Good news: We will keep the discount on iPeng 9 and iPeng ue open until Sunday, October 15th.

As you might have noticed, the discount we are giving on our current iPeng Apps on the occasion of the iOS 11 release has been extended and is still running. It was supposed to end on October 1^st, but we will now leave it open until Sunday.

The update rates for Apple’s current operating system haven’t been as fast as in the last few years, so a lot of people only started using the new operating system later.

Also, there is an issue with upgrade bundles showing a wrong price (an App Store problem on Apple’s side) that confuses some people. So we decided to extend the offer to get on board the iPeng community at a discount.

While Apple prepared to roll out iOS 11 to your iPhones and iPads out there, we have been busy making sure your favorite music App is ready in time, too.

An Alternative for Users of the Logitech Apps

This was especially important to us as Logitech’s own Apps for Squeezeboxes and the UE Smart Radio will stop working under iOS 11. So, if you have been a user of these Apps until now, you will need an alternative.

Of course we hope that you will find iPeng to be your best option now! And to help you a bit with your decision making, both iPeng 9 and iPeng ue will sell at a discount until end of September. Please note that the App Store automatically disables the discounted Upgrade Bundles for users of iPeng Classic, you will get a similar discount due to the reduced price during this time.

Three iPeng Apps will be Fully Compatible with iOS 11

And while support for specific iOS 11 features will take a little longer, iPeng 9 and iPeng ue now work fine with the new system and iPeng Party will follow soon.

Since iOS 11 brings bigger changes than most updates before, we decided to update all Apps we still support. One of the first and foremost implications of the transition to iOS 11 is the discontinuation of support for 32-bit Apps, which means a lot of older Apps will no longer work. As a consequence this means that on new devices we will have to say goodbye to the old “iPeng Classic” Apps under iOS 11. iPeng Classic, with the original Apps launched 9 and 7 years ago for iPhone and iPad, has been deprecated ever since we released iPeng 7 (now called iPeng 9) four years ago. We left the Apps on the App Store to give users of old hardware an option, but they are no longer supported for new devices.

Changes to the Apps

All our other Apps will run with iOS 11, with different implications for the respective Apps, though.

iPeng 9

iPeng 9 is seeing the smallest changes of all of our Apps. It has always been a 64-bit App, so even oldest iPeng 7 versions will still run under iOS 11. The latest update was only a few weeks ago, so changes are limited to fixes of some smaller compatibility issues in the user interface.

iPeng ue

For iPeng ue we have taken the opportunity to step up its version to 9.0 as well, and with that it gains two of the features formerly lacking in the UE Smart Radio version of iPeng:

• Lock Screen Widget. The widget allows you to control your Smart Radio directly from the lock screen of your iPhone or iPad and gives you faster access to critical controls.
• Multitasking support on iPad. iPeng ue now can run in a split-screen window alongside other Apps. While this has already been introduced with iOS 10, it becomes more important under iOS 11, and it allows you to keep iPeng always open next to another App so that you can still control and see your music while e.g. reading on your iPad.

Both features work just like in iPeng 9, please read our announcements for iPeng 9.0 to 9.2 here, here and here for details.

iPeng Party

The most significant changes will come to iPeng Party.

This is the first time iPeng Party becomes a 64-bit App, and with the upgrade, we have included a lot of the more modern code from iPeng 9 into the App in order to have full compatibility with the latest versions of Logitech Media Server. As you will see, performance has improved significantly as well.

And while the general user interface of iPeng Party has stayed the same, it has also adopted a lot of the look&feel of iPeng 9. If you are also an iPeng 9 user, you will feel more at home in iPeng Party now.

We hope that with all these updates the transition to iOS 11 goes smoothly for you and that you continue to have fun with your Apple and Squeezebox devices and of course our Apps!

It’s hot outside, but our little penguin stays cool and prepares some new features for you.

While he’s working on a big iPeng update with lots of new features and iOS 11 support for later this summer, he decided to give you some improvements already now so that you don’t get too overwhelmed with everything showing up at once. J

Roon Playback Support

This is an interesting feature for those iPeng and Squeezebox users who have moved from Logitech Media Server to Roon or for Roon users looking for an iOS player App.

While Roon comes with Squeezebox player support so that you can use your Squeezebox players with a Roon server, this didn’t work very well with iPeng so far.

Now, with iPeng 9.3, we fully support Roon’s Squeezebox interface so that you can use your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch as a Roon player. This works with all functionality Roon supports for Squeezebox players, which includes most of Roon’s general functionality as well as synchronization between Squeezebox players (but currently not between Squeezeboxes and Roon players).

Using iPeng with Roon

You will also be able to start/pause playback or control the volume directly from iPeng, but due to the limitations of Roon’s Squeezebox emulation, this will not work from the lock screen widget or the Watch App (it does work from the control center/lock screen control, though).

iPeng also comes with some integration with the Roon App that allows you to switch directly from iPeng to Roon, and if you do that, you can also directly return from Roon to iPeng.

If you mix Roon and LMS servers, iPeng allows you to move players between the different music sources, and it will identify Roon as such in the server list.

If you use an iPhone or iPad as a dedicated player, you might want to use the “Preserve Connection” setting in iPeng ‘s settings that will keep iPeng waiting in the background for five minutes after you stop playback so that you can start music after your playlist has ended more easily.

Please note: for Roon support you need iPeng’s “Playback”-In-App-Purchase. Roon support only includes player functionality, you cannot browse your Roon library using iPeng.

Find out more about Roon under https://roonlabs.com/

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Playback Synchronization Overhaul

But there are news for iPeng users with Squeezebox setups as well.

