Playapod - Interview with the developer of a fantastic app

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

I’ve been developing software for over 20 years and in 2008 decided to start my own company to create mobile applications for Apple’s original iPhone. In 2009, I released the “White Noise” sleeping app which quickly became the #1 Health & Fitness application. It was that experience, and the positive feedback from my users that encouraged me to create new apps such as Playapod which greatly improves the podcasting experience. TMSOFT helps our customers listen to podcasts during the day with Playapod, and helps them sleep at night with White Noise.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

The most challenging aspect of developing Playapod was the cross-platform syncing across multiple iOS and Android devices. It took us a while to get it right which is why we spent so long on the initial release. The best part is it’s all done in the background so the user never notices. It just works.

_{Todd Moore}

Hi! I’m probably best known for creating the White Noise apps for your smartphone which helps millions of people sleep better at night. It’s been featured on the Dr. Oz show, Today Show, Fox & Friends, and even Jimmy Fallon made fun of it with his Axl Rose edition. O’Reilly Media published my book Tap, Move, Shake (foreword by Steve Wozniak) that teaches you how to take your idea to the App Store. In case books aren’t your style, I co-hosted a few instructional videos too. I’ve also written for BYTE and Tech Republic. Lately, I’ve been working on developing new game titles, such as Compulsive, as well as continuing to develop White Noise. I hosted the Tech 411 Radio show on 106.7 FM in Washington D.C with my good friend Oscar Santana. We recently relaunched the Tech 411 show in podcast form under the Mike O’Meara network aka MORE Broadcasting. I also competed on the reality TV show, Treasure Hunters, which aired worldwide on NBC. I founded TMSOFT in 2008 to create apps for Apple’s App Store. I have since created apps for BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone, Palm webOS, Nokia platforms, and even Windows 8. I’m on the board of the Application Developers Alliance which is the voice of over 25,000 individual developers. Prior to becoming an independent app developer, I was the chief software architect for the NetWitness security platform.

Name a few of your favorite apps and reason you love them.

My favorite app is Waze for navigation because it’s constantly optimizing your route to save you time. That has always been the focus of my apps, simplifying your life and saving you time.

How long have you been working on this app?

We have been working on Playapod for about a year. It officially launched on February 5, 2018 to both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Google featured Playapod on the Google Play Store on March 2, 2018.

What need of the user did you have in mind when developing this app?

I’m not only an avid podcast listener, but I’m also a podcaster and co-host of the Tech 411 Show which discusses the latest technology news. I became frustrated with the existing podcast apps and decided to write my own a year ago. Many of the apps that I tried were difficult to navigate and even more difficult to use. I created Playapod for myself specifically to solve those issues and once I felt it was good enough for me, I decided to let the world try it out. My team rallied and spent months preparing the app for public release and our hard work shows. The current rating and reviews have been incredible.

In what way do you think your app is better than similar apps on the market? Please describe in detail what innovation you think you bring and what you are proud of in your app.

There are a number of innovative features that I consider superior to other podcasting apps. First, it’s completely free - Free to download, free of advertisements, and supports free cross-platform syncing. Next, our Precision Progress Bar is my absolute favorite feature. The bar displays the portions of the episode you’ve listened, areas that you’ve skipped, and displays time-coded bookmarks of all your favorite moments. Additionally, the size of the progress bar makes it easy to scrub forwards and backwards and also quickly snaps to your bookmarks. As if all these features weren’t enough, users are also able to configure settings in order to customize the behavior of the app. We are just getting started with Playapod and have many new features coming.

What are your future plans and expected features of the coming new versions of this app?

While we intend to add new, innovative features to the app, the one we are most excited about is making Playapod a social playground for podcast lovers. Our ultimate goal is to allow listeners to add their thoughts, opinions, and comments to their favorite podcast episodes. This social feed will make the experience more interactive and allow users to provide feedback to TMSOFT and also their beloved podcasters. We hope to launch this feature sometime later this year.

Assuming new users of your app are reading this page. What do you want to ask them to do (contact you about X, Share the app, etc.)?

For new users of Playapod, if you love it, please share it with others! If you have suggestions on what we can do to improve the app, just tap “Send Feedback” from the app settings. We read every email that we receive because our ultimate goal is to make Playapod the best podcasting app in the world.