iSub iPhone Client - Version 2.0 Released

[k-dub]

What bitrate would you recommend to optimize for streaming over 3G? Driving around last night I noticed playback would suffer from time to time.

[wraithdu]

I downsample to 192k, but most would probably tell you to go with 128k.

[einsteinx2]

I will setup the test account for you and shoot you a PM. I have 99% 128K MP3's at a constant bitrate with about 1% varaible bit rate 128K. No big deal on the timer for me, once the album art fix is in I will be a very happy customer. Great program by the way.

After doing some investigation, I figured out the problem. It turns out it's caused by the increased buffer size I added to version 2.0. Basically, as soon as the buffer starts winding down at the end of a track, the progress stops updating. I experimented with some other options, none of which worked as well as the current implementation. So, I decided that since I'm completely rewriting the streaming code very soon anyway and the progress updating code is tightly integrated with the streaming code, it makes more sense to wait to rewrite it until the streaming code is rewritten. This will be fixed though. And, the album art bug is fixed already along with cached album art to make subsequent loads of the player view much faster.

Tried out the 2.0 version. Works great!

Please work on the features mentioned einstein2x, this is an awesome app. I am telling all my iphone capable friends about it.

-3g streaming (pandora works really well over 3g, if you could get similar behavior you would make my year!)

-caching of tracks (it would be nice if one could hop on an airplane and play the cached tracks while not having access to data plan). I'm not how sure this would work, but some sort of offline mode and customizable cache say 10GB would be very cool.

Nice app, keep up the good work!

Glad you're liking it so far! And don't worry, I am working to implement all user suggestions so far. With all of the suggestions I've gotten, you guys have helped me make this app better than I ever could have by myself! So I want to say thanks to everyone that's provided input so far, and please keep it coming!

On the 3G streaming note, I have increased the buffer by another 50% for version 2.1 so it should cache close to 30 seconds of 128Kbps songs. That will help the problem for now. Very soon, I'll be rewriting the streaming code to cache the full song to disk, so these dropouts will no longer be a problem.

The reason that Pandora streams so well, aside from any buffering they are doing, is that the streams are around 96kbps. If you set Subsonic to transcode your music down that low as well, you should see similar performance (but who wants to listen to 96kbps mp3s ).

As far as caching for local playback goes, when I start caching full songs to disk as they play, I will have an option to keep cached songs for local playback. This will work whether you are on 3G or Wifi. Also, I will be implementing a new view for downloading tracks from Subsonic for local playback (if the user account has download privileges). Unfortunately due to App Store restrictions on bandwidth, you will only be able to download tracks this way over Wifi (unless of course you have 3G Unrestrictor or something similar).

What bitrate would you recommend to optimize for streaming over 3G? Driving around last night I noticed playback would suffer from time to time.

128kbps is probably the best trade-off between sound quality and streaming performance through deadzones, but as was mentioned above, not only will the buffer be increased again for version 2.1 to help this problem for now, but as soon as full song caching is implemented this will all be moot anyway.

[tenblack]

Plea to happy iSub users


So, I make a plea to all satisfied iSub users from any country, if you are enjoying the app please do me a HUGE favor and leave me a review or at least a rating.

Done! Thanks for the updates - works great over 3G for me.

[einsteinx2]

Plea to happy iSub users


So, I make a plea to all satisfied iSub users from any country, if you are enjoying the app please do me a HUGE favor and leave me a review or at least a rating.

Done! Thanks for the updates - works great over 3G for me.

Thanks!

Btw, just putting the finishing touches on 2.1 today... SSL support, larger buffer, play all button for artists, current playlist view in the song info slide-over with the ability to select tracks, and debug view in the slide over as well (the song info slideover is now a horizontal paged slider like the iphone home screen with the song info and controls, playlist, and debug info). I should be submitting it tonight if nothing crazy pops up. Then it's on to full song caching, download for later play, and full on-the-go playlists

[arogan]

Another simplify music refugee here and I think I've finally found my replacement. One feature that is critical to me is resume which it seems iSub fully supports. I have one more feature request that I've been missing ever since I left my good old Sandisk Sansa e280 running rockbox.

Bookmarks. Discrete and multiple bookmarking support. Imagine the use case of listening to an audio book and some podcasts during the commute to work and then music all day while at work. If I could save specific bookmarks for multiple files (down to the specific position within those files) and then have a bookmark browser sorted by most recent that would be PERFECT. I would never have to sync another audio file to my iPhone again.

Anyways, your support has been awesome, and I'll very likely be buying the app when I get home.

[einsteinx2]

Just submitted version 2.1 to the App Store, it should be approved within a couple days. Here's the list of changes and some new screenshots:

- Artists, Albums, and Songs lists now save between sessions
- Added a Play All button to play all of an artist's albums
- Full SSL support
- Improved Song Info view: now scroll to the right (like the iPhone home screen) to see the current playlist and switch songs without hitting the forward or back buttons, then scroll to the right again to see the buffer status
- Increased audio buffer by another 50% to help stop dropouts until the new streaming code is done being rewritten for full song caching (as a song plays, it will be buffered all the way to the end rather than only 20-30 seconds forward to completely stop dropouts for good)
- Improved user interface
- Bugfixes

[einsteinx2]

Another simplify music refugee here and I think I've finally found my replacement. One feature that is critical to me is resume which it seems iSub fully supports. I have one more feature request that I've been missing ever since I left my good old Sandisk Sansa e280 running rockbox.

Bookmarks. Discrete and multiple bookmarking support. Imagine the use case of listening to an audio book and some podcasts during the commute to work and then music all day while at work. If I could save specific bookmarks for multiple files (down to the specific position within those files) and then have a bookmark browser sorted by most recent that would be PERFECT. I would never have to sync another audio file to my iPhone again.

Anyways, your support has been awesome, and I'll very likely be buying the app when I get home.

That's a great idea. Looks like I have another addition for version 2.2! And you are correct, iSub supports full resuming. Songs, and your current playing playlist, resume when you receive a call or answer a text and also whenever you press the home button while a song is playing.

Features for version 2.2 (approx. 2-3 weeks away):
- Full on-the-go playlist support (building on the new playlists view in 2.1)
- Full song caching -- when a song plays it will buffer all the way to the end of the track rather than just 20-30 seconds, which will make dropouts a thing of the past, then it can be played back when no internet connection is available
- Downloads view (downloads over wifi only due to App Store restrictions) -- If your user account has download privileges, you will be able to download songs and albums (without having to play them) for playback later when no internet connection is available
- Full bookmarking support for tracks (thanks arogan for the idea!)


Also, I should have my iPad in hand right about when I release version 2.2, then I will begin full development on iSub 3.0 which will be fully optimized for the iPad's new display size and features as well as of course still being fully compatible the iPhone and iPod Touch.

[adolgov]

Quick fix request:

I have multiple music folders that sometimes contain different albums from the same artist.

The artist list in iSub will have multiple entries for an artist if this is the case, which is not really a major problem. The problem is that since iSub caches folder and artist contents, it interprets multiple entries for the same artist as the same folder. This means that if I have access only to the first folder's contents (since it'll assume that I'm accessing the same folder when I click on the duplicate artist entry that links to the other folder).

Ideally, multiple artist entries would be collapsed, but just being able to access all of the albums for artists whose works are in different locations would be a good fix.

[einsteinx2]

Quick fix request:

I have multiple music folders that sometimes contain different albums from the same artist.

The artist list in iSub will have multiple entries for an artist if this is the case, which is not really a major problem. The problem is that since iSub caches folder and artist contents, it interprets multiple entries for the same artist as the same folder. This means that if I have access only to the first folder's contents (since it'll assume that I'm accessing the same folder when I click on the duplicate artist entry that links to the other folder).

Ideally, multiple artist entries would be collapsed, but just being able to access all of the albums for artists whose works are in different locations would be a good fix.

I do all of the caching by the folder id that Subsonic returns. From my understanding, as long as the two folders show up in Subsonic they should have different ids and iSub, although not consolidating them, should at least allow access to both folders. Can you make me a temporary test account on your server and PM me the details? I'd like to test against your library so we can sort this out. Thanks.

[adolgov]

Quick fix request:

I have multiple music folders that sometimes contain different albums from the same artist.

The artist list in iSub will have multiple entries for an artist if this is the case, which is not really a major problem. The problem is that since iSub caches folder and artist contents, it interprets multiple entries for the same artist as the same folder. This means that if I have access only to the first folder's contents (since it'll assume that I'm accessing the same folder when I click on the duplicate artist entry that links to the other folder).

