Thanks for all of the great feedback on Beta 1. Awaken 3.1 Beta 2 introduces some major UI updates for alarm playback - more to come as well. We also included a built in a crash reporter which can send crash reports directly to us - eliminating the need to copy and paste crash reports in an email.
More features will be slipped in during the beta process but to recap what’s new in 3.1 - here is the current list:
- Built in sounds for alarms - with 6 new sounds.
- Major UI updates for alarm playback (new in Beta 2)
- Launch any file at alarm time.
- Built in crash reporter (new in Beta 2)
- Repeat option added for iTunes alarms.
- Faster performance and less memory use.
- Next/Previous track buttons added to the non-fullscreen alarm display.
- Alarm listing UI updated to display new functionality.
- Album artwork bug fixed.
- Apple Remote support added for the backup alarm.
To download Awaken 3.1 Beta 2 - Click here.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Awaken.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 31st, 2007 at 11:31 pm
very nice release
congrats Jerry !
I was wondering if you could keep the iTunes window hidden (currently it brings it back to front)
January 31st, 2007 at 11:42 pm
I am blown away! This is beautiful! Absolutely Beautiful!!
–3 Requests–
1. Click the album art and it brings up that playing track in iTunes
2. Rate your music within Awaken; hidden star ratings which appear on a mouse-over?
3. Full Screen UI update; I know you can out-sexy frontrow!
Absolutely stunning update though! I can’t wait for the next update! Thanks!
February 1st, 2007 at 3:17 am
Thanks for the great feedback guys.
Sam - in the Awaken preferences, click the iTunes icon - you will see an option for hiding iTunes. Is that what you were looking for?
Georgie-Boy - Rating the music on mouse over sounds like an awesome idea - I’ll see if I can get that in the next beta. About the fullscreen mode - yes, there are update coming for that
I’m not sure about clicking the album art to bring up the track in iTunes. iTunes is already playing the current track… Maybe you can explain this further.
Thanks again!
February 1st, 2007 at 4:41 am
exactly, Jerry ! thanks
February 1st, 2007 at 3:06 pm
–RE Clicking the album art.–
Sorry if I didn’t explain it properly, what I meant was that while I might be scooting about in iTunes doing something else; building playlists or burning a CD or whatever I then loose the place of the playing track if I want to grab it and drag it into a playlist or whatever I might want to do. If I could just click on the album art within Awaken and have it bring up itunes with the currently playing track having already been selected/highlighted it would be a convienient way of pulling it up to do with it what I might want. I kinda expected it to be there and it wasn’t.. just thought it would be a nice little addition? Important though - arrow pointer, not hyperlink finger click cursor on mouseover!
I can’t wait for the next beta! Having the rating would be awesome! And I can’t wait to see a new full screen either!
(that was one long comment! hope it made some sence! lol)
February 1st, 2007 at 6:45 pm
If I read you well you can do that in iTunes by clicking the little arrow in the lighter pane of iTunes where you see the name of the track(on it’s right); it’ll bring you right to the playing track…
As for new features I’d say don’t overdo it… concentrate on perfecting what’s already there; lowering cpu + memory- removing all bugs ; making sure what’s already there is solid as rock and will be ready to port to Leopard; perfecting the interface, loading time, etc… One obvious change I would do is add localisation to make it more “worldly” I, for one, don’t want Awaken to be able to wash dishes, reformat the hard drive or change the oil in my car..
Keep up the good work !
February 1st, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Thanks Dzign - you’re absolutely correct. There have been some far out requests and boiling it down to what is useful to the majority has been the highest priority. I can report that Awaken is Leopard ready. The next Awaken 3.1 beta will have the majority of the UI changes in place along with other performance improvements. Once 3.1 is in final form I am going to be adding support for other languages. Thanks again for your great post!
February 2nd, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I agree with Dzign and I’m glad you do too Jerry
I see you already have been working on bugs, cuz after giving up on Awaken 3.0 because of bugs - that I seemed to be the only one having - these betas are flawless.
Thanks for that…and the new UI is great!
February 4th, 2007 at 11:11 am
It seems that every time I manually play a song in iTunes, the Awaken window jumps to the front of the window order, even though iTunes is still the active application. It’s odd, and a bit annoying. If I hide Awaken, this unhides it. So I’m tempted to just quite out of Awaken. Aside from that, great job, as always.
February 4th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Hi Eric - thanks for the great feedback on that. Awaken jumps to the front right now to ensure that you see your alarm/notes/buttons at alarm time. I’ll correct that so it only jumps to front once and doesn’t try to do it again. Along with that I might add a preference “Keep Awaken at front during alarm playback” - or something like that. Thanks again for the feedback - its the key to getting this to work well for everyone. Beta 3 is almost done right now so this option won’t be in Beta 3 - but expect it in Beta 4 in a day or so.
February 5th, 2007 at 7:20 am
Aha, so it was a feature, not a bug! I can see the logic behind your implementation, and I think your ideas for a solution should work just fine when you have a chance to put them in. Thanks very much.
February 5th, 2007 at 7:52 am
You’re welcome Eric - I hope to have Beta 4 completed by tonight or tomorrow at the latest.