Penguin Loves Music

Today, new iPeng versions (for iPeng, iPeng UE and iPeng for iPad) that bring a number of new features and improvements have been released to the App Store.

Updated Facebook and Twitter integration

iPeng’s Facebook and Twitter clients have been updated to recent versions.

• Twitter: The Twitter client in old iPeng  versions became dysfunctional after Twitter discontinued support for their legacy API. This is now fixed with the new integration which also features a better performance and finally also a better rendering on Retina Displays.
• Facebook: On iOS 6, the native Facebook integration will be used if possible. This allows iPeng to prefill the text for your post with the song you are sharing. Also, for your own library (where no direct links to the music are available), iPeng now adds the cover to the post.
  On iOS 5, you will still have to paste the current track title into the status message, using the edit menu.

For both clients, you need to reauthorize iPeng to use your Facebook or Twitter account.

Learn more about using iPeng with Facebook and Twitter in the original announcement.

This functionality is available in all three iPeng versions.

New file format indicators

Another improvement in the controller affects the display of files in albums and playlists.  For files using lossless formats (FLAC, ALAC and the like), the file format will be shown along with the track, so that you can more easily distinguish between compressed and lossless audio files in your collection.

Playback

iPeng Playback also got some improvements:

• Support for Replay Gain: iPeng Playback now supports the Squeezebox Server’s replay gain feature, allowing you to normalize the playback volume across a number of files. If you use iPeng with a dock that supports volume control separately from the audio stream (e.g. through USB audio), Replay Gain can even be used without affecting the music data itself (which means that it’s lossless then).
• Remote Volume Control: In previous versions of iPeng, remotely controlling iPeng’s volume only became effective with a considerable delay. Now, iPeng’s volume can be remotely controlled the same way this works for the Squeezebox itself.
• Automatic Latency Compensation (experimental): If you sync iPeng with other Squeezebox players, iPeng will now automatically adjust the output delay to match the output being used. This way, e.g. a Bluetooth headset or AirPlay receiver will use a different delay than e.g. a normal headset or a dock. Please note that the accuracy of this feature depends on the timing accuracy of the actual output device, especially with AirPlay this will probably not be sufficient for an exact synchronization.
  If you need to manually adjust a playback delay (e.g. for an AV Receiver with a long internal delay), you can turn this feature off in the playback settings.

iOS 7 Support

For those of you who already use Apple’s iOS 7 beta releases, iPeng’s playback and the registration on MySqueezebox.com did not work with previous releases. This is now fixed, so that you can try out iPeng on this OS version, too.

Have fun!

Cool Summer Greetings

On July 1 of this year, the number of iPeng users has exceeded the 100.000* mark. Since iPeng users – on average – use the App with about two devices, iPeng currently runs on more than 190.000 devices!

iPeng, the first music remote on iOS, also shows it’s popularity by retaining a 4.5-star rating on the App Store.

We say thank you to our loyal customers – and wish you a lovely summer holiday!

* total amount of iPeng for iPhone, iPeng for iPad, iPeng Party, iPeng UE downloads in the App Store

After a busy week on Apple's developer conference, learning how to adapt iPeng for the upcoming iOS 7, Coolio prepares to celebrate the good news.

iPeng’s latest 2.0.10 update brings back support for older iOS devices, especially iPhone 3G and 2nd generation iPod touch.

So far, iPeng 2.0 was only available for newer devices that are capable of running iOS 5 and 6. The reason for this limitation was that Apple removed support for the older iPhones and iPods from their latest developer tools, which, however, need to be used to create Apps for the App Store. For this reason, most Apps no longer support iOS versions prior to 4.3 today.

Now we have found a way to build iPeng for iOS 4.2 and the processor platform running these old devices again.

A Service for Our Most Loyal Customers!

Now why all this? These are really old devices!

Yes, they are old but iPeng has been around for a while now and a lot of our users still have one of the affected iPods or iPhones. In the past, some of them lost their copy of iPeng and could not get it back since the App Store only hosts the latest version of an App.

Your Chance to Get a Budget Player

Also, since they are poorly supported these days, 2^nd generation devices can be had at very competitive prices. So while their performance is not state of the art as a remote control (the speed is not comparable to what you see on newer devices running iOS 5 or 6) they are a cheap option to add another Squeezebox compatible player, using iPeng’s playback feature (additional In-App-Purchase required). Playback is fully functional with the exception of synchronization which is a bit on and off.

