Repeatable Player cut & loop 4+

Update: it looks like the interface has changed somewhat, and now it’s possible to see everything clearly and completely, including button icons and labels, even on smaller phones. Thank you for updating that! Features are still awesome, and I’ve liked other recent updates, so I’m updating to 5 stars and keeping my subscription. This app has become my primary tool for listening practice in foreign languages.

One very minor complaint: this app’s approach to the Button Shapes accessibility setting in iOS is to make buttons bigger and change the background color, but that doesn’t really work well on small devices like my iPhone 12 mini. With that setting turned on, the overall interface doesn’t quite fit on the screen. Some things become only partially visible, like the Oneshot column and the buttons on the far left/right sides. The worst part is what it does to the transcription feature - I can no longer see the beginning of each line in Text and Reader modes. I could almost make everything fit by changing the iPhone’s text settings universally (to the smallest possible size and unbolded), but that’s not ideal for a lot of reasons. Disabling Button Shapes in iOS Settings makes the problem go away regardless of text size, so that’s what I did. Not a big deal for me, but it might be better to implement that in a different way to accommodate all devices. (Example: leave most buttons unchanged, since they already have clear icons telling you where to tap, but underline the text in the Range and Repeat buttons.)

Original review:

This is a fantastic set of features for the specific use case it’s designed for. I use it with the audio files that came with my language textbook. The app does most of the work transcribing the audio and cutting it into sentences, and then I look at the results and edit as necessary - it’s easy to merge/split lines, skip the ones you don’t want, and even edit text, and the things that need to be edited are relatively few, so it’s a very fast workflow setting up the audio for my commute. Great settings for repetition, delay after each sentence, and speed. I like to repeat each sentence 3 times when I’m listening to a new exercise that’s fast-paced, first at 0.5x, then 0.75x, and then at full speed. I can even set it to skip the repeats on things like lesson titles and English instructions. Once I set things up, it’s amazing - I can listen to the lesson with all my customizations hands-free, potentially for hours. Perfect for a commute or any other mindless task. I will say that you really can’t benefit from that use case very well in the free version. The ads aren’t audio-based - they’re the type that require you to pick up the phone and figure out what arcane sequence of taps will close the app and let you keep listening. I know that’s just kind of how ads work, but until I paid for the app, I had to choose between doing that while driving or finishing my commute in silence. Pretty dangerous. I also use the app for a fast-paced podcast in my target language, and obviously the results are more mixed. The hosts never pause and almost always interrupt each other, so the app can’t tell where to put the breaks and each loop ends up being like 8 minutes long. Also the Apple transcription service has a much harder time with those, and makes more mistakes (Whisper does a much better job with the same file). However, none of that is the developer’s fault, and it’s still a really great way to study if im willing to set up my own cuts. The #1 annoyance I have is the interface on small phones. On an iPad, which the app was designed for, I’m sure it looks great, but I use an iPhone 12 mini. Literally all of the button labels are illegible in the main view. This is true even if I set phone text to the smallest possible size, unbolded. I had to figure out what each button does through trial and error. It’s pretty intuitive, but I still have to memorize the button placement in order to actually use the app. Hope the dev can find a way to improve this - there‘s probably some extra vertical space to work with. Thanks for making language learning easier!

Thank you for your feedback.
I am considering making improvements, especially in enhancing the interface on smaller devices.
I will reflect this in future updates.
Thank you again for your valuable feedback.

It chops up the audio into phrases for you and let’s you repeat them etc. This feature is quite convenient. The only problem is that it’s cutting too much off my files and it lets you go in and manually fix it but I would need to do it for about half of the files and that’s too much work.

This app has tons of potential.

Thank you for your feedback!

Regarding the excessive cutting, it might be improved by turning on the "Add a short phrase to the previous or next phrase" option in the "Split Phrases" of the Edit Screen. Additionally, adjusting other parameters within the "Split Phrases" might also lead to improvements.

If you haven't tried these adjustments yet, please give it a try!

非常好用，广告设置也很合理，感谢开发者

Thank you for your review. I am glad you are using the app!