This is pretty great, I actually hacked together a little terminal interface to search through all of their stations and stream straight to your shell. Started pulling it apart to also provide a webaudio interface. Looks like they have that covered now though
NPR One
131–140 of 181 posts
Re: NPR One
#132Every corporate/large organization Web site wants me to use their app. I already have an app! It's the Web browser. It already plays video and audio.
Can a mobile browser continue to play audio when your phone is in your pocket? For example, YouTube stops playing when I put my iPhone to sleep.
Yes, it can. Start the video and put the iPhone to sleep. When you wake the iPhone up a moment later the music controls on the lock screen allow you to resume playing the audio. You can then turn the screen off and the audio will still play.
Re: NPR One
#133This is all well and good, but why does everyone need to have their own damn app? This is the biggest problem with audio apps these days - you get everyone trying to make a similar thing, and because they're all competing they all try and lock each other out of their own products. What would be so much better is a content-agnostic platform, that'll let you play whatever the hell you want - whether it's music, talk ra…
Everyone needs to have an app because if you don't have an app today you are not a digital brand. I'm a web developer so I'd love for responsive design to be enough, but frankly it's not. Users demand apps, and the most passionate NPR fans will eat this thing up (it's actually looks like an interesting app that brings more to the table than 99% of apps so good on them).
Is this stopping you from getting NPR content in a regular podcatcher? Do they have an annoying "app-wall" forcing you to install the app when you visit npr.org on a mobile device? No? Then I don't see what the problem is.
Re: NPR One
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just you. It's an annoying trend. Perhaps it's good for phones and tablets (that's arguable), but I don't think it's good for mouse input. At least this landing page (NPR) has optional buttons on the right side, unlike most pages I've seen like this (Spendee). It's turning "mobile first" into "mobile only", and I am being dragged kicking and screaming into it.
As always, the general rule of the desktop is "don't break my browser functionality". Browser functionality = scroll bar, back/forward button, refresh, bookmark, etc.
A better rule is that these browser functions should do what the user expects. I don't think this page violates that rule (and it might not even violate yours: the scrollbar's movement has not been altered on this page like on Apple's product pages).
Re: NPR One
#135Cool, hopefully it will replace the All Songs Considered audio stream (which is great). Side note: Is it just me, or this "scroll to reveal stuff in steps" is a bit frustrating? It seems to be used more and more often and I am sometimes puzzled by the fact that I'm missing the scrolling step. I try scrolling and get either too far (which shows half an image coming from above) or don't get anywhere (which makes me scr…
It's not just you. It's an annoying trend. Perhaps it's good for phones and tablets (that's arguable), but I don't think it's good for mouse input. At least this landing page (NPR) has optional buttons on the right side, unlike most pages I've seen like this (Spendee). It's turning "mobile first" into "mobile only", and I am being dragged kicking and screaming into it.
>It's turning "mobile first" into "mobile only"
Yeah, it is definitely whacked for desktops, and I know it's supposed to be somehow good for mobile, but I don't get that either. What's the theory behind it improving the mobile experience? Is it supposed to save bandwidth or something? Because I'm not sure if it's loading the content on scroll or preloading all and merely animating on scroll.
Either way, bandwidth is becoming less of a problem, so I can't see why we'd be launching new design trends to address it.
Re: NPR One
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It's nice that we have a source of news that is not beholden to advertisers or corporate interests (although the number of 'This content was made possible by donations from...' I hear at the end of the larger shows is a bit worrying). Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a thing, ain't it? The vast majority of NPR's funding comes from advertisers, excuse me, underwriters. Edit: Well fuck me I'm wrong. Carry on, citizen…
> The vast majority No, it doesn't. From what I can see, it's more like 17%. http://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances
The largest part is syndication fees. You're seeing a pie chart about public radio station income, not NPR's income.
See further down on the same page, in which it is indicated that 37% of unrestricted NPR income is from program syndication fees.
"Program fees and dues paid by our Member Stations are the largest portion of NPR's revenue. This includes fees paid to air the NPR newsmagazines, other programming we produce and distribute and annual member dues." and
Re: NPR One
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can a mobile browser continue to play audio when your phone is in your pocket? For example, YouTube stops playing when I put my iPhone to sleep.
Yes, it can. Start the video and put the iPhone to sleep. When you wake the iPhone up a moment later the music controls on the lock screen allow you to resume playing the audio. You can then turn the screen off and the audio will still play.
That's a good work around, but I would not want that to be the instructions I give to people wanting to listen to my audio stream from a website.
Re: NPR One
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
"This is all well and good, but why does everyone need to have their own damn app?" Also, why do all these damned apps have ridiculous access requirements ? In recent weeks I have been dismayed to find that HBO Go and Sonos apps both require access to all of my media files (android app) in order to be installed. I'll bet that's not uncommon. Presumably it's just lazy development by people that don't know the finer po…
This seems to be due to Google's new grouping of permissions for Android apps. The permission group you're referring to is described as "Uses one or more of: files on the device such as images, videos, or audio, the device's external storage". That means that if the app wants to use some of its own data which is located on external storage (which is pretty common), you're also giving it permission to access your medi…
>Google thinks (for some incomprehensible reason) that these are similar permissions and grouping them makes it easier for users to understand
Yeah, I suppose they don't want to be too granular and overwhelm users with a ton of permissions but, to your point, it actually makes things worse. Overly broad categories lead to suspicion.
It's funny though, because for years, we all downloaded/installed desktop apps which had free reign on our machines. I suppose the facts that apps can come from untrusted sources, are thought to have more specific functions, are installed on very personal devices, and were born in an age where privacy concerns/fraud/malware/connectedness were common, all have something to do with it.
I wonder, though, if our concern is mostly stimulated by the fact that we're now being presented with permission choices in the first place. As, now, even "trusted" brands like HBO can earn our suspicion if we think their apps are being greedy with permission requests.
Re: NPR One
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
17% from corporations, but also count foundations if you're looking for underwriters overall, not just corporate interests. Probably also universities and "other" for 41.6% That's still not even remotely close to a vast majority, of course. And I think there's a qualitative difference between getting funding from an organization that wants to increase its bottom line and one that wants to create a more just, verdant,…
"a more just, verdant, and peaceful world" Well that sponsorship was obviously well-spent!
I recognize the phrase and can even hear the hosts speaking it in my head... but I couldn't tell you the name of the sponsor. I'm sure it'll come to me.
Re: NPR One
#140Cool, hopefully it will replace the All Songs Considered audio stream (which is great). Side note: Is it just me, or this "scroll to reveal stuff in steps" is a bit frustrating? It seems to be used more and more often and I am sometimes puzzled by the fact that I'm missing the scrolling step. I try scrolling and get either too far (which shows half an image coming from above) or don't get anywhere (which makes me scr…
The behavior is even more miserable if you try to navigate via keyboard pageup/pagedown. Whole sections of content are liable to be skipped, and when they aren't, you often land in an odd intermediate frame that doesn't make a lot of sense.
Page designers need to consider that navigation is not always continuous.