ACast 3.1.1 released
Posted by acast on February 16, 2010
New Features
– Setting: Open player on play.
– ACast Unlock app available.
– ACast variants merged.
– Setting: Default action: Ask.
– Read feeds marked completed in feeds view.
– Unsubscribe on remove Google Reader feed in GR split mode.
Bug fixes
– Feed parsing improved (Too many redirects).
– Twitter functionality did not work.
– Global item limit improved (Re-add of feed not needed).
– Some auto delete/download issues resolved.
– Minor bug fixes.
Shortcuts
You may have to re-add any ACast shortcuts you have with this version. Move the shortcut to the trash and create a new one by long pressing and drag ACast from the home application menu to the desktop.
Compact mode
Compact mode can be set up manually by selecting Setting ‘Other -> Default view’ to ‘Feeds’ and unchecking Setting ‘Player -> Open player on play’. There’s a quick setting for compact mode for new installs.
Unlock app
It’s now possible to disable ads in ACast by purchasing the unlock key available in the Android market; ACast Unlock Key. ACast version 3.1.0+ required.
Roadmap
The plan is to only provide one version of ACast for new installs. Previous variants (ACastC) will still get updates though. Functionality is now the same in all variants.
ACast's Blog 
Jay K said
Should we ACastC users transition to plain old ACast? Where did the backup/restore functionality go?
acast said
No, I’ll keep the old variants up to date. The backup/restore functionality can be accessed from the Add/Manage view in the “two arrow” button (forth) menu popup.
Michael said
Once again I cannot understand this. You have successfully merged ACast and ACastC into one program, and you even found a way to unlock the primary app with a dummy app, so all functionality is basically in one application.
Why is it then still needed to maintain a separate version for users who bought the former “ACast2”?
acast said
There is no easy way of transferring users who’ve paid for a previous version to the unlock app and I don’t want to stop the updates for those users. ‘ACastC Free’ may stop getting updates in the future, I’ll see how it works out. The visibility of the old versions/variants may be limited at times, in the Android market, to simplify/promote the main version.
Michael said
Maybe this can be solved one day. I’m hoping it for you, so you need less time to maintain all branches and have more time to improve ACast even further… 🙂
Keep up the good work!
Jeremy Horn said
I am seeing a bunch of issues in this latest version of Acast and undesired behaviors. I have the paid version — is there a way I can rollback until everything is sorted out?
acast said
What kind of issues do you see? It be great if you could give some examples so I know what to look for.
Jeremy Horn said
A few of them are…
– when I try to fast forward it often skips to the next item in my playlist instead of just moving forward within the currently playing item
– when I click an item to play, instead of it staying in playlist mode it goes to the play mode (the one with the giant buttons)
– I can’t create a shortcut to the program and the icon that displays in the app section cannot run the program; I have to go to manage apps to run the program
– it prematurely marks a podcast as read; if I just jump between podcasts (as i have dont in the past) it sometimes will mark the last podcast as read
For reference I was using paid version of Acast prior to my latest update on my HTC Hero (GSM).
Hope this helps.
acast said
You can “disable” the player with the big buttons by unchecking the setting: ‘Player -> Open player on play’. This is enabled by default, I’ll probably change this in the next release for new installs.
Can you try restarting the phone and re-add the shortcut? This worked for another user. I just had to remove the shortcut and add it again from the main application menu.
Which forward button are you using (which player view)? Are you holding down (long pressing) the forward/rewind button? This triggers a next/prev command. It’s possible that the phone is overload, running a lot of apps, which causes the forward button to detect the click as a long click and issue a next command.
Does it mark podcast read prematurely if you play downloaded podcasts? There’s a bug in Android when using the seekTo, i.e. rewind/forward, functionality when streaming audio.
Jeremy Horn said
Restarting the device resulted in the shortcut issue resolving. Also, found the setting for entering the player. Thanks.
It is when I am in the playlist mode and press the forward button (not the next track button), that I am carried to the next podcast. The phone isn’t overloaded with apps running. Under the previous version of Acast, this problem did not occur at all. My user behavior and phone state remains the same before and after the update; the change is the user experience.
I also just noticed that some of the podcasts I have already listened to and marked read are being redownloaded (and they were not deleted previously; and I can see that the file exists prior to the re-download of the listened to podcast).
If there are any other questions I can answer please let me know. Acast is probably my primary app on my Android and am heppy to provide whatever help I can to help iron out these new items.