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What are the Limitations?

iPeng on iOS 4 is surprisingly close to iPeng 2.0 on newer devices (at least it was a surprise to us since iPeng 2.0 was really designed with iOS 5 in mind). The look is not quite as polished as under iOS 5 and some minor user interface features are missing (for example the gestures to resize the artwork on NowPlaying or to skip to the next track in landscape mode) but other than that, iPeng 2.0.10 is fully functional on these devices, too.

Synchronized Playback is a limitation on devices only running iOS 4.2. It is supported and can work but it’s not reliable.

Keep Backups!

One thing needs to be pointed out: Please keep backups of iPeng (and other Apps) if you are using older devices! It requires significant tweaking of the build process to still create Apps for these platforms and it’s clearly not intended by Apple to put effort into further supporting them. While it’s obviously still possible, there is absolutely no guarantee that this will still be the case in the future. Support for legacy devices might have to be removed again with every new release, especially whenever there are major iOS releases coming out.

You can simply backup an App by syncing it to a computer using iTunes and then keeping a copy of the App file (“iPeng.ipa”). You can do so by simply dragging the App from iTunes to some backup folder on your computer.

A late “Happy New Year” to all of you!

And to start the new year, iPeng for iPhone, iPad and iPeng UE got some polish through a minor update.

Here’s what’s changed:

• Probably the first thing you’ll notice is that the bobble-hat icon is gone again.
• The iPhone Apps now hide the status bar by default. This gives a little more space you can especially use well on the smaller 3,5″ screens but more importantly, it prevents the notification center from accidentally coming up (or down) when you try to drag down the MultiPlayer control. If you still prefer to see the status bar you can re-enable it in the settings.
• In all Apps you can now chose to always use English as the user interface language, independent of the one selected on your device. While this is a bit against Apple’s UI guidelines a lot of users requested it to be able to match an English language setting on the server side since iPeng doesn’t support all languages and also since a lot of plugins are only available in English.
• The URL calling scheme to open iPeng from other Apps has been updated to allow the selection of a certain player when opening iPeng. You can find the details here: https://trac.penguinlovesmusic.de/trac/ipengnat/wiki/URLScheme

Have fun!

Introducing: iPeng UE

For the second time this year, we are adding a new member to the iPeng App family: iPeng UE.

iPeng UE is a universal remote control App for the Logitech® UE™ Smart Radio. It brings iPeng’s popular user interface and powerful features to Logitech’s new streaming platform.

It is also the first iPad App for the Smart Radio.

What is a Smart Radio?

Earlier this year, Logitech announced that it would discontinue the Squeezebox platform and launch the Logitech UE Smart Radio platform instead. While the Smart Radio is based on the same technology as the Squeezebox ecosystem, it uses a different software and service infrastructure so that existing Apps for the Squeezebox are not compatible. (learn more: http://ue.logitech.com/smart-radios)

Now iPeng UE is the first independent remote control solution for the Smart Radio, and it brings functionality to the smart Radio that has been missed by a lot of its users so far.

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What Does iPeng UE Offer?

To those familiar with the Squeezebox and iPeng, iPeng UE brings a known and loved user interface to the new product platform and thus makes the transition to the new system much easier for former Squeezebox users.

To those who are new to the platform, it adds functionality and a powerful user interface not available before.

Here are some of its feature highlights:

It’s an iPad App and an iPhone App

iPeng UE is a universal App for iPhone and iPad so for the first time it gives Smart Radio users a real iPad App with all the power the big screen can add to a user interface, but at the same time, it manages to bring all that functionality to the iPhone, too:

• Big artwork browsing
• Easy access to all the functionality available without having to dig through deep menu structures
• Easy control of more than one player
• See and modify your current playlist
• Quick access to all the important player functions. Everywhere.

Playlist Management

In iPeng UE you can see and modify your current playlist. You currently can’t save it (and you can’t play saved playlists; the Smart Radio doesn’t have that feature), but you can remove and reorder tracks in the currently playing one or select another track to jump to.

