Zenitizer 1.14

On June 2nd, I will release an update for Zenitizer that includes a completely redesigned sound picker UI, the ability to select an app-wide default background soundscape and a much requested feature: a volume mixer.

All features described here are ready on TestFlight and there's a volume mixer demo below 🍿

Feature Overview

Volume Mixer

• Bells too loud? Or too quiet? Just tweak it to your liking!
• Adjust the relation of bell and background sounds
• Can be set as an app-wide default but customized on a per-routine basis (e.g. your evening meditation could have quieter bells)

Default Background Sound

• Set app-wide default background soundscape
• Got a new favorite sound? Change it once and all routines adapt!
• Override on a per-routine basis possible, e.g. "Morning Meditation" should always have birdsong

Sound Picker Redesign

• Before: Needed to go through multiple levels of nested menus to pick/preview sounds
• After: a sleek popup with sounds well-organized and easy to preview with a single button tap

Details + Demos

Volume Mixer

The volume mixer feature allows users to change the background and bell volumes independently.

They can save their favorite volume levels for the whole app as defaults or overwrite specific volume levels for each meditation timer routine. For example, you might want the bell sounds to be quieter in your evening routine but want them louder so you never miss them when you meditate throughout the day? Just set the default volume levels the way you like and override the volume settings for your evening meditation routine.

Volume Mixer Demo

This was an early preview of a prototype. The final design looks a bit different but the basic functionality is the same:

Sound Picker Redesign

While I was working on this update, I also decided to finally revisit the sound pickers... Sound pickers play an important part in Zenitizer because the timer plays sounds for both interval bells as well as background soundscapes.

In the past I had used simple iOS menus for the sound selection, but they came with lots of shortcomings and limitations, and it made previewing sounds and selecting sounds a little cumbersome, to be honest... You'd be presented with a long list of sounds and you'd have to tap each one of them to open a submenu which would then allow you to either preview or select it. It was neither elegant nor practical but it was easy to do and allowed me to focus on other areas of the app at the time...

I've long wanted to revisit this and design a custom sound picker pop-up, which I've finally done as well in this update!

Default Background Sound

Another feature that I've been meaning to implement for quite some time and that fit in well here is the ability to select a default background soundscape! You can already select default bell sounds for the different stages of the timer but now you can also select the default background sound.

For example, you could pick "Fireplace" and all your meditation routines will use that sound unless they explicitly have a separate backgorund sound. If, after a while, you decide that you no longer enjoy the fireplace sound during meditations, you just change the default and all the routines update automatically. However, if you want your morning routine to always have that nice calming birdsong, you can specify it as custom background sound in the routine and the default will be ignored - full flexibility!

These little features may not seem super flashy but in practice, they're a significant quality of life improvement for existing and new users alike. It makes the meditation playback experience smoother and more personalizable.

Zenitizer 1.13

A month ago, I released the biggest content update with new sounds since launching the app. It includes calming new background sounds such as birdsong and evening cicadas, as well as a refined selection of gongs, bells and wood and percussion elements for the interval bells. There are also white, brown and pink noise soundscapes now, as a lot of Zenitizer users had requested this.

Teaser Of Newly Added Sounds