After a period of silence there is now a new iPeng update on the App Store – 1.2.5
I call it the “iOS4” update since one of it’s drivers was to provide full compatibility with iOS4 including multitasking support. But then this name is a bit inaccurate since
- iPeng 1.2.5 actually runs on any iPhone OS device from 3.0 on, not only on iOS4
- There’s more than just iOS4 support in this update
So what is it about?
Let’s group this into “what’s new”, “what’s improved” and “what got fixed”:
What’s New?
- iOS4 support. iPeng now makes use of fast App Switching and Multitasking. This means if you leave iPeng and come back later it will still be in the exact same place where you left. iPeng does NOT run in the background, this would eat up too much power, but it does continue synchronizing the cache from the server until that’s done.
- Landscape Mode. iPeng now supports both portrait and Landscape modes. The NowPlaying screen in Landscape mode will now provide a screen-saver like full screen view. Some spill over from some other development we’re working on 😉
- High-Res graphics. iPeng now uses full-scale graphics on NowPlaying and bigger cover art thumbnails on iPhone 4 (and iPad). Actually the “and iPad” part for the thumbs doesn’t work right now but I will upload an 1.2.5.1 update shortly that will fix this.
- Accessibility. iPeng now fully supports VoiceOver (iPhone from 3GS, iPod touch from 3rd generation and iPad only) making it probably the most powerful Squeezebox remote control solution for people with visual disabilities. This sounds like “what’s this good for?” for a lot of people but actually it’s a biggie. First: It’s not as simple as Apple claims and second: it’s really, really helpful for blind people compare to iPeng’s last release but especially to most other means of remote control
- Localization. iPeng is now fully localized in English, German and Danish languages and provides enhanced support for many other languages, too. More to come.
What’s Improved?
- Improved Player and Music Source handling. iPeng will now find your player automatically in even more cases and also switch Music Sources if required. This is especially important if you switch Music Sources a lot and don’t find your player then. Now iPeng usually will find it for you. Also: iPeng is ow able to reconnect “lost” players as long as they are still on the network, a big improvement especially for users of the SB Receiver.
- Even more enhanced Squeezebox feature and plugin support with additional search and context menu functionality. “Global Search” is now supported through “Extras” and also through additional context menus on the NowPlaying Context Menu.
- Enhanced Server configuration support. iPeng now allows you to change your MySqueezebox.com account and has improved support for Wake-On-LAN (WOL). WOL can now be activated manually, you can define more than one WOL address and iPeng autodetects your server’s MAC for convenience.
What Got Fixed?
- Several issues with iOS4 and Squeezebox Server on the Squeezebox Touch are fixed in this release:
- Alarms do work now in iOS4
- Drag&Drop now works in iOS4. This one was the technical biggie. Apple made a change in iOS4 that effectively means you can no longer update a view in the background when using D&D. Which is kind of a problem if the data you show is permanently being updated from an external server and can stop to make any sense if it’s not.
So wait a moment, what happened to iPad and Playback?
Now, playback has eaten up a lot of time and resources here and still doesn’t work correctly, I’m sorry for that.
Actually since it DOES take so much effort I decided a while back to focus on iPad first. So the next thing you are going to see is not an iPeng with Playback but iPeng for iPad.
Does this mean Playback is dead?
Not it’s not, but it’s delayed. We are pursuing some alternative options to integrate it that might speed things up but as it stands right now, iPeng for iPad will come first.
But for now: Have fun with iPeng 1.2.5!
