N-Serve / Stream - first impressions
Posted by: Tog on 31 March 2011
More subdued colour scheme (far less luminous green!)
Very responsive volume control - much better
Uncluttered interface
Overall much faster - close to Remote ( especially loading cover art - possibly faster - interface is much simpler than Apple's.
Overall much closer to Remote - no that's unfair like comparing oranges and apples - they are still quite different - with different functionality - close and better than all the others.
Well done all - especially TJ
Tog
Tog,
I honestly cannot find a meaningful difference betwen PlugPlayer and Remote.
They are basically the same.
How is PP harder to use? What isn't intuitive.
I use both everyday and they are on equal ground in my estimation. PP is only more complicated because you select a Server and Renderer (if you have more than one).
Do you actually use it? If so, how and why? If you are a Mac guy, what use do you have for it?
-p
Used as an alternative to the first version of nStream since it was iPad native - have you noticed those subtle animations that Remote uses to provide user feedback - or how slow and unresponsive PP is .... VB allows me to be both Mac guy and UPnP victim,
Tog
I will just stick with what I am doing and continue to try everything under the sun.
Squeezeserver was much too slow for me and couldn't handle half of my library.
Airplay requires iTunes right? Not happening for too many reasons to list, including the one above.
I think we just have different tastes.
-p
and that is cool 
Patrick
Tog
Just a thought / suggestion which might be easier in the short term to implement.
In n-Stream, you can jump back to the (server) root of the UPnP input if you want to avoid navigating back one step at a time, with the screen refresh each time, after you have finished playing a track / album. Why not add additional buttons at the bottom of the screen to jump you directly back to Artists, Albums and Genre. That I reckon I could live with.
Think about it, it's very similar to using this forum, you jump to the categories using the buttons, top & bottom. To the end user, UPnP is very similar to internet forums in terms of navigation.
What about caching the said 'tree branches' for faster loading (as is already done with cover art), you could add a button (or drag the screen down) to refresh the caches when you know additional music or other changes have been added. You have to do this with the server anyway to update the branches that are being served, but for the most time music already stored on the server generally does not move around. Doing both could be part of the steps you have to carry out when adding new music. it can be done, the Forum App does this in a similar way.
These were the kind of changes and additional features I had hoped might be in the n-Stream update, but not one new feature, all cosmetic 
That only took 1 year, so I won't hold my breath.
We are perfectionists (why else would we buy Naim gear?) but give TJ and Co a break - sure there is still a lot to do but that doesn't mean this isn't a good step in the right direction AllenB.
Tog