The Road Ahead
As you may have heard, today Apple announced a free native application called Remote for the iPhone and iPod touch, and that this app seems quite similar to a certain other product you may be familiar with. Naturally this has raised a few questions:
Did Apple purchase Signal?
No, Apple has implemented their own solution.
Did Alloysoft patent the idea?
No, as there was prior art even back when Signal was first created.
What happens now?
For the immediate future the plans for Signal remain unchanged. The native iPhone client is still under development and will still be released as planned. This will be a great new feature for all Signal users, including many requested changes and offering substantial performance improvements over the web client on the device. Winamp and Windows Media Player users will of course continue to benefit from all of Signal’s functionality, and for iTunes users Signal already offers features that the Apple product lacks such as the ability to queue up tracks, view internet radio station info, and automatically fetch album art.
Following the native iPhone release the Windows Mobile client will receive a UI update as promised, and there are plans to further expand the web interface to provide support for additional devices and even simpler controls from other Macs and PCs.
So while a free Apple product may well have an impact on the business, Signal isn’t going away anytime soon. Be on the lookout for continued software updates.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Glad to hear that a native app is still in the works and that continued improvements are being considered that may continue to separate Signal from the free version.
I do like that it looks like Apple’s version can run via AppleTV, which means having the option of leaving the computer off. Wonder if remote speakers can be utilized via AppleTV. Obviously, free is good.
You should consider partnering with a Rhapsody or Airfoil to make their services more appealing. I’d strongly consider subscribing to a Rhapsody if I could remotely control the song selections. Anyway, stuff I know you’ve thought of.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
As expected the Apple remote app looks great, but I have no doubt there will continue to be aspects of Signal that make it different and worth paying for. Fetching album art for internet radio is the killer app for me, and it’s unlikely Apple will ever go there since internet radio is such an afterthought in iTunes. I can’t wait to see what the Signal client brings. If need be you can look to working with things like Pandora or Rhapsody a la Sonos.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
MC’s post came in while I was writing mine so I didn’t see that we’re on the same page.
July 10th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Just played with the free version. It is missing 1 of your best features “party shuffle”
Keep up the good work.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Old proverb:
“You get what you paid for.”
’nuff said.
Michael
July 10th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
I paid for Signal when I heard about it. Recommended it to other iPhone/iPodTouch friends as well. Have really enjoyed using it. However, after having updated to iPhone 2.0 and downloaded Remote, the only distinction I see is Signal’s ability to add/remove songs from a queue. Add in Remote’s ability to control Apple TV as well… hmmm… I’ll be really interested in seeing what you do to further differentiate Signal from Remote. As for Party Shuffle, make a few playlists of your favorite tunes / genres / artists and shuffle them in Remote [by clicking on the Shuffle icon].
July 10th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
First of al Matt,
Congrats on a job very well done so far.I do feel slightly sad at what the future could hold for Signal but I think you still got plenty to play around with.
The ability to queue up songs is vital imo……..so for me,signal remains the better product.
The apple remote does seem more responsive and i wonder if a native signal application would rival that.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Queuing the next song to play without disturbing the currently-playing song is a necessary feature, and it seems Remote lacks it. The other chief advantage I could see in a native-app Signal would for it to continue to have a server component. Right now, if I’m not already logged into my desktop with iTunes running, I’m out of luck. I can’t even use remote desktop from the Linux notebook near the sofa to log into the Windows PC and start iTunes, because that takes over the audio device and iTunes won’t get it back until I get up, walk across the apartment to the Windows PC, log out, log back in, and start iTunes.
Remote will be severely crippled and a mostly-useless toy as far as I’m concerned until you can (a) queue up the next track to play without stopping the current track, and (b) get it going without having to walk over to the PC and start iTunes after a reboot or after having used remote desktop.
July 11th, 2008 at 4:52 am
One aspect I’m curious is with the new release of iTunes there should be an API for changing the Airtunes speakers without simulating keypresses. This has been the weakpoint in Signal for me and should now be achievable. For me, Signal will still be the one I use because I’m using some older Windows Mobile smartphone as permanent wifi remotes.
