Today is the last day where Apple releases updates to the AppStore (until new year arrives)… and tell you what: SqueezePad 1.7.0 slipped through in the last minutes – must be christmas – and I am so very excited !
Now SqueezePad brings you a very special new feature: Music-Playback directly from your iPad.
After a lot of really hard work now your iPad becomes a little Squeezebox on its own.
Unlike other Apps out there, SqueezePad is able to stream:
– your local music
– internet radio stations
– songs from your Apps like Last.FM or WIMP (Pandora, Spotify, Rhapsody are not support due to licensing issues. Napster will play with the help of a windows-bases Squeezebox server)
You find this feature as an in app purchase (half the price of SqueezePad) in the players menu. Just hit the ‘Activate iPad Playback’ button and you can either test the feature 15 minutes each day or buy it directly.
Please note, that this feature only works with a local Squeezebox-server install.
After that your iPad turns up in the players list.
As my beta testers and I cannot test all music streams and files of the world I definitely recommend testing first 😉 – if any of your preferred streams doesn’t work please contact support so that we can find a fix for that!
The following music formats are directly supported:
mp3, aac, alac, wav, aiff, pcm.
With the help of your Squeezebox Server you can also stream FLAC and OGG to your iPad (the server will convert them to either WAV or MP3, based on your server settings). WAV works out of the box, for mp3 you’ll need to install the LAME codec.
If your Squeezebox Server runs on a Windows machine even WMA-files are possible without problems!
SqueezePad does not support synchronization to other Squeezeboxes.
With iOS 4.2 (you did upgrade already, didn’t you) you will get even more convenience:
Your iPad will continue to play music even when you leave the App. Please be aware, that when you stop your music for more than two minutes, iOS will still suspend the App. You will need to enter the App again to start some new music.
You can also control playback outside the App via the ‘iPod Controls’. Double tap the home-button of your iPad and then swipe right – here you can control volume or skip tracks as well.
Other things changed in this version:
- when showing coverart, embedded art is now preferred over album art. This makes it possible to have different cover for each song of an album
- the alphabetical index in menus is much easier to tap, without erroneously selecting a song
- there was a crash, when you tried to show a context menu on a menu separator
- sometimes the playlists didn’t reload when you reentered the App (iOS4.2 only)
24. December 2010 um 05:16
Fantastic new feature you just added!
You got my 4.99.
25. December 2010 um 13:06
Will spotify direct playback be supportet in the future?
25. December 2010 um 14:50
Hi Hakima,
I’m in contact with the developer of the Spotify plugin for the Squeezebox server and he has a working playback prototype already, which I guess will be released early next year (there is other stuff to finish in the Spotify plugin first).
We are still unsure, if Spotify licensing issues are against this type of streaming (see http://developer.spotify.com/en/libspotify/terms-of-use/ , search for ‘Approved Device’ ), so this will need clarification as well, before Spotify will be available within SqueezePad.
Very difficult all this licensing stuff 🙁 … But doesn’t Spotify has it’s own iPad App, so that you’re able to stream it directly anyway?
25. December 2010 um 17:14
I got the impression that my iPad could function as a server instead of me having my big iMac running…. It clearly does NOT do this job for me… What a huge disappoinment! Well.. Its my own fault any way… But why in the world would I ever want to play music on my iPad???? Jesus!
25. December 2010 um 18:14
Hi Daniel,
I hope you realized your misunderstand when testing the feature opposed to bying it?
The new feature is a playback feature indeed. Though you might not need it, I guess a lot of people already waited very long for this one and I’ve got great feedback already.
I’m sorry that my upgrade notices mislead you though I tried hard that they couldn’t be misunderstood.
25. December 2010 um 19:20
Thank you Stefan for your reply. spotify only have an iphone app, and this does not work very well on the ipad. I hope you get spoify to work, but I understand that this is difficult. Ceep up the good work, have a nice christmas and a happy new year! 🙂
27. December 2010 um 10:42
Is anybody actually aware of a solution that’d allow streaming from iPad to SB?
30. December 2010 um 11:21
I must say I was skeptical at first. Before the last update I had trouble connecting to any of the players or Squeezecenter itself using Squeezepad on my iPad.
I then went ahead and did the in-app purchase, even if it were just to stimulate further development.
To my surprise and delight this new function direct playback works like a dream. The other day we had a winter-christmas-bbq so I hooked up my iPad to some mm-speakers and we played Christmas tunes all night!
Quite brilliant to say the least. For 4 buck I own an extra Squeezebox, in fact!
30. December 2010 um 11:53
The iPad for playback is great! Bought it right-away. However, when the app is suspended in the background the iPad itself disappears from the list of playback devices and I have to kill the app and restart it.
30. December 2010 um 11:58
Hi Huib,
an App in the background is typically not allowed to do any network traffic when its not streaming any audio. In fact network traffic gets suspended, so even if the App wanted to do it, it wouldn’t work. That’s why SqueezePad cannot ping the server to tell that it’s still around.
SqueezePad has a workaround that keeps the network up for two minutes after the last song stopped by the way.
After that you need to restart it, so that it can tell the server that it is still around.
You should not need to kill the App though … just restart and wait a short second, then it will appear again in the list of players.
30. December 2010 um 12:01
@hakima:
Spotify, with a premium account, also works as a plugin in Squeezebox server, no need to use the iPhone app. The Spotify menu’s in Squeezebox server are also available on the Squeezepad/iPad.
