New n-Stream app is here

Still bugs where nStream had none. At least the playlists haven't fallen over yet. I don't think any congratulations or compliments are in order. This is bad work and sorry to say it but people shouldn't be congratulated for failing. This is not some kind of volunteer or hobbyist project. There can be no doubt that all involved are sincerely committed. But if you ain't up to it because you are poorly resourced or poorly skilled, then you ain't up to it. And it's showing, for whatever the reason.

Hi Paragonista,

Mine has the whole alphabet.

I like the app and respect the time and effort. The mistakes were not calling it a beta app and not keeping the old one for a few weeks until the new one has stablised.

Keith

I've worked on projects where we had to go live when we knew we weren't ready. Sometimes you can get away with it without financial or reputational damage, but you have to move quickly and, to be fair, Naim have, but the 11 day backlog at Apple isn't ideal. It's a good job Aplple were able to jump the queue when they screwed up IOS8.

Keith

I hear you Keith and I’ve been there.  I’ve also had to work 24/7 for 7/7, sleeping on the floor for 4 out of each 24 hours, same as everyone else, until the job was complete to the satisfaction of the client(s).

A big part of keeping the wheels turning without smoking is managing expectation and not pushing clients over cliffs. Both areas covered in your points about calling a beta a beta and not pulling the nSttream rug from under us.

What other manufacturer/supplier would we accept such a patchy service from? I can think of dodgy car dealers and tradesmen who would not stick to estimates – I nearly typed “cowboys” but instead I’ll settle on “Microsoft”.

I am finding that when choosing an album from my NAS, the app attaches tracks from an unrelated album to the playlist, though the tracks had been scrambled on the NAS but not the case, anyone else experiencing this issue?

Also can no longer use Muso app on my Iphone 4 as it does not support IOS.8

Based on my experience on Naim, it is the programmers there were obviously lazy to clean out variables. For example, sometimes when I play a song with blank artist name or blank album name, both the app and the little green screen on the machine would show the artist name/album name of the previous track played.

This could be what was happening to you. When you play some tracks without Album/Album art, it shows the album art of whatever happens to be the previous tracks you played that had these information tagged.

On a long playlist generated on nstream, the first track showed the wrong cover art. I deleted the track from the play list, added it again and it now shows the correct artwork. The second track which had previously shown the correct artwork and had moved up in the order to the first track now shows incorrect artwork. Any thoughts?

Another bug, most likely from the practice of failing to initialize variables and/or inconsistency in updating data structure......

Actually that behaviour existed in n-Stream 3.x for me. However, in my playlists, it only happened on one of them, so it was inconsistent when it presented itself.

Yes, something to be investigated.

Simon.

If I connect to my NAS from the 'UPnP servers' page,  I get  similar problems to MyronB,  eg albums that aren't even stored on the NAS are shown. But if I connect to my Unitiserve and select 'Browse by Device', then all is well.

Regarding the missing alphabet letters on the right hand side, I think these are there. The second line down of the main screen on your iPad on the right hand side has "A-Z". If this is greyed out then tap this and it should become white, your letters should then appear on the right. Similarly tapping either of the next two icons repeatedly will adjust the size of the display folders and text. Hope this helps.
Mike

It could be a router problem.  Maybe try re-starting that.  If you read the Phil Harris / TJ posts they have some information on the difference between the two modes, and also some issues with how different routers handle uPnP traffic.

Thank you Mike! I discovered it alread. Still thinking it makes no sense: toggling between ACB etc. and 'dots' via A-Z button. Already wrote somewhere on the forum: I would expect a toggle between ABC... !ZYX...

Correct: meanwhile discoverd via this forum (THX!) the toggle-funtion of the 'A-Z' button on top of the screen. Not quite intuitive and specially not logic: toggle between alphabet-letters and dots. I expected a A-Z order change to Z-A and v.v.

No respect for time and effort: we all payed a load a money for the equipment inc controller-app! So I think Naim is better in developing audi-stuff than bits-and-bytes....