Add External Links to Your Library

You can play arbitrary links to e.g. radio stations or podcasts (only if they are really playable on the device, of course) and also add them to your favorites. There are two ways to do this:

• Use the “Tune In URL” menu item under “Radios” to directly enter a URL
• Use the built-in browser to find a URL e.g. from Google, in your facebook timeline or on other sites.

Control More Radios Effectively

With iPeng UE, you can manage more than one radio. You can:

• See them all in one place
• Change the volume for all of them without having to switch players
• Manage synchronization
• Control several of them together, especially their volume. This is a really important feature if you have several radios playing in sync, e.g. at a party, and you want to change the overall volume or if you use two radios as a stereo pair.

Social Media Integration

With iPeng UE you can share on Twitter or Facebook what you are listening to and also play links your friends share on these platforms, e.g. from Spotify.

And through iPeng’s browser, you can even play single tracks or streams from services not available on the Smart Radio, such as SoundCloud or from music blogs.

Accessibility

iPeng’s UI is fully accessible through VoiceOver and by providing good contrast on all screens to aid readability. Its user interface has been refined with accessibility in mind and thoroughly tested with VoiceOver to make sure that visually impaired users can make full use of iPeng’s functionality.

More Questions?

Here’s the FAQ!

Get it Now!

So if you have a Smart Radio and you feel like you are lacking an iPad App, just a more powerful or more elegant remote control or even some functionality, iPeng UE is probably exactly what you have been looking for.

It’s available on the App Store now.

Just in time for Christmas, iPeng got it’s winter look again and Coolio also brought a little gift: The tile view for Albums on iPhone and iPod touch.

Tile view is pretty much the same thing as on iPad: you can browse your Albums using big cover art tiles instead of a list with smaller artwork. Like on the iPad, they are fully scalable and the whole view is fully optional, so if you still prefer the list view, that’s still the default.

So you’re all set for these long winter nights with good music waiting for you.

If you are an iOS user in Europe you might have noted that prices of Apps – including iPeng – have recently gone up by around 10%-14%, in the case of iPeng it’s from €4.99 to €5.49 for the iPhone version, from €7.99 to €8.99 for the iPad version and from €3.99 to €4.49 for the Playback In-App-Purchase.

This is not a change we or other App developers have made, it’s a change made by Apple to adapt to exchange rate changes between different currencies.

How Does App Store Pricing Work?

To fully understand why this is, you need to understand how App Store pricing works. In the App Store, a developer doesn’t set individual prices per country, a developer selects a US-Dollar based price tier for which Apple then has a separate price per currency which is what you see in the store. These different prices do take into account exchange rates but also different taxation schemes. The US price, for example, does not include any VAT but a sales tax will be added to it in some states while the Euro prices include 15% VAT that are being paid by iTunes in Luxembourg.

What developers can NOT do is to set a different price tier in one region compared to another one, so you can’t decide to sell an App in Europe for a price of X and select a price from a different tier for the U.S. or the rest of the world.

What Has Changed?

What has changed now, are the Euro prices in this table. Compared to the rest of the world, European prices have actually been somewhat lower in the past (about 12% on the net value), mainly caused by the change in exchange rates since the values were originally set in 2008. With the new prices, they are now closer on a net basis (Europe is now around 2% higher), gross prices add the higher tax in Europe to that.

A similar move happened in the UK one year ago for similar reasons, traditionally prices in the UK had been even lower than in the Euro area and were raised last year.

One should also note that this is not a “creeping price increase”, it’s indeed an adaptation to exchange rate levels and there have also been countries were the price tiers have been lowered due to exchange rate effects.

Did We Change Our Prices?

No, we did not. iPeng still sells in the same price tiers as before. iPeng for iPad has always sold in tier 10 (10 US$), iPeng for iPhone was originally priced the same and is now selling in tier 6 (6 US$) while the Playback feature sells in tier 5 (5 US$) for the fully priced and in the lowest tier, tier 1 (1 US$) with the discount.

What did change are Apple’s pricing levels in Europe and we can not change the prices in Europe without affecting the prices everywhere else in the world at the same time.

We do believe iPeng offers a good value for money, with all updates being free (and there are frequent updates with iPeng! Just read this blog to see what added value you got for free as an existing iPeng customer only this year!) and the fact that you can install it on as many devices as you like. Plus you do get an 80% discount on the Playback feature when you own both Apps.