Ideally, multiple artist entries would be collapsed, but just being able to access all of the albums for artists whose works are in different locations would be a good fix.

I do all of the caching by the folder id that Subsonic returns. From my understanding, as long as the two folders show up in Subsonic they should have different ids and iSub, although not consolidating them, should at least allow access to both folders. Can you make me a temporary test account on your server and PM me the details? I'd like to test against your library so we can sort this out. Thanks.

Sent you acct info in a PM. The subsonic web interface actually does collapse multiple folders into one. Well, it does it to an extent. The left-side column is condensed, and when you click on an artist, it'll bring up the albums view showing albums from all of the different locations. When you click on an album, and then click "up" to go back, it'll bring you back to a subset of the album list that's just the albums that share your recently viewed album's folder.

[arogan]

So I bought iSub last night and got subsonic all setup. It was all pretty painless. I'm loving iSub so far.

- Looks like it properly recognizes compilation tags. Way cool.
- Best buffering stream playback of any stream player I've messed with. I love having the ability to set max bitrate on a per player basis. It's more reliable than simplify ever was. Also, fastest buffering to music start times/resume too.
- I had a couple of cases of it suddenly closing. I'm trying to get some reproducible steps but so far it's been pretty random and infrequent. The last time it happened I was currently streaming a song, Albums list is loading in the background, the list is done loading and I go pick an album and then a new track. Right at that moment the app exits. This is on a iphone 3gs and after a clean reboot.

Some random "fun" feature suggestions that really aren't that important:
- One of the neat things with simplify was it pulled in artist info from Last.fm and lyrics from LyricWiki. I'm guessing they have api's or webservices or something you can call into. It might be kind of neat on the album cover art/now playing screen where you swipe to bring up the scrub bar and id3 tag info, is to let you swipe to a few more panels like artist info and lyrics if available.

So far you've really nailed all the key features I require in a streaming music app: fast navigation of a LOT of tracks, reliable and quick buffering of the stream, and resume. Awesome app! Keep up the great work!

[einsteinx2]

- Best buffering stream playback of any stream player I've messed with. I love having the ability to set max bitrate on a per player basis. It's more reliable than simplify ever was. Also, fastest buffering to music start times/resume too.

And this is only going to get better with version 2.2 and full song caching

- I had a couple of cases of it suddenly closing. I'm trying to get some reproducible steps but so far it's been pretty random and infrequent. The last time it happened I was currently streaming a song, Albums list is loading in the background, the list is done loading and I go pick an album and then a new track. Right at that moment the app exits. This is on a iphone 3gs and after a clean reboot.

I've run into that crash as well a couple times, but it's so infrequent that it's been hard for me to pin it down. I did catch it once while I had the debugger running, and I took some steps in version 2.1 to (hopefully) keep it from happening anymore. It hasn't happened to me yet since then while testing 2.1, so I think I fixed it. If it happens to you again once you upgrade to 2.1 (after it makes it through the App Store approval process) please let me know.

Some random "fun" feature suggestions that really aren't that important:
- One of the neat things with simplify was it pulled in artist info from Last.fm and lyrics from LyricWiki. I'm guessing they have api's or webservices or something you can call into. It might be kind of neat on the album cover art/now playing screen where you swipe to bring up the scrub bar and id3 tag info, is to let you swipe to a few more panels like artist info and lyrics if available.

Actually, I was already planning to implement something like that in the iPad version of the app because of all the extra screen real estate. No reason I shouldn't display it in the iPhone/iTouch app as well. Good suggestion, this will definitely be implemented at some point if I can get access to API's that will give me this information (I'm pretty sure they're available).

So far you've really nailed all the key features I require in a streaming music app: fast navigation of a LOT of tracks, reliable and quick buffering of the stream, and resume. Awesome app! Keep up the great work!

Thanks for the kind words I'm really glad that people are enjoying the hard work I've been putting in! Looking forward to many more hours sitting in front of Xcode!

[arogan]

last.fm artist pic and bio info:
http://www.last.fm/api/show?service=407
http://www.last.fm/api/show?service=267

lyricwiki soap:
http://lyrics.wikia.com/LyricWiki:SOAP
rest api:
http://lyrics.wikia.com/LyricWiki:REST

Hmmmm noticed subsonic has this:
http://your-server/rest/getLyrics.view

Fun stuff

[einsteinx2]

Awesome, thanks for giving me a head start