June 2024 Update
Hi Friend 👋,
Summer has finally arrived! ☀️ To help you make the most out of it while still meeting those pesky goals you set on January 1st, I've made a few updates 😊.
Updates
1. New Audio Player with History ▶️
This one was extremely fun to make. For inspiration, I looked at Spotify, SoundCloud, Chrip, Apple Books, Apple Music and Netflix.
The player now sits at the bottom and can be started from any page. It keeps track of your progress so you can return to where you left off.
You can also keep navigating as you listen, and this ties into our second update.
2. Images in Chapters 🏞️
One of the most frustrating things about Audiobooks is how images are handled. Often, it sounds like, "Please go to our website to see this diagram 24 (b)...". This is something I never do. It is far too much work.
Instead, I wanted to make the images appear where you expect them, right next to the text.
Better yet, the player links to the chapter, so you can click on the link and see the images and text. This was key when listening to Shape Up, as they described certain concepts.
3. Improved Social Sharing Images 🐦
To make things more visual, I played around with the Social Graph Images to make them more interesting and useful.
Now you can share with friends/co-workers and get a nice preview of the article/chapter like this:
4. Small UI improvements (Download all button, layout, menus, etc) 🤏
As part of building the new player, we had to move things around. This helped solve many design challenges like making menus more consistent and having actions on multiple screens.
One of the most noticeable ones will be the Download All button on the projects screen and show project pages. It will let you download everything into a zip file so you can play it offline.
What's next?
1. Improved Processing Experience ⚙️
Just like the player and download buttons, it will be available throughout the app to make it easier to process more audio.
2. Notion Style Cover and Thumbnail 💅
Making things more visual so it is easier to find your content and more pleasant to use.
3. Multiple voices 🗣️
High quality 1 female voice and one-male fiction voice coming soon. I wanted to keep things simple and not too overwhelming.
As always this is still an early release, so I would love your feedback 💌🙏. Just reply with your thoughts below or any questions.
Spreading the Word and Bug Reports 📣
Many of you have been an incredible force of inspiration and growth for me and the product.
You've shared it with a friend or on social media, you've taken the time to write a bug report or suggest a new feature.
Thank you! This not only makes it all worth while, but helps me focus more on improving the product, which is by far my favourite thing to do.
Thank you Roberto, Mattia and Jesse for sharing on social media 🙏.
Thank you to Peter, Josh and countless others for reporting problems and making incredible suggestions to improve the product.
Cheers 🍻,
Your friendly neighbourhood developer
Michael Yagudaev
