Tom's chat event

Sorry the 1hr change on GMT caused us to go badly wrong on set ups here.

These are some of the answers Tom has just finished and will reply with further questions, best laid plans 

Scarydog        3:36 AM

Having come from a Squeezebox I am missing on-the-fly play lists is this a feature you are looking at?

TJ >  We working towards a similar feature. We want to add  a current playlist  or ‘queue’ concept so as you listen to music you can add tracks to the queue.

Scarydog        3:37 AM

would be great to have some more visual flair in the app and a higher level of overall polish. It currently doesn't feel very IOS like. Are you planning on polishing the user interface?

TJ > We think the new iPad interface has brought the app on a long way, and the iPhone app uses lots of visual cues from the Apple iOS design schemes

Scarydog        3:38 AM

When will the control for moving through the music have a-z instead of dots?

TJ >  The principal reason that we use dots instead of an alphabetical index is that  on long lists it can take quite a while to download each row and on really long lists we don’t download every row. Because you need the entire list  to be able to determine where the alphabetical index points lie for some lists it would take a long time for the alphabetical list to show. Arguably you could show dots until the entire list was downloaded but we felt this would feel inconsistent and would not be evident to the user why sometimes it works in one way and other times it works differently. We are currently looking into ways to increase the UPnP browsing speed and when these changes happen I’m sure we will look at this issue again.


Adi Kaiser      8:47 AM

Hi, I wonder if the new release will be available in HD for iPad too?

TJ >  Yes the new release will be iPad native


Adi Kaiser      8:48 AM

Hi, will there be new features such as coverflow, song lists etc. in the new release?

TJ >  Yes, the iPad release for both n-Stream and n-Serve has a browse by CD cover mode. I have posted screenshots of this on the Forum.


AllenB          1:20 PM

Long time ago, I requested a timer bar for elapsed time on any track, eg. X elapsed time of Y total track time. You get this with the n-Serve app (and iTunes  / Remote), but any reason why that still doesn't appear in the n-Stream app? The other thing about the timer bar is that you can go to any part of the track by prodding the appropriate position on the timer bar. Not sure you could ever achieve that with the UPnP streaming protocol?

TJ > Not all UPnP servers actually expose the total track  time and allow a UPnP player to skip to an arbitrary point in the track. Because of this lack in consistency between servers we originally opted to leave this feature off.


AllenB          1:20 PM

Say I am playing a track but want to go to a different artist or genre. In n-Stream you have to navigate back one step at a time through the tree until you reach the page that gives you artist, album, genre etc. By this I mean you have to return along the same path as you went along to reach the current track being played. I want to return to the 'home' page where I can select my next music in one step. You can, of course, select the UPnP input again and that brings you to the 'server'

home page, but that just feels all wrong. Has this been improved in the updated app? Has the speed of refresh on each screen been improved also?

TJ > The current n-Stream app is effectively a remote control for the Uiniti product and as there is no home button on the Uniti we could not add it to the app. As I mentioned earlier we are looking into ways of speeding up the whole UPnP experience, maybe a jump to ‘home’ feature might creep in then.

AllenB          1:20 PM

We still have dots down the side for the scrolling index, why no alphabetical index (as with n-Serve)?

TJ >  see previous answer to Scarydog


AllenB          1:20 PM

The speed of n-Serve makes it a much better proposition than n-Stream, where you get delays between each screen being loaded. I am tempted to just use the Serve now to provide the stream to nDAC, but my biggest wish for the Serve (and HDX for that matter) would be to control the volume on the preamp straight from the n-Serve app (as you will now be able to do with NDX / n-Stream). Will this ever be possible for those units? Could Naim design a small plug in receiver for preamps when used with HDX / Serve? Or a hardware upgrade for the HDX / Serve itself?

TJ > This is not the first time this has been requested and I also think this would be a great idea. We have been focusing on the core  functionality of the apps for this release and we hope you like them.

AKa     7:19 AM

When & How much? If one has already the iPhone App do charge ones more?

TJ > Dues to be released today (1^st April). It will be a free upgrade for those who already own the app.


AKa     7:20 AM

Please look at Apple's Remote, that's how usabilty could be!

TJ > err.. if you say so! Yes, some of their design for that product is intuitive, some could have been a lot better for a company that is so focused on product usability. Ultimately these types of products are very subjective. We think the Naim iPad apps are a good step forward for us and we hope you enjoy them


Klout10          7:58 PM

Will it be possible to run the iPad app on an iPod Touch?

