Comments on: Interview and Giveaway: Jerry Brace of Awaken

By: Awaken Giveaway Winners | MacApper

Awaken Giveaway Winners | MacApper — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:00:24 +0000

[...] days ago, MacApper spoke with Awaken creator and indie Mac developer Jerry Brace. Thanks to Jerry, we decided to give three licenses to the best [...]

By: Marvin Sum

Marvin Sum — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 07:24:08 +0000

A big thanks to all who entered; the giveaway is now officially closed.

Jerry and several members of the MacApper staff are now finalizing the results. Look for it really soon.

By: Jerry Brace

Jerry Brace — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:27:45 +0000

@Zachary – there are roughly a dozen built in alarms sounds available. Is this the kind of thing you were looking for?

By: Neverendingquest

Neverendingquest — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 15:15:13 +0000

I would like to wake up to whatever song I made last in garageband or the next song in itunes. it would be nice if it could wake up the computer from sleep mode and get louder as i ignored it. one song awesome to wake up to Sandtorm by Darude

By: Zachary N

Zachary N — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 15:13:38 +0000

One feature I’d like to see is to have a built-in library of “jingles” to set as your alarm sound.

By: Gadi

Gadi — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:08:50 +0000

Wake up song: “Good Morning Starshine” from the musical Hair.

By: Phoenix

Phoenix — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:20:21 +0000

Wake up song: “Somewhere Between Baking and Bleep” by AIR

By: Dennis B

Dennis B — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:48:54 +0000

I bought Awaken shortly after buying my Tivoli Model Two radio, which also doubles as external speakers and subwoofer for my MacBook Pro, rather than buying another physical alarm clock (which Tivoli Audio does sell).

I can’t think of anything else to add to this perfect alarm clock…if only it could geographically shorten my 40 mile commute to Cleveland every morning!

By: Jerry Brace

Jerry Brace — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:40:00 +0000

@faber: Yes, Awaken has a sleep timer feature. You can also set it to slowly fade out the volume and screen brightness via the Awaken preferences.

Alarm volumes can be set as high as you need/your speakers can output.

Regarding waking the dead – that’s a though one. We’re actually half way there in Leopard with the help of CoreAnimation – all we need now is CoreZombie and we’ll really have something…

By: faber

faber — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:35:10 +0000

Can you set awaken to help you go to sleep? Maybe have a nice sleeping thing that gentley fades out, both the backlighting and the music.

Or maybe Awaken should have a super alarm for really heavy sleepers like myself. I’m talking like air raid style honking mega-alarm.

If you can’t do any of that stuff, maybe we can add some extra voodoo to use the software to Awaken the dead. Maybe that level of technology will actually help me wake up from my near-dead state every morning.

By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:32:30 +0000

How about a feature using the movement sensors in all the new macs. When you wake up you could just nudge your mac to turn off the alarm, or go into snooze mode. Would be a nice addition to the preferences.
D

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 04:56:54 +0000

Best wakeup song…

Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins

By: Yong Hwee

Yong Hwee — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:43:58 +0000

Wow, it sports a great UI. Works a lot better than other apps with similar function.

By: Jerry Brace

Jerry Brace — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 22:54:18 +0000

@Betsy – That option is in the Awaken preferences (Stop alarm after …minutes/hours). I hope that you like the app.

By: Betsy

Betsy — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 22:42:35 +0000

Very cool! I can replace 3 other apps with this.

I’d like to be able to set an alarm to quit playing after x minutes. I didn’t notice an option like that, although I haven’t checked everything out extensively yet.

By: Shawin

Shawin — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:01:39 +0000

Having it do a list of things, such as for example run isync an synchronise with phone, then connect to wireless network after specified time, and then open urls (to download files). Maybe these could be done with applescript, but most people would prefer to have it as options in the app itself. I would.
Or to do things like turn off after specified time if running on batteries, and not if running on a/c.

By: Max

Max — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:00:34 +0000

I’d like to see voice recognition. It’d be awesome to have your alarm go off, be able to yell “SNOOZE,” and not have to get up for another 5 minutes.

Best Wake Up Song: Shrinking Universe by Muse.

By: Arjun Muralidharan

Arjun Muralidharan — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:58:49 +0000

The One Feature I’d like is iCal integration. It would be cool if Awaken would take over iCals alarms and I could use it instead of iCals cruddy reminders.

The same way To-Dos will be a system-wide in Leopard, I want to forget where I set what alarm. So if Awaken would take care of it, I’d buy this.

By: Jack Nagel

Jack Nagel — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:48:56 +0000

Best Wake-Up Song: “Sleeping Lessons” by The Shins, from their latest album “Wincing the NIght Away”. Not only is it aptly named, but it builds itself from soft to all out straight ahead rock by the end of the song, making it perfect for me (or anyone else) to wake up to every morning.

By: Dennis B

Dennis B — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:35:04 +0000

Best wake up song:

“So What” by Miles Davis from his album ‘Kind of Blue’

By: Alvin Law

Alvin Law — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:26:26 +0000

How about having it display our Schedule/todo list for the day from iCal (fullscreen wake).

By: Jerry Brace

Jerry Brace — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:55:13 +0000

@Daniel – Awaken works through AirPort express/AirTunes via iTunes. If you have iTunes set the stream to the appropriate room it’ll work when Awaken tells it to play the chosen playlist.

By: Daniel M

Daniel M — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:51:13 +0000

A cool feature, although I don’t know if it would be possible, is that awaken could comunicate with my stereo through my Airport express and my other macs around the house inside my network and make all of them alarm me. maybe it could also communicate with my bluetooth phone to make it also wake me up.

By: steve

steve — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:41:27 +0000

man, I thought I had a good idea.

Well I guess I will second the cooking breakfast and add that it would be nice if it made the bed after you got up.

Also if it could somehow take the pain out of shaving, perhaps it could wake you up by removing the hair from your face via bluetooth?

By: Jerry Brace

Jerry Brace — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:22:44 +0000

@Steve – In the Awaken volume preferences there is an option to fade in the screen brightness and music volume at the same time. As well as an option for the sleep timer to do the reverse.

By: Van Waals

Van Waals — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:19:52 +0000

Best wake up song, “Wake and smell the coffe” by the Cranberries.

I would love to get awaken, it would be very useful as I often time cook things, and get on the computer while they are in the oven… more then a few things have burned.

By: John

John — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:14:53 +0000

How’s about just the option to set the screen to sleep instead of the whole computer. I like the idea of more colors for the time display. What about a fade out when you have the zzz timer set. But the super duper, spectacular feature would be if when Awaken woke up the computer it would cook you breakfast, feed the cat and take out the trash all before you get out of bed. Now THAT would make my morning. So what do you say Jerry? Can we expect that any time soon?

By: Conner Downey

Conner Downey — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:32:34 +0000

My best wake up song is Such Great Heights by the Postal Service. I love Awaken, too.

By: steve

steve — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:31:15 +0000

oh the best wake up song

Gavin Castleton – Why Wake Up

By: Sam Ryan

Sam Ryan — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:31:14 +0000

Best wake-up song: “Welcome to Jamrock”, by Damian Marley
Feature I’d most like to see: More colors for the transparent clock bezel. Black, pink, green and blue are nice, but surely there could be a color picker option. Lovely app!