just want the code' question...
I'm recently working on a project which requires some audio signal processing from local music files (e.g. iTunes Library). The whole work includes:
Get the PCM data of an audio file (normally from iTunes library); <--AudioQueue (?)
Write the PCM data to a new file (it seems that Apple does not allow direct modification on music tracks); <--CoreAudio(?)
Do some processing and modification, like filters, manipulators, etc. <-- Will be developed in C++
Play the processed track. <--RemoteIO
The problem is, after going through some blogs and discussions:
http://lists.apple.com/archives/coreaudio-api/2009/Aug/msg00100.html, http://atastypixel.com/blog/using-remoteio-audio-unit/
http://osdir.com/ml/coreaudio-api/2009-08/msg00093.html
as well as the official sample codes, I got a feeling that the CoreAudio SDK allow us to apply audio processing only on voice demos recorded from Mic.
My question is that:
Can I get raw data from iTunes library tracks instead of Mic input?
If the first question is 'No', is there a way to 'fool' the SDK to let it think it is getting data from Mic input, not from iTunes? (I have done some similar 'hacking' stuff in C# before XD)
If the whole processing just doesn't work, can anyone provide some alternative ideas?
Any help will be appreciated. Thank you very much :-)
Thanks.
Just found something really cool yesterday.
From iPhone Media Library to PCM Samples in Dozens of Confounding, Potentially Lossy Steps
(http://www.subfurther.com/blog/?p=1103
And also a class library by MIT:
TSLibraryImport: Objective-C class + sample code for importing files from user's iPod Library in iOS4.
(http://bitbucket.org/artgillespie/tslibraryimport/changeset/a81838f8c78a
Hope they help!
Cheers,
Manca
1) No. Apple does not allow direct access to PCM data of songs. Otherwise you could create music-sharing apps, which is not in Apple's interests.
2) No. Hacking and getting approved is impossible due to Apple's code approval mechanism.
3) The only alternative I could think of is that you have to do the processing part on PC/Mac and then transfer it to the iPhone. Or you would have to store the files in your own applications folder - you should be able to load and process these via CoreAudio.
I know this thread is old but... did this work for you, Manca? And did this app get approved?
EDIT: just discovered the AVAssetReader class, introduced since iOS 4.1, should help

iPhone MP3 Streaming alternative to Segmenting

I have run into a bit of a problem. I built an iPhone app that streams my podcasts via the MPMoviePlayerController. Apple will not approve it because it can use too much bandwidth over the Carrier Network. So their workaround is to use a Stream Segmenter. I am unable to install a stream segmenter on my server. Are their ANY other solutions people have come up with that can help me stream my podcast to iPhone devices? Even if I have to make it a Web Application as opposed to a native application.
Thanks,
John
You could use a simple service like Encoding.com to create iphone segmented ondemand versions of your files for multi bitrate adaptive playback. You could also provide a high and low quality and only display the high when the reachability class shows that your using wifi. I had to do the second option to get one of my apps to pass approval. Hope this helps!
Well if you don't want a native app, I think you can just put a video link on a webpage and when the user clicks it Quicktime will take over and play the file. It will play the file as it downloads it.
I don't have any experience streaming large files over the iPhone, so I can't help guide you on alternatives and keeping it a native app.

Newbie wants to create a PDF reader for ipod touch - what's the best approach?

I want to make a small app that displays a PDF, presenting zoom-able single pages with a previous-next page function.
The Core Graphics API is pretty much the same in Cocoa and Cocoa touch. Read up on CGPDFDocument, it should provide you with everything you will need to render PDF pages. You won't need to read the PDF spec or use a library to parse PDF files directly. You will probably to learn more about Core Graphics / Quartz 2D / etc. to understand how to use those functions inside of a Cocoa app.
Based on the gradually evolving Apple policy of rejecting application submissions that duplicate functionality already on the iPhone I would worry about spending too much time even as a newbie on something that is part of the core iPhone feature-set.
This is pretty trivial. The CGPDFDocument functions will allow you to do anything you'd want to do with a PDF file.
The iPhone and iPod touch can view PDFs already, as one of the TV adverts in the UK shows an email with a .pdf attachment (of swimming lessons) being viewed. It can also view .doc, .xls, and so on, so if he is creating a viewer type application then supporting those as well could be a nice feature addition later on.
This means there is a PDF framework on these devices that you will need to access. Presumably Apple can provide support here if he is a paid up developer. Syncing the PDFs to the device is the actual real difficulty, as this isn't supported by iTunes. I assume that you would need to write a network based synchronisation tool, or have an online cloud for holding people's PDFs.
The device doesn't support Flash, so using PDF to Flash conversion tools will not work.
I found this HTML5 framework that should work on an iPad http://bakerframework.com/
but I didn't test it yet.