If you are like me, music is not only about the tunes, but also about bands and artists.Unfortunately always looking them up and learning about them is (was) a tedious task … open the browser, surf to your favorite search engine, enter your keywords … and if you want to look somewhere else start all over.
Until now! SqueezePad 1.9.0 comes with an integrated browser ready to look up all relevant content about your currently playing song, artist or their album with a simple tap.
You’ve never been faster looking up your music!SqueezePad comes with a wealth of pregenerated links to Wikipedia, Google, YouTube, Last.FM, AllMusic, Facebook and many more. You cannot miss the new browser feature – just use the new button below the playlist button to the right.
When I open it, I’m brought straight to the Wikipedia article of the current playing artist, here the Beatles (click to enlarge):
As Wikipedia often lacks a lot of pictures, why not start a search for more images with just one more tap ?
On the left menu you’ll the links to all other sites, so let’s do a Google Image search *tap*
What about moving pictures from YouTube *tap*
Finally lets sing along – finding the Lyrics for the currently playing song is a breeze as well *tap, tap*
Other improvements in this version: the new picture viewer from Squeezebox-Server 7.7 in the Extras menu is working now.
9. October 2011 um 01:19
Hi, great app and love the feature that you can play directly on the iPad, but now when I use the iPad as player the volume is turning itself down, it is either max volume or nothing. Haven’t had this problem before.
iPad 1
iOS 5
9. October 2011 um 06:23
Hi Rune,
unfortunately iOS5 ist not 100% backwards compatible and the problem you describe is caused by this.
This is fixed already in my local development version.
Right now I’m struggling with a last oddity introduced by the new iOS development environment, but am confident to send a new version to Apple tonight.
Then we need to wait for Apples review time, so the fix should be available shortly after iOS5 is officially available for all users.
9. October 2011 um 07:30
Sweet!!! Thank you for a quick reply 🙂
12. October 2011 um 17:46
Wanted to say “hi” and mention I LOVE this new web browsing feature. What a welcome addition.
It’s well executed and works like a charm.
What a time saver, because I too love reading about artists/bands/albums while sitting down for an evening listening session. 🙂
Bravo!
Thanx for continuing to improve on an already stellar app, Fred in Canada
12. October 2011 um 18:36
Hi Fred,
thanks a lot for these kind words. Don’t forget to let the people know via an AppStore comment as well 🙂
Cheers
Stefan
30. October 2011 um 04:31
Wow! The Integrated browser feature is very cool indeed! A very nice improvement.
30. October 2011 um 06:45
Hi Frank,
thanks for motivating me 🙂
Cheers
Stefan
30. October 2011 um 09:43
Hi Stefan, before i want to download your app I first wanna know whether you have tackled the problem where the Logitech Touch keeps rebooting when you change tracks in Spotify. I now use the standard Logitech app on my ipad2 but the touch keeps rebooting in Spotify. No problems streaming and changing tracks using the standard music folder on my storage.
30. October 2011 um 16:21
Hi Robert,
SqueezePad is using the same techniques as the official Logitech App, so it’s unlikely that crashes will disappear.
Some people report SqueezePad is a bit nicer to the Touch, because it caches the album and image lists. So if the crashes happen while you are browsing the menu, then maybe it’s a little bit better.
If it happens when you just skip songs (that’s where I am aware of crashes from the Logitech Spotify implementation), then I guess I cannot help here.
See here, it even happens on the Radio: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=85876
What has been rock solid so far (from what I heard), is running your own server and installing the third party Spotify plugin from triode.
30. November 2011 um 11:52
Hi,
When browning through albums on my server or even Spotify, I do have a problem when album titles are long. Long album titles are common in classical music:
Mahler: Symphony no. 3 – Simon Rattle
In some instances it is not possible to see which symphony number, as it is truncated.
Could it be possible to resize the cover on the right to give more space for album names?
Kr
Kim
30. November 2011 um 20:24
Hi Kim,
I think I cannot resize the Layout of SqueezePad. I.e. the browser window is a little bit too small in width already and it is tied to the size of the cover.
