Bookshelf Apps

SongBook iPad

January 28th, 2010 0

As you would expect, we will have an iPad version of SongBook ready for release before the iPad is available for purchase. In the long run we plan on the iPad version being a mix of the features of SongBook Mac and of SongBook touch, but the initial release will build mainly on the user interface features of SongBook touch.

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We have looked at the developer documentation, and there is the possibility of building a ‘universal’ application, which means a single application that runs on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. This will have the advantage of allowing existing users to migrate to the iPad using their existing SongBook license. The actual SDK for this has not been released yet, so we cannot see all the details, but at this stage,it is the path that we plan on going down. It also means that new users can purchase a single license and run SongBook on their iPad and iPhone.

The iPad brings exciting new user interface capabilities to the platform, but this will require a rethinking of the SongBook user interface. The most obvious improvement will be to reduce the usage of the list view for browsing music and move to a view similar to the SongBook Mac album art view. Full screen CoverFlow will also be worthwhile having. As time progresses we will firm up our plans for the new user interface ready for the release in about 60 days.

Upgrading Twonky Mac

January 20th, 2010 0

I just completed an upgrade from Twonky 5.0.68 to 5.1.2 on a Mac Mini server. It turned out to be quite a difficult task, in fact I gave up a few days ago and only now got back to it.

The first try failed with Twonky going a bit weird on me. I couldn’t consistently update the web interface, and it seemed very busy. Later on I found out that it was creating a lot of files in it’s database, perhaps getting stuck in a loop.

What I did, that finally worked, was to delete all Twonky files and re-install. This is probably the safest way to install twonky, but it does mean that you need to re-enter your license and set up your paths again.

You need to not only delete the Twonky app (in /Applications), but also all the files in [home]/Library/Application Support/TwonkyMediaServer. In my case this folder contained over 120,000 files, I guess that was something to do with what was going wrong. It took quite a while to delete these files.

So now it’s all up and working again. Quite a hassle for a small update. I suggest that you don’t upgrade your Twonky install unless you have a good reason to, especially as newer releases do sometimes introduce new bugs. 5.0.68 did seem to be quite stable for me. I’ve had a report of a problem with 5.1.2 and very large music collections, that is why I upgraded, just to test for any bugs.

Anyway, I’ve got Music again, which is a relief.