TJ >  yes, it is a universal app that means one app runs on iPhone, iPod and iPad and the app decides which user interface to use depending on which device it is running on


GeraldUK        8:13 PM

Can we get an app that fits the screen properly and also that does the volume. Also I want the same functionality on the iPad as the web version. Otherwise nearly there

TJ > Glad you are enjoying n-Serve. Sounds like another request for a volume control, we will take note! We have added more features


jonnaim          12:24 AM

When will it be possible to select your own playlists using the n stream app?

TJ > At the moment  if there are playlists on your upnp server you can select them, it all depends on if your upnp server exposes them. Creating playlists from n-Stream is a bit more tricky we are looking into it though as it would be a valuable addition to the product range

John Bailey     9:30 PM

Remote volume control of preamp from HDX - via a USB accessory, RS232 or other upgrade. Please?

TJ > As per previous answer to request for n-Serve volume control



Chi Yuen Lam          7:08 AM

I already have the nServe on my iPhone and iPod. Do I have to purchase the iPad version again?

TJ >No, all apps are now free. If you have already purchased the app then just update to get the latest version.



De-risky          1:19 PM

Will the HDX iPad app cater for creating playlists in real-time ie be able to add tracks to play-list as "play next", "add to end" as the play-list is already playing?

TJ > You can currently add tracks and albums to the current playlist. In the next release we will support user playlist creation and editing. We are  actively working on this right now.


De-risky          1:20 PM

Will you be able to to TRULY shuffle tracks as opposed to current system which biases to specific albums?

TJ > If you add tracks to the current playlist and start playback with the shuffle function on you get a good degree of randomness. If you are finding otherwise please let us know your system setup, which user interface you are using and how you start the random playback.


AKD    3:32 PM

N-Serve: Are you going to implement the Internet Radio option as in Songbook  for Naim. Also any consideration for Android platfom or Qnex/Blackberry. When is the realease date and what to expect in the new release.

TJ > The apps were released this morning so are available right now. We are keeping our eye on Android but for now have no plans to plan a release for any other platform. Internet radio is coming soon. New features include:

• Cover art support – n-Serve now displays cover art from hard disk player / server and users can scroll through album tiles.
• iPad native design.
• New search functionality – Full search capabilities added.
• Extended metadata – Extensive new data available for tracks and albums.
• Cache database – Music collection can still be viewed on the app even when out of range of hard disk player / servers. This means a music library can be checked when in a record store or out with friends.
• Playlist reading – Playlists created on the desktop client, web browser interface or on the server itself can now be read.
• Select by device – Individual devices or shares on the network can be selected.
  
  
  
  Steeve 3:55 PM
  
  As a current user of the nServe app the two things which in my opinion are missing are the option to make on-the-go playlists and the fact that the app needs to reconnect each time another app is used or the itouch locks

TJ > I presume you are talking about n-Stream as n-Serve allows multiple clients to be connected at the same time and also allows the user to build up the current playlist.  The Uniti products only support a single client to be connected at one time which is the reason the apps reconnect if you try to use two instances of n-Stream. Yes, other people have requested on the go playlist support, we have taken note.



Purple66        5:07 PM

Does the new app offer edit function like name of artist, album name, etc...? Will there be the option to add missing covers via the app?

TJ > The new version of n-Serve adds many new features but does not support metadata editing. The next release will give you really comprehensive playlist management and we hope to be able to offer some degree of metadata editing in a future release.


MacUser         9:25 AM

Why isn't the radio function available on the n-serve for the HDX? I love the new app but without the radio function I'll still need to use the Songbook app - which is horrible! Could I use the n-stream with the HDX?

TJ > Naim servers do have some internet radio support software build in  right now and SongBook have managed a partial implementation by connecting directly to the core of the server. We have not made internet radio feature available to our customers yet because we do not consider the feature fully developed and we are reluctant to expose a feature that we are not yet happy with. It is currently under development to improve performance and  when we are happy with it we will release an update to our customers. The n-Serve app will also support internet radio when the feature is released.


michael_seyfried       11:05 AM

Do we have to buy the iPad version separately if we already bought the iPhone version?

TJ > No both n-Stream and n-Serve are universal. This means you buy (for free!) one app and it changes the user interface based on if it is running on an iPhone or an iPad.



michael_seyfried       11:06 AM

Will the iPad version do more than its iPhone counterpart?

TJ > n-Serve, yes lots more, see above. n-Stream has a new and improved interface, is iPad native and offers much better UPnP browsing with the addition of coverart browsing mode.