Re: [slim] Game On: Sonos has an iPhone app

2008-10-31 Thread Jim Wald 

tamanaco;354910 Wrote: 
 
 I think Sonos sees the iPhone app as a compliment to their hardware
 remote. Maybe this app is there to fill the gap before they release a
 new and improved hardware remote. How many Sonos users own an iPhone?
 How many iPhone user know/knew of Sonos? I see this Sonos app  as a
 strategy to expose iPhone/iPod Touch users to the Sonos. The Sonos
 iPhone Controller is a free application. I doubt that Sonos introduced
 it to cannibalized their hardware sales. Is more likely that they are
 using it to introduce their hardware system to a big existing and
 growing population of iPhone/iPod touch users.

You are right.  I am sure that Sonos sees their official FREE
iPhone/iTouch app as a way to encourage more sales of their hardware. 
Sonos didn't develop their app because there wasn't a Sonos app on the
iPhone App Store.  There were already THREE Sonos apps in the app store
(a $20 one called ZoneMaster, a free lite version of ZoneMaster, and a
$15 one called Zones). Yet Sonos created a FREE app that virtually
duplicates their hardware controller (probably to the chagrin of the
guys that developed the $15 and $20 apps). 

And I am SURE Sonos didn’t introduce it to “cannibalize their hardware
sales”. I am also sure that most Sonos controllers are sold with the
purchase of a buyer’s first Sonos player.  Likewise, I am sure that
most SBCs are sold with a buyer’s first Duet, rather than as a separate
purchase. There are ALREADY over 10 million iPhones out there, and who
knows how many iPod Touches, and that number is escalating every week.
Sonos sees the potential sales of lots of their players to all those
iPhone/iPod Touch owners as being a lot bigger that the potential sales
of ADDITIONAL Sonos controllers to their existing customers as being a
compelling business model.  

As the owner of one SB2, two SB3’s, a SB Boom, and an iPhone (the
iPhone since the first week of July, 2007), and given the fact that I
ALWAYS have the iPhone in my shirt pocket, I would be the first to
encourage SD and Logitech to follow Sonos’ lead and develop a free
iPhone app for the App Store that duplicates the functionality of the
SBC, for both existing customers and for the same marketing reasons
that led Sonos to create a free app (even though, as I said, there were
already three Sonos apps in the App Store). With 10-20 million
iPhone/iPod Touch users out there, I can’t be the only one that has
both an iPhone or iPod Touch AND a Squeezebox.


-- 
Jim Wald

Jim Wald's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4783
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=54336

___
discuss mailing list
discuss@lists.slimdevices.com
http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss

[slim] Of Synchronization, PlayLists, Low Buffers and SoftSqueeze

2006-03-30 Thread Jim Wald 

This is my first post here, but I have been very impressed as to how
helpful everyone is.

I am expanding my SqueezeBox network, and I have run into two problems.


I have one SqueezeBox 2 and two SqueezeBox 3’s plus I am trying to run
two instances of SoftSqueeze on different computers. All of my
SqueezeBoxes/SoftSqueezes are run via wired Ethernet from my LinkSys
four-port/wireless A/G router, to four switches in four locations in my
home.  I am running SlimServer 6.2.1-5194 on an Intel server (actual
Intel server MB, case, etc) with dual 3.0 GHz Xeon processors, 4 GB of
Ram and 2 TB (net) of internal Raid 5 storage. The server RARELY hits
even 4% CPU usage and the vast majority of physical ram is free, even
when streaming to all five SqueezeBoxes/SoftSqueezes so I know that
isn’t an issue. I ONLY use WAV files and they are set up in iTunes
Playlists (and I do want to stick with iTunes for my playlists, both
for the sake of my iPods and for the sake of sticking with a standard).
I have SlimServer set up to use iTunes and have rescanned the library a
number of times.

Problem 1:  I wanted to sync two SqueezeBoxes and one SoftSqueeze
together and the other SqueezeBox and SoftSqueeze together.  This
worked fine, except for one little thing: Each SqueezeBox and
SoftSqueeze would play only ONE (complete) song in an iTunes playlist. 
If you hit “Play” after a unit stopped, it would then play the next song
on the playlist.  Obviously, this was not a workable situation, and,
after reading a bunch in the forums here, I solved the
playing-only-one-song problem by un-syncing all the players.  SO: has
anybody come up with a cure for the
synced-units-not-playing-through-playlists yet?  The Sync feature is
very important to me.

Problem 2:  After I had un-synced the SqueezeBoxes and SoftSqueezes, I
found that the SoftSqueeze I was running on one of my downstairs
computers STILL had the playing-only-one-song problem, and, in
addition, the sound was now breaking up.  More reading on the forums
introduced me to the low buffer problem.  And, after turning on the
buffer percentage on the display, I saw that it jumped to 25% for less
than a second as I began a song, and then went to 0% until it stopped
playing at the end of the song and, of course, did not continue to play
the next song on the playlist.  I then installed SoftSqueeze on my other
computer right next to the one having the problem, and it acted in the
same way.  I then installed SoftSqueeze on my wireless 811a (signal
strength: Excellent) laptop, and it too acted in exactly the same way. 
I then moved one of my SqueezeBox 3’s into this location, connected it
to the Ethernet cable from the computer that was originally having the
problem, and the SqueezeBox 3 had no problem, went immediately to 100%
buffer reading, and had no break-ups in the sound.  I put the Ethernet
back on the computer, and the buffer and breakup and not playing the
playlist were all back.  Remember, I am also using SoftSqueeze with the
same settings on a computer upstairs with no problems, and I pretty much
eliminated the Ethernet connection downstairs as being the problem, when
I tested the SqueezeBox 3 on that cable (and, besides, the network
connections and speeds between the upstairs and downstairs machines, as
well as to the internet, are all you could ask for).  SO: why would
three wired SqueezeBoxes and one wired SoftSqueeze have their buffers
at 100% and play playlists with no problems and no drop-outs, while two
wired computers in another location and a wireless computer all have 0%
buffer, drop-outs, and playing only one song on the playlists before
stopping (and not only did the SqueezeBox 3 work at 100% buffer at this
location, this location is the one CLOSEST to the router).

I will be one happy camper when I can get both this sync problem and
buffer problem solved.  Until then, not so much.

I appreciate any help anyone can give me here.

Thanks,
Jim


-- 
Jim Wald

Jim Wald's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4783
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=22573

___
Discuss mailing list
Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com
http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss