General Conference for iPhone and iPod Touch listeners October 2009

In case anyone is still following this, I just wanted to let you know that all the language streams for conference have been updated in the app so if you want to listen to LDS General Conference live on your iPhone or iPod Touch Saturday or Sunday Oct. 3 or 4th (the 179th Semi-annual) then the ooTunes Radio app should do the trick. I'm very very close to having a way to watch the live video as well (via the ooTunes Server) but it's not a sure thing.

Anyway, if you want to hear LDS general conference in any of the 70+ languages available on lds.org live from your iPhone while you drive or work outside, get the app here:

http://ootunes.com/app

And let me know if you have any problems, suggestions or questions :)

Steve

Listen to General Conference Archives right from the iPhone

Last weekend, I submitted an update to the ooTunes Radio iPhone app with a bunch of bug fixes and a really cool new feature.

Basically, the built-in webbrowser has a new button (a few actually) ... the "play" button. When you're on a webpage that has audio links (such as this: 179th Annual General Conference, April 2009 - English) pushing that button creates an on-the-fly playlist which lets you listened to whichever track you want (individual talks, in order, or full sessions, back to back). You can also bookmark both the page, or the individual tracks for later listening. Also, all the former archives should work just as well as this last april's conference (and the other languages too :) The advantage of this over the podcasts is I don't think you can get the previous stuff with a podcast, and you can do this pretty much on the fly, without having to sync, or download all the "episodes". Though it's also certainly not perfect yet... next update will hopefully have the ability to skip around inside the file, and bookmark timepoints within the files. (It's not super easy when you're streaming to do so though).

Again, this isn't a LDS conference only feature, but works with any site with audio links :) You can use it with many podcasts, many radio stations' pages (if they aren't already in my list of almost 7000 iPhone compatible streams). It also works with audio from Archive.org (such as over 50,000 live concerts from Live Music Archive).

Hope those of you who bought the app for listening to General Conference Live (or those who got a free code from me) enjoy this update! I hope it's released in the next week or so :)

Let me know as always if you have any problems or suggestions!
Thanks,
Steve

Success!

Well, I just thought I'd write briefly and say that so far, streaming general conference through ooTunes Radio was as good as it gets! The only problem I noticed personally was that the "elapsed time" appears to have been going about half speed from what it should have been going (and no, I'm not saying conference was long and/or boring... it's a real bug!).

Still have a couple more promo codes left, but I'm probably not going to send them out on the sabbath, so you snooze, you lose :)

Thanks for all the good responses so far! Excited for day two... maybe I'll listen in Portuguese this time to take me back to my days as a missionary!

Let me know if anyone had any difficulties listening through my app!
Goodnight,
Steve

The conferences streams should now be all in the Database...

For those of you who already have my ooTunes Radio iPhone and iPod Touch app, the links should open the app and go right to the correct stream when you tap them from your iPhone or iPod touch's web browser.

So here's the big list of 63 streams in 63 languages!

Enjoy!

Steve

A pinch of Caveat...

I got super excited yesterday when I thought about this, and after posting it, I started to of course worry that maybe I was overly confident that this will work...

My ooTunes Radio iPhone app DOES work with several thousand windows media audio (wma) streams (those are the format the church uses to stream the audio live) and it works on almost everything that I've tested it on, BUT there's always the possibility that the Church's stream will be somehow different and incompatible with my app. Though unlikely I just thought I should make that clear. However, my app already has several KSL streams as well as the live KBYU streams added so at least for english transmissions, I'm very confident we'll have something. (please let me know if any of your local stations also play conference and if they're not on my master list of ooTunes Radio streams list, I'll test them and add them (the more the merrier!)

I've emailed Tom Welch to ask if he can help clarify the exact bitrate and parameters of the live stream, and maybe provide something live to test it out beforehand.

So, don't make it so you have no other way to listen to conference besides your iphone and my app! That would be like not having enough oil for your lamp :)

Also, in case it wasn't clear the streams will be AUDIO only, no video (this time at least :)

And the April General Conference Streams in the list now are just placeholders (that is they won't play anything yet) but they'll be updated to point to the live streams as soon as they are available.

How to hear LDS general conference live on your iPhone or iPod Touch

In church today, I realized that this year (next week!), I'll be able to listen to LDS General Conference in my yard, or car, or just about anywhere using my own iPhone app, ooTunes Radio! I thought, "hey there are probably lots of others who would like that too!", hence this blog. Since my app costs $4 (and does a lot more ... see Live Radio on iPhone and iPod Touch) but since I don't want to profiteer from General Conference, the first 40 people who leave a comment below telling who you look forward to hearing from most and why you'll want to listen to the 179th Annual General Conference April 4-5 2009 from your iPhone or iPod touch, will get a free "promotion code" that gives you the app for free. Unfortunately, Apple only gives me a set number of these codes (50 to be exact), they expire within 4 weeks (don't ask if you don't have an iPhone or iPod touch or don't plan to use it!) and they ONLY work for those with a US iTunes account (sorry! I know over half of the members are excluded by that alone!)

Also, you'll have to provide me with an email address somehow for me to be able to give the code to you, so the easiest way is for you to send me a message here. with a link to your comment or your name/blogger id and email so I know how to send it to you!

If the demand is overwhelming, I may try to give the app away for a short time for everyone else, but the problem with that is a) I lose my ranking in the for-sale apps and b) I have potentially a lot more customers to support with no payment for that.

But we'll see, maybe only 40 people care and the app is only $4.

Also, I should note that there is at least one app for free that can do the same thing, called FStream so if you don't get a free one from me, you can still listen for free with that!

Thanks and tell your friends!

Steve

P.S. If I didn't think of this so late, I would have created a free version that just does general conference! Maybe in October :)

Additional Languages available for live conference streams

The previous post about listening to LDS General Conference on your iPhone or iPod Touch didn't mention that aside from the English version of the audio, I'll be adding the French, Portuguese, and Spanish streams as well, so you'll know:
How to Listen / Instructions pour la réception par Internet / Como Ouvir a Transmissão da Conferência pela Internet and Cómo escuchar :)