So no need to integrate spotify into squeezepad: it’s there already.
Huib
30. December 2010 um 12:03
@ stefan: Thanks, will be more patient 🙂
1. January 2011 um 20:53
Stefan, I have bought the iPad playback option,with very much pleasure. It’s playing right now. Obviously the main potential is with either headphones or plug in speakers. Thanks for this
12. January 2011 um 18:56
I tried to use ipad playback (i bought the option) using the server behind a firewall, what are the ports to open to make it work ? When i’m behind the firewall, i can manage the squeezebox but the ipad playback option doesn’t appear. please help me
12. January 2011 um 19:52
Hi Julien,
if you want playback to work through a firewall, port 3483 (and 9000) needs to be forwarded to your squeezebox-server.
13. January 2011 um 18:29
Thanks stefan it works !!
20. January 2011 um 12:56
Squeezepad for controlling a SB receiver was always a nice piece of kit, but slightly redundant with my Duet, however playback through the iPad itself is absolutely brilliant. Wherever I go I have access to all my music rather than being tied to where my stereo is.
For me this is app of the year.
5. February 2011 um 13:48
I love Squeezepad on our iPad. However I am usually using my MacBook Pro Laptop and I wonder if there is any way you can now create a Squeezepad for the Mac? This should be especially possible now that there is an App Store for the Mac.
5. February 2011 um 18:39
Hi Larry,
I guess it’s not too much work to make it running on a Mac (if I leave the same resolution and don’t try fullscreen or stuff like that).
It’s not one of the things I plan to do next though – but 2011 just begun, who knows what we will see on the long run?
12. March 2011 um 19:11
I got it working on my iPad to control the web client player running (localhost) on my ‘Squeezebox server’ Mac.
Then I got it playing on my iPad using the test option, so I bought it.
But when I switch to accessing the server across the Internet (for testing, over 3G rather than my local wifi network), I can connect to the Squeezebox server and control the web client on my Mac – but my iPad itself doesn’t appear in the list of players.
In short: when I connect through my home wifi network I can play music ON my iPad, but when I connect (successfully) from the Internet I can’t play music on my iPad.
Any ideas? This was precisely what I wanted to do… 🙁
12. March 2011 um 20:48
If you want playback to work through a firewall/router, port 3483 (and 9000) needs to be forwarded to your squeezebox-server.
If you can access the web-client but don’t see SqueezePad as a player port 3483 is missing.
Don’t hesitate to contact me directly at support(at)squeezepad.com so we can find out if anything else is wrong in your setup. A lot of people use SqueezePad and the playback remotely.
5. June 2011 um 12:52
Just bought the app and ipad playback functionality, whoch works well, but is there a possibility to playback the music that is playing in (e.g.) the living room on my ipad at the same time?
12. June 2011 um 13:37
Hi Wim,
yes – just as with any other Squeezebox go to the Settings->Synchronize menu. Here you can sync any player (including SqueezePad) to some other player and they will then play the same stuff in sync.
14. July 2011 um 17:28
This works brilliantly, thanks! Well worth the extra in-app purchase. My only niggle is that I cannot get it to scrobble to last.fm. Has this feature not been implemented?
14. July 2011 um 20:52
Hi Justin,
if a Squeezebox scrobbles depends on the Last.FM settings saved/configured on the http://www.mysqueezebox.com website.
Please go to http://www.mysqueezebox.com, login and select the Last.FM App.
On the menu ‘Players’ please check, that Last.FM is activated for the iPad player.
Then enter the ‘Scrobble’ menu -> here for each player can be selected, if scrobbling is activated. So check correct settings here as well.
If that does not work there is yet another setting.
In SqueezePad in the left menu go to Settings->Advanced->Last.FM Audioscrobbler. I think the setting here is the same as on MySB.com, but who knows?
Hope this helps,
Cheers
Stefan
14. July 2011 um 22:17
The second option fixed the problem. Thank you. I use it so much that this app alone has justified the purchase of my iPad.
20. January 2012 um 10:54
I could not find a direct clear reference to this, so my question is: with the new app will my iPad play the music from my hard drive when i am away from my home (where the squeezebox is located)? Also I notice that the app doesn’t support the original squeezebox (there is a message when i try to play rhapsody saying squeezebox2 or higher is needed), is this going to be changed in the future?
20. January 2012 um 21:17
Hi Dougarb,
it is possible with SqueezePad to setup remote streaming, you need to configure your router for it and setup a dyndns (or similar) service. I wrote a tutorial for my Android App about the whole topic here: http://www.squeezeplayer.com/2011/05/how-to-connect-via-3g/
Most of the writing can be used also for the iPad playback.
When Rhapsody doesn’t play on your original, this is not a fault of SqueezePad.
Logitech just does not support it then, SqueezePad is just the remote control and can do nothing about it.
28. January 2012 um 10:46
Dear development team.
Can Squeezepad also be installed and work on an iPod touch?
After all it has the same operating system OS 5.0.1.
I have my iPod touch docked in a Bose-speaker which really sounds great, however would like to play also the songs from my Squeezebox server.
I know there is an application called DS-Audio and it streams music from my Squeezebox server to my iPod, however the music is not synchronized with my other SB players like SqueezeBox-touch and SqueezeBox radio.
28. January 2012 um 18:11
Hi Harry,
SqueezePad doesn’t work on iPod Touch – it’s optimized for a big screen like the iPad.