Exactly what the sort toggle does depends on your uPnP server.   If your server supports sorting then A-Z will ask for a sorted list of titles otherwise it will sort them locally.   The alternative, "...", is whatever order the uPnP server presents the items: often this is something sensible but the app has no way of knowing and "..." seems like a pretty sensible choice.   My uPnP server happens to present albums sorted by artist and by release date because that's what I told it.  If I let the app do the sorting then they're just sorted by title so "A" (for example) comes first instead of about 1/3 the way through.  It didn't take me long to realise that A-Z meant local sorting.  If I ever get a uPnP server that allows different sort orders then it will be interesting to see what the app does.  Equally, of course, it would make no sense to put letters down the RHS of the display.  Suppose uPnP native sort order was the order albums had been added to the server or the order that they had been purchased?   Or release date order?   (Actually, reverse purchase date has some attraction now I think about it.)

I can't help but feel hurt by the comments about the app developers.  I *know* these particular developers work very hard and they do test things within reason.  The app does have some minor problems and there are a couple of things I'd prefer to be different, but nothing I'm going to lose sleep over and nothing that's going to get in the way of the reason I bought the Uniti in the first place.

dots down the side is native sort (i.e. in whatever order the UPnP server or internet radio server) delivers the list in. A-Z down the side is when the app is sorting the list locally. To be able to generate the a-z index the app needs sort the list itself because as jchax correctly says the UPNP server can return data in all sorts of different orders such as release date, last ripped, last listened to etc so the user really needs the option to switch between the two views if the UPnP sort order if it is relevant to the context of the list

New in the naim app is the ability to change this sort order on internet radio lists too. previously you were limited to native sort, not you have the option of a-z too.

Minimserver allows you to adjust sort order, however n-stream or naim app or whatever its called now just ignores this and arranges the album view by album name instead of album artist as requested.

Simon at Minimserver is aware of the issue with this and reports its only the Naim app with this problem. Ive tried a couple of apps and it is indeed a problem with the Naim app.

However the usual Naim response is its the Upnp server. Funny that when other apps seem to work fine.

Graeme

Graeme,

If you want to use the Minim sort order then de-select the A-Z sort icon at the top of the list. If you want to see the list sorted alphabetically (and have the A-Z  jump control down the side) select the A-Z icon

TJ

Thanks for the reply. I will try that but then that causes its own problem as you can then no longer jump to the required start for that letter. Maybe i'm being fussy but surely this isnt to much to ask. I'm sure others would welcome this facility

Graeme

It's all working well for me now, as with my ND5XS I don't need the volume control or trimming (I think). With the one huge exception of album play starting on Track 2, which is driving me STARK RAVING NUTS!!

Thanks for listening.

Not strictly true.  Many of us bought our devices before n-Stream was even announced and they are still as completely usable by remote control now as they were then.  N-Stream came along as an extra, enhancing the product further.

Perceptions will of course be different for more recent purchasers, particularly if the use of an app was critical to your purchase.  I don't believe however that any of us really bought our Naim streamers expressly because we believed that one day it would support Qobuz and Deezer.  Did we?

Personally, I am delighted by the new Naim app and it appears to be welcomed by a quiet majority as a big improvement.  I appreciate the recent investment in improving it and the pace of resolving the initial bugs.  If extra firmware and controller features (eg. rumoured Spotify, Airplay support) come along then that is great.

If they don't, I shaln't feel cheated, I will just plug in an external box that can do these if I need it (Airport Express, Raspberry Pi, Apple TV, Roku, Mac Mini, etc.)

It helps to remind yourself that your Naim device is a high quality network connected hifi and not a rapidly changing over-sized smartphone with daily app store updates and DIN outputs.

Graeme,

Yes, a bug, sorry. in the meantime if you want to play an album from track 1 just tap track 1 on the album view, it will load the whole album into the play queue and does start at track 1.

This is what I've done since release...how does one experience the 'track 2' phenomenon - I feel I'm missing out...?

G

@other graeme. There is also "play now" option on the top right options "..." menu. It plays the whole album starting at track 1 (or is supposed to, the bug means it starts at track 2). Tapping track 1 to play the album from the beginning is the workaround until this is fixed