Can you send me a screenshot so that I can get a better feeling of how it looks to you?
A screenshot can easily be made: just hold the power and home button at the same time (you will hear a ‘camera’ click). When you sync your iPad to iTunes the picture will be in your foto gallery.
Please send it to support@squeezepad.com.
17. January 2012 um 07:35
Hello Stefan—-I bought the the Squeeze Player on the Android Market. It downloaded to my phone all right but the message ask me to configure a server and I don’t know what that is or what it means. By the Start App the is a message saying (no controller App found). Could you please HELP this Luddite. Thank you.
17. January 2012 um 12:36
Hi Hanna,
when you use a Squeezebox and want to play your own music, you typically install the Squeezebox Server software (name Logitech Media Server in the meantime) on your computer.
Some people also use the Squeezebox Touch which needs to have an USB-drive attached to start its own mini-server.
SqueezePlayer needs to know the address of this server to connect to it.
A connection to Logitech “cloud-server” mysqueezebox.com is not possible – Logitech blocks that for third party players.
You also need to install your favorite Controller App.
This can be the free Logitech App available on the market or the superior (but not free) “SqueezeCommander”.
SqueezePlayer only provides the playback capabilities (i.e. simulates a new Squeezebox in the network) but if you want to actually start a track you must use your favorite Controller App.
24. January 2012 um 20:52
Is it possible to play an usb-drive with your app. It is not possible with the logitech app.
24. January 2012 um 21:51
Hi Eric,
I don’t understand he question.
SqueezePlayer connects to your server and can play any track that is available via your server.
Only what you can access via the Logitech App can be played in SqueezePlayer.
Cheers
Stefan
27. March 2012 um 06:45
Hi – I’m an interface designer and have a suggestion for you here on the album lookup. You might consider attaching artist to the album query. For example, if you are looking up an album called “Brothers”, Wikipedia shows info on family siblings by default. If you associated the album “brothers” with the artist “black keys”, a relevant entry would return on Wikipedia. This would be super helpfully.
27. March 2012 um 21:30
Hi Todd,
thanks a lot for you suggestion. When implementing the browser feature I tried a lot with best keyword mixes.
I found that if I added another search key for the wikipedia search, in most cases I only opened a page with search results. And most often the first entry then was the artist not the album.
This is why I decided to search for the album name only, as (in my test cases) in the majority of cases it gave the best results.
This might lead to some disambiguations like you found but I think they are very rare?
In the Google search I automatically append the keyword “album”, which gave the best result there.
Funny thing: the Google search for “Brothers album” as used by SqueezePad links to the correct Wikipedia article as the first result.
Guess this is good enough as a workaround for the rare ambiguous cases?
26. July 2012 um 02:24
Hello, sometimes the time line does not appear below the album art, sometimes it does. I think it is mainly missing on WMA songs? Any suggestions? Thanks, Mike
26. July 2012 um 12:12
Hi Micheal,
the line disappears, when a song is not seekable.
This is typically the case for internet-radio – but looks like your server also claims this for your WMA files?
Is there a pattern for the WMA files (or the target Squeezebox ?)
Cheers
Stefan
21. October 2012 um 18:36
Hi Stefan,
As far as I can tell all of my WMA files do not display the time info. I have a duet and the times are displayed on it even when selected using your software. I really like the app, very nice. Sorry to be so long in my response, I forgot how to access the thread.
Thanks, Mike
22. October 2012 um 18:58
Hi Mike,
ok – yes this might be the issue. I think WMA files are indeed not seekable (you cannot change progress), while of course it still would be possible to show the current time of the song.
Right now SqueezePad thinks they are Radio streams I guess, so makes the progress bar invisible.
Will put it on my list of things to fix in one of the next versions.
14. November 2012 um 06:19
Hi Stefan,
I find that when I go to this radio station the option for Google Images goes away. The only way to get the option back is to re-boot the Ipad. Thought I would let you know.
Thanks, Mike
14. November 2012 um 09:12
Hi Michael,
a particual radio station or any radio station?
Kind Regards
Stefan