Dear friends of iPeng. The iPhone 5 has brought a new form factor to the iPhone/iPod world, and we have used the opportunity to give iPeng a complete UI refresh. It’s been two years since the last UI change, and during that time, App user experiences have changed a lot so we felt it was time for some fresh air.

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So what’s new?

1. Design

First of all, iPeng’s graphics are now drawn much cleaner, they use more contrast and we tried to give iPeng a more reduced, less playful look, taking away a lot of gradients, semi-transparent elements and colors. This improves readability, makes iPeng’s screens look less crowded and in some places it has freed up some space to make elements bigger and more readable, like the title information on NowPlaying. Besides that the NowPlaying screen is now optimized for iPhone 5 but also looks cleaner and more readable on the older Apple devices.

We also payed some additional attention to icons, so now the main menu icons are all available in retina format and the player icons now again use real images of the devices they represent, similar to the ones used in iPeng for iPad.

2. Usability

iPeng 2.0 now has a new player-tab at the top of the screen that always shows you which player you are controlling and also gives you quick access to the list of players and Music Sources (MultiPlayer control) from everywhere in the App.

It also contains shortcuts to control the current player without having to switch to NowPlaying.

We believe that this will significantly improve the accessibility of often-used features in iPeng and therefore make your iPeng user experience even better.

3. Features

The space freed up on the left-hand side of the NowPlaying screen is now filled by the same Lyrics screen saver that’s also featured in iPeng for iPad.

The Changes in Detail

Design Language

iPeng’s new design language distinguishes between three different functional areas in the App.

• The Library View, or main menu, with a light background resembling the pages in a book shows all the content you can play with iPeng. It has your Albums, Artist etc. as well as access to music services like Spotify, Pandora or Internet Radio. It preserves iPeng’s existing layout and menu structure but draws the information cleaner and in a better structured way and it also gives you more details for example for albums and playlists.
  And it preserves iPeng’s unrivalled simplicity for building current playlists by use of it’s “play modes” feature.

• The NowPlaying Screen with a black background shows you what’s currently playing and hosts the main player controls The black background is being used to distract as little as possible from the actual music information and allows for maximum contrast to make your music’s cover art look great.
  And the bigger, scrolling labels for artist, album and title of the current song are much more readable than before

• The MultiPlayer Control in blue shows your players and lets you manage as well as control them right in place. This control now looks like in iPeng for iPad but is functionally unchanged over iPeng 1.x, it just shows in a different place.
  The same color is being used for the main player controls on NowPlaying and their duplicate in the MultiPlayer control.

User Interface Concept

Besides the design changes, the most significant difference between iPeng 1 and 2 is in the way the player selection and player settings are being handled. In iPeng 1.x, the list of players and music sources was limited to the NowPlaying page and resided on a sub-page that you could slide in from the left. This had the advantage that it was very easy to switch between players and to immediately see the music they were playing, while at the same time it didn’t take up valuable space in the main user interface.

However, it also meant that you could only access the player through the NowPlaying screen and that this was also the place you had to turn to look up which player you are actually controlling.

This is changes as of iPeng 2.0. iPeng 2.0 now always (with the exception of the landscape NowPlaying screen-saver) shows the current player at the top of the screen in a special tab and this tab also gives you access to the main player controls as well as the list of players and music sources (MultiPlayer control). You can tap or drag that tab to switch the MultiPlayer control up and down.

And you can just drag it down a little bit or double-tap it to expose a copy of the main player controls for play/pause, track skipping and volume. They will then hide the title bar buttons, but iPeng still offers you full menu navigation through left- and right swiping gestures to go back or to switch to NowPlaying respectively.

New Gestures

And last but not least, iPeng has learned a few new gestures. You can scale the artwork on the NowPlaying screens (except for portrait on iPhone 5, where it’s always set to “big”) and you can skip to the previous/next track from the landscape NowPlaying screen-saver through right/left swiping gestures.

We hope that all of these changes really help to improve your user experience and that you continue to have lots of fun with your iPeng!

As suggested in the Squeezebox forum and as a little service to those who want to use iPeng’s audiophile playback we would like to collect a list of good docking hardware, so if you are happy with your device, feel free to add it below.

