Logitech Airplay Speaker

[Soulkeeper]

If I understand correctly, Apple doesn't allow Airplay on devices with an open (streaming) OS, like LMS/SqueezePlay.

Every time I start considering to buy an Apple product (this time it was the iPad), something like this comes up. And makes me turn on my heels. Thanks for the reminder.

(Starts looking for an Android pad.)

[TheLastMan]

(Starts looking for an Android pad.)

Don't. You will regret it.

Regardless of your feelings towards Apple, the iPad is streets ahead of any of the Android pads in usability, app availability. There is a reason why it is twice the price of the Android pads.

Anyway you cannot really blame Apple for the fact that Logitech wants to use its technology.

[Soulkeeper]

Don't. You will regret it

Ok? No pad for me then?

Anyway you cannot really blame Apple for the fact that Logitech wants to use its technology.

And I don't.

Besides, it's not my feelings towards Apple that makes me turn away from them. It's just that I don't want to spend money on a sense of claustrophobia; that I can get for free if I want to.

I'll rather wait for a decent pad to hit the market. It's bound to happen sooner or later (unless the next dinosaur killer comes around, and then all bets are off anyway).

[pippin]

There is a reason why it is twice the price of the Android pads.

It's not. There are capable Android Pads but they cost as much as Apple's although they are really lacking Apps.
Kindle Fire & Co don't really help with that.

Me thinks the market will settle towards Apple covering the "big" iPads and Android powering the smaller, cheap devices market.

Unless, of course, Apple really shows a 7" iPad next week...

[pippin]

It's just that I don't want to spend money on a sense of claustrophobia; that I can get for free if I want to.

Yes, you are right. Easy to get a bit claustrophobic with all the content on that platform. Compared to that you do indeed get a good sense of freedom on an empty Android Pad

Oh, and if you feel Apple's being rigid, have a read at Google's or Amazon's contracts....

[erland]

I assume people know that they can make any AirPlay speaker/receiver a Squeezebox by combining it with one of the iOS apps which support playback, for example iPeng or SqueezePad.

As long as you don't need synchronized playback it should work very good. Just configure the iPhone/iPad to output its sound through the AirPlay speaker and start playing music through the player support in iPeng, SqueezePad or other iOS app that supports playback.

The result is that you can control it using your iOS or Android or Squeezebox Controller in same way as any other Squeezebox. It will of course use a bit of battery on the iOS device which runs the player, so for playback during long periods I suppose it's best to put it in a docking station.

I wonder if it might even be possible to install AirFoil on the computer running SBS/LMS and stream music on SqueezePlay/SoftSqueeze on the SBS/LMS computer directly to the AirPlay speaker ? If that works, you can make the Logitech AirPlay speaker a Squeezebox for $25 (which AirFoil costs). It probably won't work for people that need synchronized playback, but I suspect the majority of all users will be fine without support for synchronized playback.

Does anyone know which audio quality you get through AirPlay ? Does it allow some lossless format or is everything encoded through some lossy codec ?

Of course, the issue with all the above is that it gets a lot more complicated than hitting play button on your Squeezebox Boom II.

[MrSinatra]

Does anyone know which audio quality you get through AirPlay ? Does it allow some lossless format or is everything encoded through some lossy codec ?

i have no idea how airplay works, but i suspect it allows for different codecs, and it might transcode or something based on wireless speed.

see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless

"The Apple Lossless Encoder (the software for encoding into ALAC files) was introduced into the Mac OS X Core Audio framework on April 28, 2004 together with the QuickTime 6.5.1 update, and thus available in iTunes as of version 4.5 and above. The codec is also used in the AirPort Express's AirPlay implementation."

and:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPlay

so one would hope that all airplay was lossless, but i doubt it. besides, if the source material is lossy, why bother? its prob like DLNA in that way.

[DaveWr]

Does anyone know which audio quality you get through AirPlay ? Does it allow some lossless format or is everything encoded through some lossy codec ?

Everything is converted to 16 bit 44 khz cd standard ALAC according to Linn, who have incorporated Airplay support in their v expensive streamers. They have also added Songcast to support high sample rate 24 bit music.

[gruntwolla]

Though the ultimate conclusion may be right, I think you are overlooking the fact that many are using the very iPods, iPhones, and iPads to control LMS...

I don't disagree with that; I was referring more to the thousands who are happy to plug their ios device into a dock and play lossy files. If they were to be conronted with LMS and all its attendant plugins/add ons/updates/bugs, then I stand by my previous statement

[MrSinatra]

Everything is converted to 16 bit 44 khz cd standard ALAC according to Linn, who have incorporated Airplay support in their v expensive streamers. They have also added Songcast to support high sample rate 24 bit music.

that seems really odd... why bother to make a mp3 lossless to send wirelessly?

and whats really odd about it, is i have seen in practice, music go from a laptop, wirelessly, to a router, to an airport express and / or apple tv, again, wirelessly, and not hiccup even once.

pretty remarkable considering its lossless thru the hops, and LMS essentially requires itself to be hardwired to the router, even for lossy stuff.

color me confused.