Subsonic on iPod Touch Recommendation

[bluetooth]

I'm helping a friend (always THE FRIEND!!). Her computer with music is in the basement and she wants to play music to her stereo in the living room.

I figured subsonic with an iPad Touch Wifi would be the ideal solution for this.

Any recommendations/suggestions as to which Touch app is the best, or preferred?
Thanks in advance.
Cliff

[einsteinx2]

Well I'm the developer of iSub, so you can imagine which one I'd recommend

I only wanted to drop in to say that iSub 2.0 was just released yesterday with many more features than the first release, so please judge my current offering against Z-Subsonic, not my first version.

If you haven't already, check out the Announcements section, both iSub and Z-Subsonic have threads with screenshots and information. Also you can check out http://www.subsonic.org/pages/apps.jsp for detailed descriptions of each (although the bullet points for iSub haven't been updated there yet, I have new info posted in my Announcements thread for 2.0)

Happy listening whichever app you choose

[bluetooth]

Thanks Einstein,
Is it possible to try out your app without purchasing? Also, I'd like to try it out with my Touch, but of course she will have a different player.

If I am forced to purchase the app, can the license be moved?

[einsteinx2]

Thanks Einstein,
Is it possible to try out your app without purchasing? Also, I'd like to try it out with my Touch, but of course she will have a different player.

If I am forced to purchase the app, can the license be moved?

Unfortunately to my knowledge there is no way to refund a purchase via the app store (I'm a bit of an app store newbie so I may be wrong). I can send you a promo code for version 2.0 of iSub that will let you download the app for free to try it out (if you're in the US, for whatever reason it's a US only thing). That would let you try it on your iTouch before recommending it to her. Let me know if you're in the US and I'll send one via PM.

--Ben

[bluetooth]

Unfortunately, I am in Canada.
This iPod Touch thing is completely new to me, it would sure be nice to be able to check it out for a few days before having to purchase.

I do know she has a fairly large collection, and plans to access it WiFi on her local lan; if that makes any difference. Ability to shuffle, play albums. Heck, not even sure what features would end up being important after a few weeks.

[einsteinx2]

Unfortunately, I am in Canada.
This iPod Touch thing is completely new to me, it would sure be nice to be able to check it out for a few days before having to purchase.

I do know she has a fairly large collection, and plans to access it WiFi on her local lan; if that makes any difference. Ability to shuffle, play albums. Heck, not even sure what features would end up being important after a few weeks.

It's hard for me to give you an honest comparison because I'm not very familiar with Z-Subsonic. I can tell you that some people with large collections prefer Z-Subsonic because it separates the artists page by letter instead of loading all artists at once the way iSub does. However, in my next version coming out soon, it will save the artist list between app loads so that will no longer be much of an issue in iSub as you'll only need to load it once until you change your Subsonic library. One big feature Z-Subsonic has that I don't (yet ) is local playlist support. That is something I'm currently working on, but he's had it implemented for a while now. The biggest feature I can think of that iSub has, but Z-Subsonic doesn't is the ability to skip within tracks. Other than that, I don't know enough about his features to tell you more.

Also, there is the subjective choice of which interface you prefer. iSub is more iPod style, while Z-Subsonic has it's own style.

Hope that helps a little. Sorry I couldn't get you a promo code because of your location.

[bluetooth]

Thanks for a very objective comparison list. I do prefer the iPod interface.

I'm also very concerned with load times for large collections; but maybe I'm overstating that. Not sure really.

Does yours or z-subsonic store db's locally on the touch so it loads quicker on restarts?

[einsteinx2]

Thanks for a very objective comparison list. I do prefer the iPod interface.

I'm also very concerned with load times for large collections; but maybe I'm overstating that. Not sure really.

Does yours or z-subsonic store db's locally on the touch so it loads quicker on restarts?

I believe z-subsonic's way of dealing with the large collections is by splitting the artists by letter so that even though you load them each app use, it's a smaller load, but not by local caching (I could be wrong here though).

Version 2.1 of iSub coming out early next week will keep a local db for the artists, albums, and songs pages once you've loaded them once, then you can manually refresh those local db's when you know your collection has changed. This feature is already in my test builds, I just happened to implement it after 2.0 was already submitted to the app store. One thing that I do have in iSub right now is that the artists, albums, and songs pages load in the background, so if you're interrupted by a call and come back to the program, you don't have to wait forever for the artists page to load before your song resumes.

[bluetooth]

BTW, would there be a way to put a trial version (free) in the app store? The trial could be limited on days, or number of tracks it would load. It sure would be nice to see the app before committing to it.

[einsteinx2]

BTW, would there be a way to put a trial version (free) in the app store? The trial could be limited on days, or number of tracks it would load. It sure would be nice to see the app before committing to it.

One of Apple's restriction on "lite" apps is that they must be full featured in whatever they support. They do not allow time trial or other limited functionality type apps. The only type of lite version apps they allow are for instance a lite version of a game with less levels and stuff like that. I do agree it would be nice if they allowed the developer make their paid app available as a time limited trial that would then need to be purchased after a few days, but unfortunately they have no way to do that now.

[flacflac]

@Einsteinx2: does your app work with SSL servers as well?

Thanks,
ff

[einsteinx2]

@Einsteinx2: does your app work with SSL servers as well?

Thanks,
ff

Not in it's current version, but it's on my shortlist for features to add along with redoing the streaming player code to allow for full song caching. I've been getting a lot of requests for those features. At the moment though, I don't think Z-Subsonic supports SSL either (please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't want to be spreading misinformation about his app), so unfortunately for now iPhone/iTouch users are out of luck for SSL support.

On a side note, I'm downloading iPhone OS 4.0 beta today to put on my dev iphone so that iSub will have extra 4.0 features like running in the background (like the real ipod app) from day 1 of 4.0 being public. Also, I have an 3G iPad on pre-order right now, so in the next month or so iSub will also be a full scale iPad app along with iPhone/iTouch support of course, all from the same binary. So stay tuned guys, lots more coming... I'm really loving working on this app

[einsteinx2]

Update on SSL Support:
Just added SSL support to my code and it's working great. Turns out all it took was changing 2 lines of code! One to tell it to allow self signed certificates, and another to allow addresses with https:// at the beginning to be inputted. I'll be releasing version 2.1 early next week with SSL included, so you guys won't have to wait much longer for it. Also, it looks like Sola is including SSL support in his next version of Z-Subsonic as well, so big win for iPhone owners using https!

[bluetooth]

Another iSub question. Is it able to play defined internet radio and podcasts as they are defined on the Subsonic server?