As a little guidance, here’s what people will be looking for:

• Which sample rates are supported with USB audio? Please only post sample rates you really tested. There are a lot of confusing comments by vendors about the capabilities of devices, such as “the built-in DAC supports up to 192 kHz sample rate”. While the latter is certainly nice, it doesn’t help, if the stream the device pulls from the iPhone/iPad is limited to 48kHz.
• Does it have a built-in DAC? Does it support volume control?
• Does it have a remote that supports iOS remote control events? What this means, is that the remote sends commands that iPeng understands, e.g. for volume, skip and play/pause
• Does it support iPhone and/or iPad?
• Can it charge an iPhone/iPad?

As a bonus there is the open question whether there are any docking devices out there (except for Apple’s Camera Connection Kit) that allow 96 kHz sample rate playback through USB audio.

A second area of interest would be the compatibility of DACs. A lot of USB DAC implementations have bad software which causes the iPad to report an error stating the device would draw too much power. Warnings about this or recommendations for devices with good implementations are welcome.

If you prefer to comment on the Squeezebox forum, the thread is here.

Once there are enough results I will write a little article with the findings.

With versions 1.5 (iPeng for iPhone) and 1.3 (iPeng for iPad), iPeng’s playback feature (In-App-Purchase) has been completely rewritten, now providing full support for functions like synchronization, gapless playback and a larger buffer for remote streaming. Now version 1.6/1.4, again, will add to the playback capabilities allowing you to get a true audiophile experience out of iPeng by allowing for un-altered pass-through of audio with up to 24 bit sample-size and 96 kHz sample rate on iPad (48 kHz on other devices).

While some of the following was mentioned in the announcement of the 1.5/1.3 release, I did not really elaborate on it. Now, with all the additional refinements, it’s really worth writing a bit more about.

What is iPeng Playback?

iPeng Playback is an add-on feature (to be purchased separately from within the App) that makes your iPhone/iPod/iPad into a Squeezebox compatible music player for your Logitech Media Server/Squeezebox Server.

What this means is that you can now use your iThingy just like you would use a Squeezebox and control it through iPeng, you could even remote control it. So for example, you could leave an iPod playing in a dock and control it with an iPad (see below on the few limitations it has).

And if you configure your server for remote access and streaming, you can even listen to all your music while you are away from home.

Here you can find a more detailed description of iPeng Playback as an In-App purchase feature.

What’s new about the playback now?

Now, iPeng Playback has been there for over a year but version 1.5/1.3 and 1.6/1.4 introduced new capabilities. What do they add?

1.     Digital pass-through for HD audio formats with USB DACs for audiophile quality

This sounds like some secret language to you? Well, here’s what it means:

Your iPhone/iPad/iPod, when used with headphones or an analog output (“line out”), will always play your music using a CD quality encoding with a sample rate of 44.1 kHz and a sample size of 16 bits.

This is OK for analog since it’s what your Apple device’s analog output can process. But if you connect your iThingy using a digital connection, e.g. through a dock, supporting USB audio, HDMI, AirPlay or the Camera Connection Kit for iPad and if you own music in higher definition formats, for example using 48 kHz sample rate and 24 bit sample size, then this might not be what you want since it means you are losing audio quality on the way.

Now since version 1.6/1.4, this has changed. When used with digital outputs, iPeng will use the same format in which your files are encoded up to the physical capabilities of the devices you use (up to 24 bit / 48 kHz on iPad and iPhone, up to 24 bit / 96 kHz on iPad using the Camera Connection Kit). So using iPeng and the kit like this, you can stream music without any loss of quality, no bits will be lost or altered on the way.

Note: To assure that the audio is completely unaltered, you need to set the volume in iPeng to 100% because any volume change on digital data means that this data is being changed. In this case, you need to use analog volume control on your speaker or amplifier equipment.

2.     Gapless Playback (1.5/1.3)

Gapless playback is a feature still not supported by a lot of streaming devices, let alone mobile Apps. iPeng now has it. What it means is that if your music is encoded to be gapless – which is the case with a lot of live albums or classical music recordings – you can now listen to it without having a pause between the track which is really improving the authenticity of the reproduction. How well this works mainly depends on your music files. Generally, all lossless formats (FLAC, AIFF, ALAC and WAV) as well as AAC and OGG support completely gapless playback while for mp3 there will be a very brief pause between the tracks. But even that will be nowhere near to what you are used to for normal pauses between tracks, it’s in the range of 2-3 thousands of a second. The latter will also apply if you use any bitrate limiting (e.g. over 3G networks) since this will transcode the music to mp3.