There’s two other things that would really make Signal the killer application for me :
- Integrate Wake-on-Lan in the Windows Client in order to automatically wake up the server (as implemented in Logitech’s Squeezebox Classic)
- Integrate a sleep mode (again, as Squeezecenter provides)
I would also love if Signal could control Windows Media Center, especially with extender support! But now I’m just dreaming…
This would make Signal very usable with Airtunes for a bedroom system.
July 11th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Signal holds such a great lead over Remote in my opinion. You’ve gone through the lessons learned and have a solid product. A native application will be most welcomed.
Don’t stop what you do best!
July 12th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
OK, I paid for this app and have been VERY happy with it but, frankly, I was pretty sure I’d be bidding it a fond farewell and moving on to Apple’s offering. In addition to the party shuffle differentiation mentioned above though, I’ve found that there is a huge show-stopper for me with Apple’s Remote app and for me, it’s one of the best things about Signal.
I can select and play streaming audio with Signal, but not Apple (unless I’ve missed something). We frequently listen to KCRW and SOMA here and like being able to select them via Signal. To accomplish this, I placed my streaming stations (the icons appear in your library once you play them normally in iTunes) into playlists by themselves. I then select that playlist from Signal and voila, streaming audio fills the abode.
No dice with Apple Remote.
Thus the Signal icon remains on my iPhone’s main screen to fight another day.
July 13th, 2008 at 11:56 am
I think I found another show stopper…. Apple Remote requires that the iPhone and Mac / Apple TV be on the same network while Signal only requires that both be connected to the Internet by WiFi.
This makes for a world of difference when someone like myself set up an Airport Extreme to be wireless N only and an Airport Express to be wireless G. I connected the two by cable to share internet and airtunes but keep the networks separate. Now even though both the Mac / Apple TV and iPhone are connected to the internet by WiFi, since they are on their respective networks, the iPhone cannot be seen in iTunes and therefore Remote doesn’t work.
Sure I can set up the Extreme to be both N and G but I really hate mixing the two. I prefer my N on a higher channel with little interference and therefore significantly better performance….
July 14th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Thanks everyone for the encouraging feedback, it means a lot! We’ll have to see how things play out here, but I’m certainly not giving up on the app yet.
Nuno: Regarding proper AirTunes API support, Apple has not added AirTunes control to the iTunes API. Instead they have created their own closed API for use with Remote. This is pretty much what I expected, as an interface that talks directly to iTunes internals would be much faster and bypass all the problems with the AppleScript/COM interfaces, but it is another example of how Apple is cutting out third parties.
As for Windows Media Center, this is a possibility. I actually had a development version that offered full control for MCE 2005, but never productized it due to the additional steps needed to install the MCE components. Support for this and other players/devices may be worth revisiting.
Joe: This is something I noticed too. Although Signal will use Bonjour discovery to simplify setup for most users it also includes a manual server address entry mode for situations where discovery won’t work, or accessing a server from outside the network.
July 14th, 2008 at 4:04 am
Hi Matt,
It’s disappointing to know that Apple has closed the API (shame on Apple!), but still Signal works good enough for me.
I’ve been trying Remote on my iPod Touch and here is what I’ve found:
- It does play Online Radio in a Playlist, just as Signal does.
- Signal gets the Album Art for Internet Radios, Remote does not. I really like this in Signal.
- I prefer Signal’s implementation to remote speakers, much quicker and intuitive. I find annoying having to turn off the living room speaker and turning on the bedroom’s individually.
- Remote wakes my PC from sleep. Signal does not. This is a major plus for Remote that Signal could IMHO easily implement. This allows much simpler operation. I don’t like the idea of leaving my media center PC always on just to listen to some music when I wake up. I’ve installed a small WOL application on my Windows Mobile remote and it works, but operation with remote is so much simpler. Rather than launching WOL, waking up the computer, close, open Signal, try a couple of times to connect, then finally get some music, Remote wakes up the computer when it’s launched and connects automatically when the media center is available. This makes it easy enough for my wife to use as well, as she couldn’t be bothered with all the “techy” stuff of turning on the computer, waiting to wake up and then connecting to Signal.
