Archive for Software

ASUCI v2 shows the J3/S9/X7 from a new angle

(Warning: If you’re not immune to ear-hemorrhage-inducing pop music, you better turn down the volume on your speakers/headphones before starting the video.)

The Cowon J3 is far from being abandoned by the user interface modding community (and the S9 and X7 benefit from being compatible). Well known Korean UCI designer Asurada presents a teaser video of his newest creation, ASUCI v2.

Using 45 degree tilted interface elements would usually be just a gimmick, but Asurada obviously put a lot of thought into the design and usability of his theme. Next to ergonomic left-handed usage I especially like the increased length of the slider bar, allowing for more precise scrolling in a track. It seems to hit a quite sweet middle ground between a portrait- and a landscape-oriented interface.

[ASUCI v2 official site (Korean) via iAudiophile]

Hacked firmware available for the Samsung R0

It’s a dilemma one encounters with many a portable player: manufacturers design nice hardware, but the accompanying firmwares lack in features and/or usability.  The Samsung R0 is certainly not the player with the worst firmware out there, but Italian hacker Lorenz092 and his co-conspirators thought they could improve the user experience nevertheless.

Choosing the R0 as a modding target is certainly a smart move – the R0 is quite popular, has a nice aluminum housing with lots of tactile buttons, it is inexpensive – and it runs on Linux. Also, in the long run, modding its stock firmware might pave the way for a Rockbox port.

Currently, the modded firmware is at version 2.10 (based on official firmware 1.25). It features improved translations for several languages, removes the – for most people – annoying startup and shutdown sounds, changes the look of the battery status indicator, changes the key press time used for resetting the player, and – biggest of all – implements a Device Rescue Kit (DRK). This DRK feature basically means you can recover the player from being bricked, without having to sent it back to Samsung for fixing. Unbricking the player yourself sure beats paying money and waiting several weeks for it to return, methinks.

In future versions of his custom firmware Lorenz092 wants to implement a CPU downclocking feature, which might effectively double the R0′s battery life. Other planned features are integrating the player’s SD slot with its internal database, tweaking the sleep mode time, and several things more. This is getting very interesting.

Read the forum thread, or jump straight to the post containing the download link.

Cowon D3 Gets Android 2.3 Update

After a long time being held back by Android 2.1, the D3 recently got an upgrade to version 2.3, usually referred to as Gingerbread by the cool kids.

It should make the device faster, more responsive, and improve system stability. Of course Cowon also packed in some new functionality (sleep timer, plug-in codec support, search widget, VoIP) and fixed some bugs under the hood.

Proud D3 owners, head on over to Cowon Global to download the update and give your player a serious boost in usability.

Thanks to Copperface for the tip.

PowerAMP Now Plays Gapless and Does Other Stuff, Too

Pink Floyd fans, DJs, audiobook aficionados, and others – rejoice. After Rockbox, PowerAMP now appears to be the second audio player for Android that supports gapless playback. However, results seem to be mixed so far, not all Android devices appear to be truly gapless with PowerAMP yet.

Of course gapless playback isn’t the only update in the current build 369 of PowerAMP. Other highlights include crossfade between tracks, configurable fade in/out, CUE sheet support, tweaks for tag browsing, album art, equalizer settings, and several more. Read the full change log on PowerAMP’s official site.

Thanks to Hirudin for the tip. Via Android Police. Android Market download.

Android Market Hack for the Cowon D3

The moment everyone – well, everyone who owns a D3 – waited for is here: Android Market is working on the Cowon D3. Forum member roebeet posted his full installation instructions over at the iAudiophile forums.

It’s not the easiest or most straightforward hack, but anyone should get it working without issues. The hack requires ADB (Android Debug Bridge, from the SDK) and root access (z4root, Superuser) as prerequisites, and some commandline actions. It should be manageable in both Linux and Windows. Since Cowon managed to lock the D3 down properly, this hack will have to be repeated/adjusted for each new firmware version the D3 might get in future.

While it is nice that Cowon employees started posting selected Android apps for download/sideload in our D3 software forum, it sure feels right to cut out the middle man and go for the full, unrestricted Market straight away.

However, there seems to be more to Cowon not supporting Market on the D3 than monetary licensing issues. Unfortunately the D3 runs on a somewhat exotic Telechips processor that isn’t properly supported by many apps available (the ever popular Angry Birds won’t work well on the D3, for example), and it seemingly doesn’t have enough RAM as well. It might have been a bad choice by Cowon to use this processor instead of a well supported, say, TI OMAP… but that’s how it is.

Cowon D3 users now have access to the Market – make the best of it, but don’t be surprised if things don’t work as well as on an Archos tablet or similar.

Update: Cowon representatives posted APKs of alternatives to the official Google Market in our forums: 1MobileMarket, AndAppStore, and Slideme.

Kizune’s Cowon J3/S9 UCIs: Aero Music and Chakra

I’ve whipped up two short videos to showcase what I personally believe to be the most fetching and useful UCIs (user created interfaces) available for the Cowon J3 and S9 (besides Claw’s venerable S9 UCI). Forum member Kizune really has outdone himself with these projects, combining a great visual style with a high level of usability and generally better logic than Cowon’s default interfaces.

Do not adjust your set, these videos are silent. I spare you the yapping, heavy breathing, and other superfluous background noises.  I prefer letting Kizune’s UCIs talk for themselves. Please provide your own music of choice to go with them, and if you have questions about these UCIs, just ask them in the comments below – or, even better, check out the Aero Music and Chakra forum threads.

Videos after the jump – even in 720p when Youtube isn’t clogged.

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Microsoft Releases Zune Sync Client for Mac

After years of waiting, Mac support for Zune has finally arrived.  Dubbed the Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac, this application lets you synchronize your iTunes library with your Windows Phone (as the name implies) or, believe it or not, your Zune HD.  The application has been beta since late October, and you may remember us reporting on how to unofficially set it up via the command line earlier last month.  But the final version (which officially includes support for the Zune HD) has only been out for a few days.

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Rockbox 3.7 is Released

Everyone’s favorite open source replacement firmware for MP3 players got a fresh stable release.  Lots of updated features, bug fixes, and several newly supported players – many SanDisk Sansa models among those – are some of the highlights of this release.

Full release notes and download links can be found on the Rockbox Wiki.

Update: maintenance release 3.7.1 is out.

Read on for the change log.

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Thepot Player Review

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I’ve reviewed a fair bit of music software in the past, but mostly music organizing software for “normal” PCs. Back in the Viliv S5 review I mentioned how there isn’t really any optimized software for playing back music on a Windows run tablet PC/UMPC, and that in most cases you should keep a stylus nearby. The alternatives I did find were resource intensive and were in term unusable.

Turns out I hadn’t looked hard enough, and I recently came across a link to thepot player. I thought it was a joke at first considering the name, but it turns out it’s everything but a joke and a very well hidden piece of software for UMPCs and tablets. I can’t really explain the choice of names, but the company is Korean so it might be that they meant to call it “teapot” or something like that. Either way, here’s a review of a completely drug free media player for tablets with Windows.

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J. River Media Center 14 Review

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About half a year ago I did a series of reviews covering free music software applications, ranging from the free versions of commercial software to software that is free to begin with. My favorite application back then was J. River Music Jukebox, a stripped down free version of J. River Media Center. Since it was in my opinion the best mainstream application out there it’s only fair that I also take a look at the paid version. If the free version is good, the paid version should be even better, right? Read on for a review of J. River Media Center 14. Please note that since MC14 and MJ12 share a lot of features, parts of the review are similar or identical to the MJ12 review, so I suggest reading the other review first as a reference.

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