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.