[ANNOUNCE] Orange Squeeze 1.0 for Android Released

[db122]

Edit: Please see the updated thread discussion Orange Squeeze 1.3.0!

Hi everyone.

I'm pleased to announce the release of Orange Squeeze, our Android remote control for Logitech Media Server Squeezebox devices. You all know the drill, so I'll just include the links.

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....orangesqueeze

or

SlideME: http://slideme.org/application/orange-squeeze

or

AndroidPIT: http://www.androidpit.com/en/android...Orange-Squeeze

If you discover bugs or features that you would like to see, please file them at http://www.orangebikelabs.com/trac/orangesqueeze.

The app is only $2.99. :-)

Ben Sandee
Orange Bike Labs

[db122]

FWIW, a 1.0.1 update was pushed out to address two crash reports from the market. Might take a bit to become available.

If anyone tries this product and doesn't like it, I will issue refunds outside of the 15-minute mandated Android window.

[Kvaks]

I tried it, but quickly found that it's lacking too many features compared with SqueezeCommander. It has a nice look and feel to it, though.

[db122]

Thanks for the feedback Kvaks and thanks also for giving us a shot. Yours is the first outside feedback that we have received so it is particularly valuable.

If you don't mind telling us what features you miss then we would appreciate it. In my day-to-day use, Orange Squeeze serves my needs but certainly I am just one user. I have resisted using SqueezeCommander, or any of the other apps (including even the free Logitech app!), because I didn't want to fall into a copy-cat mentality. So I guess that my request for clarification is somewhat of a dichotomy. I'm torn, to be honest. :-)

Anyway, this started out as -- and continues to be -- a learning process... and that process is not over with 1.0 (or 1.0.1). Certainly the price point we chose reflects the fact that we know (well, suspect that we know) where our app lies in a direct side-by-side comparison.

I do want to make sure that you don't feel that you were misled in our market description. Were there features mentioned that you feel were not in the product?

Ben

[mherger]

Ben,

I like your approach of ignoring the others :-). And I must agree that
users will always miss some functionality - sometimes less is more.
Competition is a good thing.

I gave Orange Squeeze a quick spin. I won't compare it to other apps (I
see pros and cons for all of them, including yours), but give some some
feedback none the less:

- first of all: nice job. Discovered my servers/players quickly. No fuzz
setting it up. Basic jobs like browsing, player control etc. work fine.

- I like the concept of being able to select the target for every action.

- I like the "album preview" icons for artists. Would it be possible to
have it the full icon size if there's only one album for an artist? And
while we're at it... you could pull in some random artist artwork from
last.fm if no album artwork for an artist was available...

- as you mentioned the Kindle Fire as compatible, I tried to install it
there first. But I couldn't find the app neither on Amazon's store nor in
SlideMe. Further feedback based on running it on an Acer Iconia (HTC
Desire failing to download it this morning?)

- first time I browsed the Music Folder, it failed to browse a sub-folder,
but would always jump back to the main folder. Might be an issue only
showing while it was still waiting for the full list?

- Apps and Internet Radio icons look poor, like jaggy, small jpegs
rescaled, while album artwork etc. is good. I see from the server log that
you're pulling in the original file, which would be 512x512 png. Where are
the artefacts introduced?

- At some point I got it into a odd state: I switched to controlling a
different player connected to a different server. But still I would see
the old server/player's App menu, eg. apps which are not available from
the new server. Selecting one of them would return an empty menu, then
jump to the Now Playing screen.

- just got the "you can go to the Now Playing activity" message: I would
try to avoid tech speech. Most non-devs probably don't know what an
activity is on a phone ;-).


Unfortunately there seems to be a problem with the app store: started the
update on the Acer, installation on the HTC, but download is failing.
Thus can't continue the testing...

Keep up the good work! Looking forward to the next steps.

Michael


Am 15.12.2011, 22:33 Uhr, schrieb db122
<db122.54t3mn1323984841 (AT) no-mx (DOT) forums.slimdevices.com>:

>
> Hi everyone.
>
> It's been quite awhile since I've had occasion to visit these forums,
> but now I'm pleased to announce the release of Orange Squeeze, our
> Android remote control for Logitech Media Server Squeezebox devices.
> You all know the drill, so I'll just include the link.
>
> https://market.android.com/details?i....orangesqueeze
>
> The app is $0.99 so I'll be retiring soon. :-) We're very happy to have
> the initial release completed in time for a restful holiday break. See
> you in the new year!
>
> Ben Sandee
> Orange Bike Labs
>
>


--

Michael

[mherger]

Small update: now got the new build on the Desire too (2nd screenshot). The artwork is looking slightly different there: crispier, but cropped...

[pippin]

Which Android version does this require? I can't get it for my XPeria Mini Pro and I don't know whether it's due to the screen size (320x240) or the Android version (2.1).

[flattermann]

Which Android version does this require? I can't get it for my XPeria Mini Pro and I don't know whether it's due to the screen size (320x240) or the Android version (2.1).

It requires Gingerbread (2.3).

[bluegaspode]

Any chance, to make it at least run on 2.2 ?

You are missing 35% of the Android market otherwise (and me, as my company HTC Desire just runs 2.2) - so I couldn't test integration with SqueezePlayer

http://developer.android.com/resourc...-versions.html

[db122]

Hey everyone, thanks for the discussion and interest.

Michael, you raised lots of good points - thank you for taking the time to download the app and provide feedback.

Yes I checked on our artwork caching and we're being... well... a bit overaggressive in our downsampling. You are seeing artifacts of the reencoding of the JPG, which is only done for remote images if the server isn't doing good resizing for us. I've made a few tweaks that strike a better balance and the artwork looks much better. In particular for those images that we re-encode we will be saving them in PNG format for most cache sizes. I'll push an update out in a bit to reflect these changes and any other bug fixes that I come across.

You mentioned that the browse window got a bit confused at one point -- are you running 1.0.1? I'm not sure how quickly you would be presented an upgrade. It's good info that it happened in a server-switch scenario.

Re: Kindle Fire -- the app is in the Amazon queue and will be available... when it's available. :-) I can send an apk for sideloading if anyone is desperate. I'll have to check out alternative markets too.