We have completely rewritten the synchronization code in iPeng Playback and it should now perform much better considering several aspects:

• it syncs much faster with other players;
• Synchonization should be more stable when used with different player types (depends on the other players also keeping sync stable, which isn’t always the case with software players);
• pausing/unpausing a group of synced players should have a much shorter delay, and sync should be immediately on unpause.

Use Music and Artist Information Plugin as Lyrics Provider

The “Music and Artist Information” plugin can now be used as a lyrics provider for iPeng’s Lyrics Screen Saver in addition to the SongInfo/Song Lyrics plugins supported before.

Since SongInfo/SongLyrics is no longer supported, we recommend to use Music and Artist Information for new setups, but you currently don’t need to switch for existing installations since both plugins currently use the same lyrics services.

And as usual, the update comes with a lot of smaller updates and bug fixes that we can’t list all in one article.

Have fun and a nice summer with iPeng!

We’re getting a lot of questions from iPeng users right now about the future of Spotify in the Squeezebox environment.
As things stand, Spotify seems to be discontinuing Squeezebox support soon (this month) and is sending out emails about this.
There is, however, a pretty good workaround, at least if you use Logitech Media Server (version 7.7.x and newer, 7.9.1 recommended), the new “Spotty” plugin:
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?107615-Announce-Spotty-the-next-generation-Spotify-implementation

If you currently don’t run your own Logitech Media Server, you might consider using a Raspberry Pi for this, it will probably give you better performance for your Squeezebox system than MySqueezebox.com alone, consumes little power and there are ready-made distributions for Squeezebox available, like Max2Play or piCorePlayer.

And then just go on listening to good music!

You can find more information about the Spotify discontinuation here:

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?107648-Spotify-on-Squeezebox-UE-Smart-Radio-end-of-life

And directly from Spotify:

https://support.spotify.com/us/listen_everywhere/on_speaker/why-cant-i-use-the-spotify-app-on-my-speaker/

Please note: Under iOS 11, the App Store shows a wrong price. There seems to be some issue on the App Store side making our bundles show the full price for both Apps, even if you already have purchased one of the Apps in the bundle. The way upgrade bundles work is that you have a price for purchasing both Apps together, and whatever you already paid for one of the Apps in the bundle will be deducted from the current price. This is often a bit confusing, especially if there have been exchange rate or tax changes. But now the App Store doesn’t discount the old payment when showing the price at all, even when you click to purchase.
The App Store actually charges the bundle correctly, meaning that after you confirm the purchase, it will inform you that the bundle is actually cheaper; but you have to take the risk to confirm the purchase (which is non-refundable!) first and hope you haven’t made a mistake like choosing the wrong bundle or wrong App Store account. We think this is not really acceptable, but we have no other way to give upgrade discounts on the App Store, and we can’t fix it (after all it’s Apple’s store).

If you are still using iPeng Classic on your recent iPhone or iPad with iOS 10, you will have noticed warning messages telling you that future iOS versions will no longer support the App. Apple will probably make this step with the release of iOS 11 this fall.

The solution for this problem is of course iPeng 9. Originally launched as “iPeng 7” three and a half years ago, iPeng 9 has been a 64-bit-App from day one and is seeing continued development and regular updates.

The reasons for making a new App back then instead of updating the old iPeng (Classic) Apps were both technical and commercial. Commercially it wasn’t feasible to do ongoing development without generating revenue from new App sales. And technically we wanted to combine the previously independent iPhone and iPad Apps into one to make maintenance easier, which had become possible because the original technical reasons for the separation had fallen away.

Since our new App launched with iPeng 7 in 2013, it has already seen lots of updates with the addition of features like the Apple Watch App, the lock screen widget, multitasking support and new functionality like QuickSwitch and Playlist and Favorites editing.

Now, if all of this hasn’t been reason enough for you to make the upgrade from iPeng Classic to iPeng 9 yet, we have a special offer for you today: a discounted upgrade path.

For existing users of iPeng Classic there are now two new upgrade bundles available on the App Store (one for iPeng Classic for iPad and one for the iPhone App), giving you a discount when upgrading to iPeng 9^*). Just purchase the “bundle completion” on the App Store for the reduced price.

With it you can enjoy all the new features of iPeng 9 instead of listening to Apple’s annoying deprecation warnings and lean back as the release of iOS 11 approaches.

And to spare you the App Store search: here are the direct links to the bundles:

iPhone

iPad

As usual: have fun with iPeng!

*) The exact discount depends on how much you have paid for iPeng Classic. For someone buying the Apps right now this would mean a 22% discount but if you purchased the App longer ago when it was still selling at e.g. US$10 the discount will be bigger while for users who purchased the App at a lower price the discount will be smaller.

We understand that this isn’t ideal, especially in non-US markets where price tiers have been changed due to currency fluctuations. But this is how the App Store works, we can’t influence this mechanism.

Today we present you an article that might strike some of you as a bit unusual here because it’s mostly not about software but about a cool piece of hardware.

It’s a Squeezebox built from a Tivoli Audio alarm speaker, and for the impatient ones among you, here are the key features and a picture:

• Tivoli Speaker and case using the original speaker and 3W output;
• WiFi;
• runs on battery for a whole day (more than 12h);
• rotary and push controller for volume and play/pause;
• separate alarm clock;
• fully Squeezebox compatible player using a Raspberry Pi zero and SqueezeLite;
• very simple and power-efficient 5V design.

And since Coolio and I do software in the first place, the whole project has its own software as well, in this case our open-sourced solution to power the volume and play/pause control. It’s quite cool, too :), you can find it on GitHub at https://github.com/coolio107/SqueezeButtonPi-Daemon

If you want to read the full story, you can find it here:

The Tivoli Squeezebox Radio