Penguin Loves Music

With Apple progressing from iOS 7 to iOS 8, iPeng 7 obviously needed an overhaul too. So, we are happy to announce that iPeng 7 is now iPeng 8 and it’s available on the App Store.

iPeng 8 is more than just an update to get along with iOS 8, it has been adapted to make the best use of the capabilities and the larger screen of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. In addition to this, we plan to successively introduce more iOS 8-specific features (like Notification Center widgets) within the coming months.

iPhone 6 Support

iPhone 6 and especially iPhone 6 Plus has a much larger screen than earlier models, and we decided to make good use of the additional screen space.

Modified NowPlaying Screen: The NowPlaying screen got slightly updated and now features additional volume buttons along with more space to show the current track information

Thumbnails in the Current Playlist: Just like on iPad, iPeng 8 on iPhone 6 now also shows artwork thumbnails in the current playlist in portrait mode.

New default thumbnail sizes for album views: The tile view for albums now uses different default sizes (you can still scale it at will) to allow showing more albums on a single screen on iPhone 6 Plus. This way, iPhone 6 plus can show almost as much content as an iPad (in default configuration), making it a real good alternative to the tablet for browsing your library.

iPeng browse screen size comparison – iPhone 4, iPhone 6, iPad

New landscape mode for NowPlaying on iPhone 6: NowPlaying in landscape mode always has been a bit limited on iPhone/iPod touch in iPeng due to the limited screen height. With iPhone 6 this problem doesn’t exist anymore – iPeng now has a gorgeous new landscape mode in which it can now also show a current playlist next to the familiar cover view. Since you can also bring down the player list with a swipe from the top now, this actually gives you all the control functionality in landscape mode that you are used to in portrait mode.

iPhone 6 Plus – Landscape Playlist

This also shows the size of Apple’s new device: the current playlist in landscape mode on iPhone 6 plus has almost the same size as the current playlist in portrait mode on iPhone 4. Have a look at all the sizes that are now available in iPeng.

Size Comparison – Current Playlist

And All That Attention to Detail…

These were the big points. But in addition to that, we also paid a lot of attention to the details in iPeng to make your favorite controller App even better. Apart from the obvious fixes of issues introduced with IOS 8, this includes a significant performance update with some servers, some design improvements (finally, the new iPhones are quick enough , so that iPeng 7 looks as originally intended by us J), smoother scrolling and a better index-bar on iPhone/iPod, better support of Logitech Media Server 7.9 and many more small details.

Have fun with iPeng 8!

The World Cup is over and Coolio can now again turn his attention to bringing you cool new updates for iPeng 7.

iPad and iPhone Behavior More Consistent

Due to some changes in iPeng’s iPhone UI, the behavior of the iPhone and iPad user interfaces are now more consistent:

• A new NowPlaying button on iPhone: On iPhone, iPeng now uses a small version of the current track’s cover as a NowPlaying button. This allows you an immediate glance of what’s currently playing.
  
• Swipe-to-delete in the current playlist: Swipe on a track in the current playlist to delete it or bring up the context menu.
• Don’t leave menu when returning to App: When you return to iPeng from another App, iPeng on iPhone will no longer return to the “More” main menu but stay where you left it.

Support for LMS 7.9

Logitech Media Server 7.9 brings a number of changes to the server’s behavior, and iPeng 7.0.6 will now fully support them.

In particular, LMS 7.9 now allows you to create additional artists menus (for example for Composers, Album Artists etc.), this is now also fully supported in iPeng. If you use this functionality with the server (it’s optional), iPeng’s “Artists” menu will take the role of the “All Artists” menu in LMS.

Another change in LMS 7.9 is that you can create sublibraries to e.g. separate out children’s music or audiobooks. This functionality, too, is now fully supported by iPeng 7.

Have fun!

The new version 7.0.3 of iPeng 7, now on the App Store, comes with a new feature some users have asked for after the introduction of iPeng 7: an automatic color scheme selection.

As you probably know, iPeng 7 comes with a bright and a dark color scheme. Now, these two schemes have their respective merits under different lighting conditions: in bright daylight, the bright color scheme is easy to read and looks very iOS 7-like. But in a dark room it can be really, really bright, so you might prefer to use the dark scheme then.

So far, this meant you had to change the color scheme and restart the App but no more. Now, the new default setting in iPeng 7 is “Automatic”, which selects the most appropriate scheme based on the ambient lighting conditions.

To enable this, your iPhone or iPad will have to have the automatic screen brightness setting enabled (the default). And if you don’t like the level at which iPeng switches between the schemes, you can adjust the threshold brightness level with a slider in iPeng’s settings.

The ambient lighting adaptation does not work on the original iPhone 4 or iPod touch. On these devices, the “Automatic” setting will instead use the time of day to switch schemes: bright will be used from 7am to 7pm and dark for the rest of the day.

You also no longer have to quit the App to change the color scheme, this now takes effect just as you select it.

Have fun!

Today we are introducing an entirely new iPeng App: iPeng 7. It comes with an overhauled user interface adapted to iOS 7, it is a universal App (the same App runs on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch), and it has become even more powerful and user friendly compared to earlier iPeng versions.

iPeng 7 is not an update of the existing iPeng and iPeng for iPad versions, it’s a new App, and yes, as an existing customer, you will have to buy it “again”, however, existing Playback In-App-Purchases will stay valid as long as you transfer them using iCloud or use the same device for the old and the new App.

Why a new App?

iPeng has been around for almost five years now, and during that time it saw numerous updates, redesigns and new features, and except for Playback all of those came for free. But adding features and creating updates is a lot of work and actually costs a lot of money. Since the Squeezebox system was discontinued by Logitech and since iPeng is already so present in the Squeezebox user base, we were not able to justify new developments for existing Apps for iOS 7 from new sales. After all, users who do not wish to buy the new App do not have to: the old iPeng Apps still work flawlessly, even under iOS 7.

Legacy Support

But there are other good reasons to go for a new App. The App Store has a very simplistic modus operandi: it only lets you post one version of an App. Since iOS 7 there is now a history so that you can download old versions of an App for example for older devices but there is no way an App author can update these legacy versions. Also, there are no cross-grades to other Apps (being able to update from one App to another one), discounts or anything.

While this is simple and easy to understand, it comes at a significant cost: it means that you can’t move on to modernize an App without leaving existing users behind. But iPeng has got devoted users for a long time now, a lot of them have bought hardware specifically for use with iPeng, and many of them now use their old devices as dedicated players. We have stayed committed to support them in the past, and actually iPeng is among a very small minority of Apps still providing updates that run on iOS 4 devices (iPhone 3G 2^nd generation iPod touch) while most Apps on the App Store require iOS 6 for quite a while now.

This clearly interferes with modernizing an App. We have felt this problem even with the previous iPeng versions, but for iOS 7 it has become really imminent: it is very, very hard to create an App that both integrates well with iOS 7 and still supports older OS versions. Supporting iOS 4 and 5 would have been completely out of the question.

So for us, bringing out this App as an update would have meant that we could not provide our Apps for all devices that only support iOS 5 (e.g. 3^rd generation iPod touch and iPad 1) and probably also those with iOS 6 (i.e. iPhone 3GS) anymore. We could not only no longer provide updates and bug fixes for these devices.

The Decision

So the decision was to make a clean cut. iPeng 7 is a new App, it uses a modernized platform and code base to fully support iOS 7, and to ease the pain a little bit, it will be a universal App for both iPhone /iPod and iPad. Existing Playback purchases can be migrated. And if you don’t like iOS 7, you can still use the old version.

So what’s new in iPeng 7

Besides providing an entirely iOS 7-like look and feel, iPeng 7 also brings a number of new features users have been asking for for a long time – after all, one of the merits of not having to keep legacy support is that you can improve things more easily.

There are a lot of details that got improved, and I will write more articles on them in the future, but here are the highlights:

Redesigned iPad User Interface

iPeng for iPad’s user interface has started to look dated for quite a while, and we have taken the opportunity to completely redesign it. Player- and Playlist-related controls have been separated out to different bars at the top and bottom of the screen, there are no “hidden” controls anymore (yet there still are convenience gestures, actually a lot of them!),, and the whole screen layout got tidied up.

In landscape mode you can now pin down the current playlist to permanently show it next to the library content, and the content window can be scaled to show even more of these gorgeous views iPeng uses to present your music library and other content.

Fully Customizable Main Menu

A lot of users have asked to be able to change their main menu structure to have other menu items on the home menu or hide things they don’t need. iPeng 7 now allows you to do that through a simple drag-and-drop interface.

New MultiPlayer Control

The MultiPlayer Control used to select players and music sources and to manage synchronization has been redesigned to structure it better and to make changes more easy and transparent.

Can I Have it in Black?

Hell, yes!

This has been one of our “most frequently asked questions”, and in the past it had been impossible on iPhone and “too hard” on iPad, but with iOS 7 we are finally there: yes, there is a switch to select a black /dark user interface.

Get it Now!

The first week promotion unfortunately is over now, but iPeng 7 is still selling at half of the price of the original iPeng Apps combined (you only have to pay once for both iPhone and iPad) for at lest the rest of 2013. So, if you like what you’ve seen and read, go to the App Store, get iPeng 7 now and have fun!

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Questions and Answers

On which devices does it run?

iPeng 7 runs on all devices that support iOS 7. Currently that means all “retina” devices  and the iPad 2 and iPad mini (iPhone 4 and newer, iPod touch 5^th generation and newer).

Can I upgrade from older versions of iPeng?

No. iPeng 7 is a new App. See the article above for the full explanation.

But I just bought the old iPeng!

Please contact us under coolio (att) penguinlovesmusic (dott) com and send your App Store receipt.

Can I get a discount?

No. The App Store doesn’t have provisions for discounts for users of other Apps.

Are you trying to rip me off?

Yes, sure. No, seriously, please read the article above on the reasons for making iPeng 7 a separate App.

Will the old iPeng versions continue to work?

Yes. And we will keep providing bug fixes. New features, however, are likely to only be introduced for iPeng 7 since the modernized code we are using there will not be backwards compatible to the old iPeng versions – it’s one of the reasons for this move.

Will the old iPeng versions run on iOS 7?

Yes. The old iPeng versions have been tested and updated to fully work on iOS 7, but they don’t use an iOS 7 user interface, and they will also not be updated to get an iOS 7 UI.

I like iPeng’s new iPad user interface much better than the old one, will the old iPeng for iPad get that as well?

No. The new user interface has been designed specifically with iOS 7 and its technologies in mind, it would not work with the old iPeng for iPad.

I don’t like white, can I have it in black?

Hell, yes!

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.