Comments on: Background Audio in iOS 4.0

By: Jim Thorpe

Jim Thorpe — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 23:32:32 +0000

Actually, no, now I think about it, both those apps already do have a play/pause/skip control of their own, which is what you’re looking into now. Kinda looks like Last.fm just didn’t implement it fully with the iOS 4 functionality.

By: Jim Thorpe

Jim Thorpe — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 23:29:42 +0000

I noticed today in the update to Last.fm that whenever you press the pause button, iPod.app immediately takes back the music controls. Seems like a similar situation to Airfoil Speakers Touch: as soon as the audio stops playing, the app is suspended and you have to switch to it to start things up again.

The same is not true of Pandora.app. Tell the device to pause Pandora, wait a minute or two, and you can still un-pause Pandora. It’ll continue to touch the network to get subsequent songs.

Does this mean Pandora is leveraging something to which you don’t have access?

By: Paul Kafasis

Paul Kafasis — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:10:50 +0000

shuckster: As Dan said above:

“We could, but the bigger issue is that “pause” doesn’t really make sense with an app like Airfoil. Without remote control, it’s more like “mute” since the source application keeps playing. So we’re holding off until we can do it right.”

By: shuckster

shuckster — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:04:44 +0000

If Airfoil *must* play audio to avoid suspension, couldn’t you just load a “silent” clip into the App for local playback when the server is paused?

By: Paul Kafasis

Paul Kafasis — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:30:42 +0000

Tim: Unfortunately, this really isn't possible on iOS, due to Apple's limitations. We have no way of getting audio from other applications. Even sending audio from the iTunes library is not really possible yet. http://www.rogueamoeba.com/support/knowledgebase/?showArticle=AirfoilforiPhone

By: Tim Armes

Tim Armes — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 07:24:41 +0000

Hi,

Thanks for the article. Personally I’m looking for the inverse – I’d like to stream audio from my docked (and charged) iPhone to my aiport express. I can’t believe that the iPhone doesn’t already offer this.

Is this something that’s feasible? I doubt it…

Tim

By: Dan Wineman

Dan Wineman — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:23:37 +0000

David M. Cotter: We could, but the bigger issue is that "pause" doesn't really make sense with an app like Airfoil. Without remote control, it's more like "mute" since the source application keeps playing. So we're holding off until we can do it right. Ross Collins: Not to worry. For now at least, we'll continue to support 3.0 and up. Matt Reimer: Probably not if we expect Apple to approve it. Ben: Stay tuned. Marcus: Unless I misunderstand you, we actually already have volume control via Airfoil Speakers (and Airfoil Speakers Touch). The volume slider in Speakers is linked to the slider in Airfoil for that receiver, over the network. Peter Witham: Thanks for the very kind words.

By: Peter Witham

Peter Witham — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:09:11 +0000

So glad to read this post, when background tasking was announced for iOS4 I immediately thought of Airfoil since I use it so much. Having remote control of the source has also been a long time wish for me as well :)

Keep up the great work, you remain a shinning example of OS-X application excellence.

By: Marcus

Marcus — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 02:40:30 +0000

Hello! I’m a paying Airfoil user who would really, really like Remote Control via Airfoil Speakers Touch. You said you’re planning on doing that in the “longer term”, but if you could just add volume control to your 1.1 update, I’d be a happy camper!

You could even restrict it to only global volume changing of all speakers connected to Airfoil as far as I’m concerned ala “linked to system volume mode”, if it’d make it easier.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:19:04 +0000

Will there be any update to the remote playback app (or a separate app?) to allow for control of the desktop application? I use Airfoil with my AP Express as the primary audio source for my home theater system. The remote iOS app is great for controlling iTunes but being able to manage the connected application, zones, and volume for the entire airfoil system would be an amazing improvement!

Thanks, Ben