For now, I will use Remote, but if I can get the WOL on Signal, I will switch again to Signal. I really miss the Album Art on the Online Radios!
July 20th, 2008 at 3:45 am
I have used Signal for over a year. I downloaded Remote and tried it. It seemed to be a copy of Signal. I figured Apple bought the code. Sorry to hear they didn’t. Something is fishy here. When I use my iPhone to connect to iTunes, the Remote program causes me iTunes to come up with a Signal Queue playlist. Uh what????
July 25th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I have now both Signal and Remote. Good discussion folks!
Just to add my own personal reason why I’ll stick with Signal: I run a Firefly server on my WXP machine to stream to a Roku box. While Itunes shows the shared Firefly media server library (the library accessed by the Firefly server and which is all FLAC) and can play all those FLAC files thanks to on-the-fly transcoding into WAV performed by the firefly server, you can’t access this shared library with Apple Remote (AR) nor can u do that from the Apple TV UI. And one of the the reasons I believe this is is because of this code u need to insert for every shared library you want to control/add using the AR that the Firefly protocol can’t handle.
Signal sees it all. Long live Signal!! Keep it going Matt.
July 29th, 2008 at 1:44 am
A sleep timer would also be sooooo sweet…
Nuno
July 29th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Nuno: Wake-on-LAN and a sleep timer (and alarm clock) would all be excellent additions and are indeed on the list. I’d also like to see good WoL support as this has been a popular request.
Sven: Thanks for the support! Although Apple’s application is certainly similar, I actually don’t think they copied anything here.
Eduardo: Thanks!
August 1st, 2008 at 9:00 am
Nobody has a good remote for Keynote yet…
August 1st, 2008 at 1:34 pm
That’s actually something I’ve put some thought into. I think there are a lot of cool things you could do with an iPhone-based presentation remote, but personally I don’t give presentations that often and there’s a major difference in quality and motivation when you’re one of the biggest users of what you build.
August 10th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I have also been using Signal for about a year now. A few more points:
1. Apple iPhone Remote doesn’t allow playback of Shared/Linked media to AppleTV, might be an opportunity for Signal. You can only fit so much digital media on the AppleTV without moving to a larger remote storage solution.
2. Windows mobile is still THE platform for those of us building green integrated touchscreen command center solutions in smart homes. Keep up support for this product!
3. +1 WOL
August 10th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Just want to encourage you to keep developing/supporting the Signal software for Windows Mobile; using AirPort, AirTunes and iTunes with PC clients (and Windows Mobile client, of course…) is the absolute perfect combination for me!
Thanks for a truly useful software!
August 11th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Thanks for the feedback! The Windows Mobile update is indeed still planned following the native iPhone client release.
August 12th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Windows Mobile for me too.. I think if you can design a really elegent touch UI for WM you’ll do really well as most folks I know are using devices like the HTC Touch as a remote for everything possible..
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:27 am
Hi Matt, any news on the iPhone app, got a release date/month in mind yet?
Cheers
Dan
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Hi Dan,
It’s definitely coming along but I don’t have a release date to share yet. Usually I don’t announce these as doing so seems to always invite some type of disaster that slows things down
August 25th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Did you plan support JRiver Media Center in the future? This couls be help you to find new customers…
August 25th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
There aren’t any current plans to support it, but it is being considered for the future.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Does it work with Mediamonkey? I ditched itunes a long time ago because it just can’t deal with 50,000+ .wav files. I have an itouch.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:37 am
MediaMonkey is also not supported currently, but is being considered for a future release. MM may be a little easier since it exposes a Winamp-style messaging API. In fact, if you start MediaMonkey and launch Signal in Winamp mode you should be able to perform basic control functions like play/pause and moving between tracks in the playlist.
What I’ve been thinking about doing here is adding a plug-in system to Signal that would allow support for additional players to be added in without needing to alter the core app, I think this would be a good way to extend the list of players supported.