iPhone App Directory

Nanoloop comes to Android


That explains why it has been quiet on iOS for a little while. Nanoloop is on the Android marketplace now.

TCTD gets the scoop.

Clip to Evernote

11 comments:

johnnyg0 said...

I'd like to see a comparion of the Android and IOS versions. I guess they have minor differences and I'd like to know what they are, or if they are absolutely similar.

Its good to see good apps being available on multiple platforms.

oliver said...

Both share the same functionality, sound engine and file format. The differences are indeed minor.

Export:
The iPhone version exports only WAV, the Android version currently lacks WAV-export but exports Ogg Vorbis files that are added to the music library (which is very nice, something that's still not possible in iOS). WAV may be added later.

E-Mail:
On Android, you can simply attach a .nan file to an e-mail and save received .nans to the SD-card. The iPhone version encodes files as URLs, which are not readable on Android. You can, however, exchange files via iTunes. I'll add support for e-mail attachments in the next iPhone update. For now, both versions are compatible but just can't exchange files via e-mail.

File access:
The Android version can browse folders, so you can load other apps' samples and manage/structure your data on a PC. On iOS, you only have very basic access to user data via iTunes.

Channel Names:
The Android version does not show channel names.

Interface:
Android phones have dedicated "menu" and "back" buttons, which nanoloop uses for file access, help screen and song editor. This allowed to omit the black onscreen-menu and make the interface even simpler.


Just like the iPhone version (and other than many Android apps), nanoloop's audio runs very stable. I developed it on a midrange phone (htc Legend) and never experienced choppy playback.

Anonymous said...

Awesome!

Just to add to oliver's export comments. Sample export will export (short) .wav's, while song export exports to .ogg.

So in principle this should allow some sound design work to be imported into other apps like electrum or jasuto. I actually haven't tried that, but I have had fun combing through electrum sample folders for samples and loops to import into nanoloop.

dcp said...

As much bad luck i had with the iPhone version some time ago (price was dropped just some days after i purchased it for full price) the much luck i had this time. ;)

Works without problems or dropouts on Milestone 2.2.1 except one question: how are you supposed to stop the app? The back button just switches between song and pattern view and the home button leaves it running in the background. I have to kill it with a task manager or reboot the device...

oliver said...

the home button kills it. it saves its state and loads it again when started next time.

william said...

Oliver...

Would this work on a T-Mobile Comet?

It has a qvga display, 528 mhz processor and Android 2.2.

oliver said...

Just to clarify:
Android apps are supposed not to stop themselves completely. When you leave an app (via back button, or, in case of nanoloop, the home button), it still remains in memory, it just stops running more or less. Wether an app is actually completely stopped is up to Android itself, it decides which apps to keep in memory for how long.
When quitting nanoloop via home button, it just stops audio playback and its main thread.

There has been some confusion among users and developers about this concept in Android. Like you, many people miss a dedicated "stop" function for their apps, but that's not possible and also not necessary on Android - at least with properly programmed apps. However, since people want it, I think Google should integrate a simple kill function to the task screen (you can stop apps via settings->applications already, it's just not so convenient).

oliver said...

It works fine on xperia x10 mini, which has a QVGA screen, too.

dcp said...

@ oliver: may be the problem of the task manager... some still show it in the active list after exiting with the home button, some won't.

Pierre said...

Works just great on my Archos 32!

Unknown said...

Hey Pierre...

Have you tried using any of the other Android music apps ( Uloops, Rd3 etc...) on the Archos 32?