play:Sub 1.5 (iOS): lossless, gapless, equalizer, crossfade

[Michael Bech Hansen]

Hi,

I'm pleased to to announce that play:Sub 1.5 has hit the App Store.

Here's the "What's New" text from the App Store:

tl;dr: lossless, gapless, equalizer, crossfade

AUDIO IMPROVEMENTS
A completely new audio engine has been implemented, giving direct support for many additional audio formats, like FLAC, ALAC, OGG, Opus, MP4 and more.
Server-side transcoding is no longer needed, except for WMA-files.

LOSSLESS AUDIO SUPPORT
play:Sub now fully supports lossless playback of for example FLAC over any connection with enough bandwidth.

GAPLESS PLAYBACK and CROSSFADE
Choose between gapless playback or crossfade between tracks directly from the player screen.

EQUALIZER
10 band, fully customizable, equalizer.
Equalizer can easily be selected or disabled directly from the player screen.

BITRATE CONTROL
Connection dependent bitrate lets you configure the best possible audio for any connection.
Separate settings for cellular and wifi, and override settings for adapting to slow/fast WiFi networks.
When audio is cached at a lower bitrate, play:Sub has the option to upgrade the cached audio when a better connection is available.

TWEAKS
Player screen now show additional information like, genre, audio format and audio bitrate as well as a buffering indicator.
Download screen now shows progress and speed of downloads.
Background downloads - the app no longer needs to stay open for caching many tracks.

FIXES
FIX "Remove from cache" does not work from the play queue.
FIX Play queue is shuffled on connectivity changes.
FIX Larger touch area for "+/- 30s" buttons.
FIX Compatibility improvements for Ampache and Madsonic servers.

For feature requests or issues:
please use the in-app form (play:Sub | Feedback),
or the contact form on http://michaelsapps.dk

Go get it while supplies last

Cheers,
Michael.

[DontPanic57]

Hello Michael !

Great update as always !
I use you application every days and it works really nice compared to all the other i tried.

[DreamStatic]

Thank you for the big update and fixes. We appreciate your hard work!

[MoBO]

I'm using iSub since the beginning and I would like to test your application before buying but this is not possible

It's not a matter of price but paying for something I might never use is really annoying to me.
Any way to setup a free and limited version (maybe with advertisement - I hate advertisement but this is a great way to provide "free" apps if there is a way to remove it).

Thanks

[Michael Bech Hansen]

Hi,

Yeah trials are not really supported from Apples side...

I'm currently beta testing the next version, and the more testers the better.
If you send me a private message with an email address, I can get you a beta test invite.
That will give you a time limited test version to check out.

Anyone else wanting to help test the next version:
send me a private message with you email address, and I'll get you a beta tester invite.

Cheers,
Michael

[Nico]

hi Michael, thank you so much for your superfast assistance with the test invite!
in short: your player kicks the good old isub players ass (shortly tested on phone 6 with 9.3.5 and sub server 6 on win10)

from the beta:
Is 'staring' only local? I don't see all my stars back at the server...
while in the artist menu, there are options like #1 top songs, but not the 'Similar artists' right?
is the artists info and all pulled via the sub server or directly from last.fm? (in other words what is the lowest sub server version to get this working?)
From the queue there is an option to jump to the show playing item, only that appears to do nothing. (show containing folder from the player does work)
Where is the 'Register what I'm playing at Last.fm' option?

[Michael Bech Hansen]

Hi,

Is 'staring' only local? I don't see all my stars back at the server...

It's supposed to sync to the server immediately if you have network connection, and otherwise at first opportunity when network becomes available.
If starring isn't synced, I'll want to have a closer look... could you send me an feedback email fro inside the app, after having done a star/unstar that doesn't come through to the server ? That email will give me a log file for further scrutiny.

while in the artist menu, there are options like #1 top songs, but not the 'Similar artists' right?

Similar Artists are also available. If you tap the left-most icon on the cover art or the tiny downward arrow below the title, you'll get a menu with list selection. Similar Artists are one of the list types.

is the artists info and all pulled via the sub server or directly from last.fm? (in other words what is the lowest sub server version to get this working?)

All info is pulled via the server - artist, album and lyrics.
Artist info is available from Server 5.1 AFAIR.
Album Info: 6.0
Lyrics: 4.0
Artist Info and Lyrics are mostly returning results, whereas Album Info is less likely to produce any output in my experience.

From the queue there is an option to jump to the show playing item, only that appears to do nothing. (show containing folder from the player does work)

In the queue view, the "map pin"-like icon is supposed to scroll to the playing item. The same action is available in the context menu as "Show playing item".

Where is the 'Register what I'm playing at Last.fm' option?

That's in the user settings on the server.

Thanks,
Michael.