I borrowed an iPod Touch just to try iPeng.  At first, I couldn't get on
with it all, because I couldn't get the swipe gesture to work - often,
instead of changing screens, it would select a different track,
sometimes wiping my playlist completely.  Then I took the thick rubber
skin off... :-) Turned out it was preventing me swiping to the edge of
the screen - and that appears to be crucial for iPeng.

I'd considered switching to iPeng as I'd had lots of problems with the
controller disconnecting too frequently, and thought it was turning to
slok; but since then, I've discovered that not only do I need to disable
wireless power save (or whatever it's called), but I need to keep doing
it, as it gets reset (for no obvious reason). With that, the controller
is OK (albeit a little more power-hungry).

There are many ways in which I prefer iPeng over the Controller: a
single screen that shows all my Squeezeboxen, and lets me sync or unsync
them easily (though I'm still occasionally surprised by the sync
direction); it's quicker to switch between players; being able to move
tracks around in the current playlist; and physical and screen size.

I've noticed one tiny quirk: sometimes when I launch a MusicIP mix, the
playlist view doesn't update properly, and still shows the old playlist
beyond the current track. I find some of the screen buttons difficult to
press in iPeng; for example, it can take me a while to change the
shuffle mode.  I still get some of the gestures wrong occasionally, so
for example, instead of dragging the playlist, I end up switching to
whatever song was under my finger at what I thought was the start of the
drag gesture.

(Perhaps I should add that the borrowed Touch is 1st-gen; perhaps a
3rd-gen would perform better.)

There's one reason why I still tend to use the Controller a lot, and
that is that I often want to do other things with the iPod, such as
check my mail, surf the web, or just play some silly game - and I have
to shut down iPeng to do any of these things.  I can't *quite* justify
having two iPod Touches :-)

Recently, we've started to get IP conflicts on our network, and I think
I've pinned it down to the Touch and our router not quite using DNS
properly when reconnecting after sleep.  Should be simple to fix, though
(just switch to fixed IP addresses for known kit).

Overall, if I didn't already have a Controller, I probably wouldn't
bother.  If I already had a Touch, getting iPeng would be a no-brainer.
(I'm still using the borrowed Touch - must get my own sometime! but the
original owner isn't missing it.) Bear in mind though that I rarely use
my Controller as a player - I might feel differently if I did.

-- Brian


-- 
Brian Ritchie
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Ritchie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2319
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=75684

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