From Smule HQ: Ocarina 1.0.1 issues

Hi all,

We at Smule HQ are working hard to address all your questions and issue reports. Here's a quick status report on your most reported concerns:

Known issues with the 1.0.1 product:

• Ocarina holes sometimes stick. In some isolated cases, holes can stick when playing the Ocarina. Keeping the touchpad clean certainly helps, but we believe (through the help of a user -- thank you!) that there are other issues. We're working on addressing this in our 1.0.2 release. We'll let you know as soon as it is available. We'd like to ask some of you help verify our fix. If you have experienced an issue and are willing to beta test 1.0.2, please use the 'report issue' button on the info screen and put 'beta test' in the message body.

[updated 11/9 11 pm]

• Audio sometimes distorted on first generation phones. We are working with Apple to address this. Our pending 1.0.2 release provides some improvements, as will Apple's next 2.2 firmware update.

We appreciate all of the great feedback our users are providing, including all of the amazing music scores they have created on ocarina.smule.com/forum.

Thank you!

I honestly don't think you really know how much people appreciate posts like this one.

How about when covering one hole will cause the other hole being uncovered? I have tried the airplane mode and no sucess. I am currently using the 1st gen iphone with OS v2.1 installed. It's a great app and the price is great, but it make it pretty hard to play anything unless this problem is solved. I am not sure if this is a known issue that is being looked at.

hello from smule hq.

yes, through the help of a user, we have now confirmed this issue is possible with a clean touchpad. busy working on an update. hopefully have that soon -- we'll post on news when we have submitted 1.0.2. thanks for all of your help everyone.

r.e.

It seems like the phone has an issue registering the change from 2 contact points to 3... and I didn't even know it could register 4, I thought 3 was the max.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and post my video in this thread too just for consistency. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wou6QMryy7U

G-Ram,

Greetings from Smule HQ.

We're having some trouble consistently reproducing this issue. We have a theory and a 1.0.2 release. Can you help us test? From Ocarina, select smule/info/report issue. Put 'beta' in the message text. We'll send you instructions to download and install. Thx!

r.e.

Having the same problem as G-Ram does. Already sent you a Mail from Ocarina with "beta test" included in the message body...

I've also noticed a couple issues.

When you first launch the program, if you open the menu where you can change the root and mode and try to change them before the ocarina buttons become active, the application will crash. This is fairly reproduceable.

Also, sometimes when changing modes, usually from ionian to zeldarian, the change isn't registered even though the wheel is in the correct position.

I'd also be happy to beta test any new builds so send me an email or something.

To be a part of the beta testing, just send in a "report issue" with the debug information... so radio button, the little "i" icon, and "report issue."

Now, if you don't mind my asking, did you just play the first one or two notes of a scale when switching between zeldarian and ionian modes? If they shared the same root, they also seem to share the first few notes and fingerings.

elon

Aah, but I don't have email set up on my phone - Fido (canadian phone provider) doesn't let me use my shaw mail account, and I don't use gmail etc.

As for your question, it seems like if you move the selection wheel too fast it rotates over to the new selection but does not "confirm" it, so when you touch elsewhere on the screen and exit out of the selection it remains what it was before. I've noticed this happening when changing both root and mode - the root changes fine but the mode stays the same. I go to play and find it's incorrect, so I return to the menu and it shows the wrong mode. When i click mode, the wheel is set to the mode I want but I have to give it a nudge to actually change the selection.

Haha, when I type it out it sounds very complex - I hope you understand, if not I'll try to explain again.

From Smule HQ.

We've spent 48 hours testing various builds to address the issue some people are seeing with multi-touch holes not always responding. Unfortunately it appears that the issue is a 2.1 firmware problem. We've done regression testing with the pending 2.2 beta firmware from Apple and indeed we can not reproduce the problem with 2.2.

Would it be possible for several of you who experienced this issue to upgrade to 2.2 firmware and report back? We would sincerely appreciate it.

r.e.

Hello everyone,

This is smule tech. We have narrowed down the issue with multi-touch further. There seems to be a problem with the iPhone 2.1 firmware and the phone hardware. The problem can be avoided by attaching your phone to the USB cable. It can also be avoided by touching the silver edge of your phone with your skin while playing the Ocarina. As we hope you understand this bug is outside of our reach, but we have not been able to reproduce this bug with the 2.2 firmware (which is available only to iphone developers at the moment.)

We have made a short video to demonstrate the issue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PG8YBVjkzI

We do apologize for any inconvenience this will cause while playing the ocarina!

Hi All,

I have posted in one of the numerous topics on the subject that there is actually no issue when the iPhone is connected to power (this was in response to someone else, I hadn't made the connection yet). I promised to check it tonight (as I wasn't quite sure, I just recognized it) and it really makes a big difference for me (whereas the WiFi thing doesn't help a bit).

I don't know if this is something to do with the iPhone firmware.

Either way, thanks for all your efforts!

I've got an amazing update (at least, it seems amazing to me). Just having the 'iPhone-end' of the cable plugged in 'solves' the issue! So you don't have to put the other end in the computer or the power adapter!

<s>Also, it now refuses to charge on the spare iPod adapter I have here (I have left my iPhone charger at work), which worked just fine yesterday, but I don't think that has anything to do with it... especially as it still charges on the computer ;) .</s>

After being connected to the computer, it likes the iPod adapter again. Weird (but comforting to know).

Good night for those of you in (roughly) the same timezone ;) .

Luckily, it doesn't sound like we'll have to wait long for Apple to fix these problems. The rumor floating around the Internets is that the iPhone 2.2 firmware update is a mere 10 days away (Nov. 21).

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/11/11/iph ... days-away/

But take that with a grain of salt.