Volumio iOS App

Hello guys,

two months ago I started a little project on Swift to create a Volumio native application.
Today you can download a native iOS app to manage Volumio from the store.

This thread is here to suggest features to develop and bugs to fix, please be detailed and patient, since this is not my primary job :wink:
Make sure there is another similar feature / bug in the list below before publishing it.

To do features:

  • Selector of cases of Volumio descent
  • System management (network, dac, ā€¦)

Known issues:

  • The radio do not work correctly when it is in the queue

Feel free to contribute here:

Hey monkeyproof,

screen looks nice, butā€¦

ā€¦you know, that the job is already done - arenĀ“t you?
itunes.apple.com/de/app/mpod/id285063020?mt=8

Sorry, I dont want to stifle your enthusiasm, but whatĀ“s your unique selling proposition to drop a redundant app on the market - even if itĀ“s free?

Regards

Volker

What you refer is a mpd client, not a Volumio one. With a proper Volumio client you will be able to access tons of stuff you canā€™t with just a mpd client (playlists, spotify, favourites ā€¦ additional plugins etc)

Donā€™t worry, the aim is to develop something dedicated and maybeā€¦newer?
I tried mpod for a couple of weeks and I found it quite old and slow :neutral_face:
For what iā€™ve seen the value proposition of volumio is a simple experience, doesnā€™t look so simple searching for a compatible native app that doesnā€™t even come up in the appstore search.

If michelangelo agrees, iā€™m going to place a volumio navigation bar title at the top of the playback screen.
In my opinion, if the market is ā€œfullā€ with no concurrency, there should be at least another option to improve in something better.

Totally agree!
Let me know how can I help

Done, iā€™m working on the queue management, once back to browse sources iā€™ll ask you something for sure :smiley:

Grande!!! Let me know

1 Like

Hi Michelangelo, hi Monkeyproof

Okay, to be honest I have no clue what the difference between a mpd-client and a volumio-client could be. For me volumio was hitherto an awesome frontend for mpd, but maybe Iā€™m too naĆÆve ā€¦
I admit that Mpad / mPoD was somewhat neglected, and could possibly be faster (but maybe also my Raspberry is the bottleneck), but it does its job - and so far IĀ“m happy with it.
So, if there is a newer app availible Iā€™m curious how it matches my customer needs. Iā€™m excited to see how your project develops.
I am very willing to give as beta testers my experience as a user.

Best regards

Volker

I think I see the reason for the confusion. While Volumio 1 was strongly coupled with MPD, and MPD is still a core functionality in volumio 2, it is not purely MPD. Due to the new plugin system there is the possibility to include new music services like Spotify, Soundcloud, and so on that may not use mpd at all. With a dedicated volumio app you could also address those, while an mpd app would not be able to access those parts of volumio.

Great project!
MPod and Mpad work with Volumio, but they are really outdated.
And a native Volumio app will be a lot faster then those sluggish apps named before.

Perhaps is it possible to make a native MacOs, Windows or Linux version as well, so that i can ditch Cantata. :wink:

Thatā€™s the point, since i have spotify premium i almost never used the mpd client. Thatā€™s why i started the project :slight_smile:

Project Update

From today the Volumio iOS app is able to:

  • detect if Volumio is connected
  • manage playback (only exceptions are shuffle and repeat)
  • manage queue (little UI bug on playing track detection)
  • browse from spotify account and add to queue
  • shutdown and reboot volumio

By the fact a month ago we didnā€™t have nothingā€¦well itā€™s a great step!
Please PM me with your itunes account mail to be invited to the beta

Thank you for all of you sent the email to activate the beta, just a little more patience, since volumio2 is out i need to update a couple of class to make it work again :wink:

Btw i take the occasion to develop the mpd integration as well!

Great!!! Does it work on ipad too?

Not today, but there is no reason not to build an iPad version too, itā€™s not too difficult. Iā€™ll finish this first build and the we can manage to add the iPad support :wink:

Testflight Update

To all of you already sent me the Apple account email: iā€™m uploading the build just now, just wait a little more for the external tester approval from Apple (they should validate it for tomorrow morning at latest) and youā€™ll be able to install it.

Notes:

  • you donā€™t need a Spotify Premium account to test the appā€¦but if you have one you can load new tracks. This because my NAS stopped working a couple of days ago during a thunderstorm :frowning: and i could not try browse tracks from that, i hope iā€™ll have it back in a week. For precaution i disabled all the sources except Spotifyā€¦because since volumio 2 they cause an application crash.

I have just installed your app on my iPhone 5S :slight_smile:

Two things:

  1. Player name (Volumioā€™s name) must be set to ā€˜Volumioā€™, otherwise app would not work. It would be nice to have more freedom (set name manually in app if it is needed). If you do not want to change that you should at least provide user with information about that thing. Anyway after I changed my player name to ā€˜Volumioā€™ it worked :slight_smile:
  2. There are problems with UI on smaller screens (my iPhone 5S). I attach two screenshots below for you to investigate. On the first one you can see that not all text is displayed; on second - how ā€˜playā€™ button changed itā€™s shape.

Pic. 1:[spoiler]IMG_0124.PNG[/spoiler]
Pic. 2:[spoiler]IMG_0123.PNG[/spoiler]

Cheers!

PS Sorry, I donā€™t know how to make those images smaller.

Wow this is amazing!
To solve the issue of mdns search (the name one), remember that we always broadcast a service called Volumio

You can use any mdns discovery tool to see it, and this wonā€™t change when you change name. But it has the device name in the txt record. Let me know if you need more info

Thanks Chipl iā€™ll fix those in the next rev!

Iā€™ll use this developer.apple.com/reference/f ā€¦ cebrowsers

Hi guys, quick update.

Iā€™m just releasing on TestFlight another build, please check:

  • if the mdns discovery find your volumioā€™s
  • if the UI works well on different resolution (i tested on iPhone 6)

F.