The Natives Are Restless
A number of users have been curious about the progress on the native iPhone and updated Windows Mobile clients so I thought I’d give a quick update on what’s been happening.
As expected, Apple’s free Remote application has more or less taken over the market for the iPhone + iTunes remote control combo, and this makes up a significant portion of Signal’s market. While this has not in any way changed the plan for the native clients, it has slowed things down as time is split between the native apps and a couple of potential new products for Alloysoft.
While no new applications are ready to be announced yet, I wanted to let you know the reason for the delay and that development on the native clients is still ongoing. Windows Mobile users will also be happy to hear that I picked up an HTC Touch Diamond when they became available here in the US and am using that as the primary test device for updated Windows Mobile development. The new interface should be a lot more comfortable for HTC Touch owners when it’s released.
December 23rd, 2008 at 8:38 pm
I’m anxious for an alternative to Remote for the silliest reason. I’ve inherited an iPhone with a cracked screen. Everything works fine except for a slim horizontal section of the screen that does not respond to touch. That area, coincidentally, is exactly over the “Add Library” button in Remote’s initial settings menu. I’ve tried to select that button thousands of times, but to no avail, rendering the Remote app (and a few others that do not allow me to scroll a list up or down) completely useless. I would rather pay $24.95 for an alternative to Remote that (hint hint) places any crucial buttons out of that tiny area than pay more for a new iPhone or iPod Touch. To give an idea of the width of the “dead” area, when I scroll through my music by the alphabetized numbers, the list jumps from B’s to H’s.
If SIGNAL finally allows my crippled iPhone to remotely control my iTunes and two Airport Expresses, I’ll buy it in a heartbeat.
December 24th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Ha ha, thanks Jordan. While I can’t promise that a native version of Signal will appeal to the screen-busted-right-on-top-of-the-add-library-button market the setup interface interface is a little bit different so you may have a chance with the native app when released. Good luck!
March 25th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
I bought Signal today, using on HTC Touch controlling Winamp. Works really nice and fast.
I’m glad to hear that you are working on the WM client. Is there a release plan? I can B-test.
I have some requests.
1. Support for HTC Touch screen 480×800, now there is an area not beeing updated by Signal.
2. Doubleklick on video files clears playlist and plays the file, not good. Sould be “Add to queue” as with music files.
3. Is there other skins?
4. Search function more like Winamp MediaLibrary. Signal doesnt give as many hits as it could.
Great product so far.
/Dan
March 25th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Sorry, not reading all posts. I saw the same comment in an other thread.
And my device is a Touch HD.
/Dan
March 26th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Hi Dan,
Thanks, glad you like the app! I’m definitely going to be updating the WM interface to try and adapt to the additional resolutions but don’t have a set date for it. The alternate skins feature will probably be dropped when the WM UI is revisited, it just turned out to not be that popular.
For the search results could you elaborate on what you think is missing? Signal used to return all tracks that matched the search terms in any part of the metadata, but this was changed to group artists and albums together so there was less scrolling to do on the device.
The video behavior I’ll have to give some thought to, my first reaction is that it seems more common to watch a single video at a time than to build up a playlist of videos.
March 30th, 2009 at 4:09 am
Hi,
Search/Browse: First I must say the speed of the incremental search is impressing, subsecond response in a 100k song library. Lib-function of Winamp needs several seconds for the same operation. The results though are sometimes unclear and incomplete, compared to Winamp lib. I know this is isn’t easy interpreting tags, filenames and paths in a smart way that works for all kind of situations. Could be useful with some options to select what information should be used and shown such as tags, filenames, paths.
I know to have the perfect jukebox search, the tags of songs must be set up correctly. This is a big project for me. Meanwhile you have to rely on smart search functions to find the songs.
Double click: Action could be selectable, as in Winamp, play or enqueue. If selectable per file type everyone should be satisfied. It’s very nice to queue music videos as well as music.
New request:
Party mode. Think of passing around the MPC to the guests and let them select and add songs to playlist. Then you would like the search and enqueue enabled, but disable delete song or playlist etc.
Preferable it’s a lot of options to set here and may be more modes also.
/Dan
March 31st, 2009 at 8:30 am
I’m still a little confused by the unclear and incomplete results you mentioned. Can you give an example of what is unclear or not included in the matches that you expected to see?
A feature-limited mode could be an interesting idea, I’ll put that one on the list for consideration.
April 9th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I think the difference to Winamp lib search is that it also looks at path and filenames as well. Thus finding more files when id3-tags are missing.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
i have a htc touch diamond and i have purchased singal and have it all up and running with itunes but i dont seem to be able to selecct different playlist etc ? any ideas ?
April 14th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Hi Steven, I sent you an email so we can try and get this worked out for you.