3.     Active Player Synchronization (1.5/1.3)

Player synchronization means that some or all of your players will play the same music simultaneously.

Now this can’t be too difficult, can it? Well, it turns out that it is, and there are few systems that really do it well with the Squeezeboxes, iPeng now being one of them.

The problem is that your ears are very sensitive to time differences between sounds – this is how we detect the direction a sound comes from. On a short distance even differences below one hundredth of a second can be noted, and if the differences get bigger, we start to hear an echo.

Now, every network system as well as any kind of electronic inherently has delays that can get as big as a second or even more. So something needs to be done about this, and that’s where the “active” part of “active player synchronization” enters the game.

iPeng, your Squeezeboxes and the server will determine and negotiate the exact time when a certain tone has to be played, and if they find a difference between players, they will compensate by cutting out a short amount of music on the lagging player. And if over the course of the playback it turns out that one of the players gets delayed over a certain threshold, the difference will also be compensated so that your playback always stays in sync. The default value for this is 10ms (1/100^th of a second), but you can even try to tweak this in your Player Settings in Logitech Media Server.

4.     Large Buffer for Mobile Streaming (1.5/1.3)

The Squeezebox system is designed for streaming in a home environment and works fine for a stationary device. But if you use it with an iPhone or iPad, you might have changing WiFi connection quality, and especially if you use it remotely, the available bandwidth can vary massively, and you might even have short outages.

To help with these challenges, iPeng now stores a bigger part of the stream in a large internal buffer which – depending on the music format – will store between 45s and several minutes of music and improve your chances for interruption-free listening.

Now, there’s a reason why the Squeezeboxes don’t all do this, and it’s not only the lack of memory. While a large buffer helps with bad connections, it puts more load on the music source; the buffer needs to be filled to be of any use and since you don’t want to wait for your music, this has to happen in addition to the “normal” data transfer you need for your stream, so you need more bandwidth at first. Another problem is that for synchronization now different players might request different parts of the stream at the same time which can also create conflicts. Especially some online sources such as Pandora or internet radios can be affected as well as lower powered servers when transcoding music to mp3, for example to use the bitrate limiting feature.

Should any of this ever cause trouble (such as stuttering playback or distorted sound), there’s an option to use a minimum buffer size instead. While this will strip you of the advantages of the large buffer, it will make sure it works with all sources and even in complicated synchronization setups. You can find this setting under “Bitrate Limiting” in the player settings.

5.     Equalization

Equalization means that you adapt the characteristics of the sound to match a certain profile, e.g. to adapt to headphone listening vs. an external amplifier or to match the type of audio you are listening to, for example audio books or Jazz.

This is an entirely new feature since most Squeezeboxes don’t support equalization and expect this to be done by an amplifier or speaker. However, your iPhone/iPad/iPod does support it (they are designed to be used with headphones), and so iPeng now allows you to select from the default iOS equalizer profiles. Or – if you are using iOS 5 or newer – through a fully customizable 10-band-equalizer that also allows you to add your own profiles to the existing ones.

Of course you can also turn it off to get unaltered passthrough sound.

This is another new menu, and you can find it under “Audio->Equalizer” in your player settings.

Limitations

Now, even though we have improved a lot of things around the playback feature, there are still a few limitations.

No MySqueezebox.com support

The biggest one is probably that iPeng requires a local server for playback, it will not work directly with MySqueezebox.com. This is a requirement by Logitech.

No WMA without transcoding

The WMA file format is not being supported by iPeng. On some platforms, the server can transcode WMA files so that they can be played by iPeng, too (most notably Windows), but on others it might not work at all. For WMA radio streams, the “PlayWMA” plugin will be needed in any case.

WMA licensing conditions do not allow us to include this format in iPeng.

Some streaming services will not work

Some streaming services, such as Rhapsody/Napster or Spotify require end-to-end encryption and hardware players and so don’t work with iPeng. For Spotify there is a workaround through the use of the “3^rd Party Spotify Plugin” but Rhapsody/Napster will definitely not play through iPeng playback.

Have fun!