Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
I know Sonos has controller apps for phones and tablets, but I don't think there are players. That would be a deal breaker for me at this point since I regularly use my andriod media player and my iPod Touch as portable squeezeboxes in my house and on family trips when we have access to WiFi. maggior's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9080 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
wildgoose wrote: ... So they put much more effort into it than Logitech (advertising, RD, etc..). The survival of Logitech does not depend on SB, the survival of Sonos depends on their products. Not sure I can agree with the RD part of this statement. Sonos has yet to come out with a product capable of playing hi-rez files like 24/96. Their line seems rather stagnant. For that reason alone Sonos is off the table for me. If they ever update their player with hi-rez capability then they will have my interest. audio53's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5576 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
audio53 wrote: Not sure I can agree with the RD part of this statement. Sonos has yet to come out with a product capable of playing hi-rez files like 24/96. Their line seems rather stagnant. For that reason alone Sonos is off the table for me. If they ever update their player with hi-rez capability then they will have my interest. I have very little hirez, but the Sonos deal killer for me is the inability to handle more than about 60,000 files (except in some back door clunky way involving windows media player). I have 70,000 files and I'm only a third of my way through ripping my CDs. garym's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17325 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
garym wrote: I have very little hirez, but the Sonos deal killer for me is the inability to handle more than about 60,000 files (except in some back door clunky way involving windows media player). I have 70,000 files and I'm only a third of my way through ripping my CDs. I understand why they neither focus on 24/96 nor 65,000+ libraries, the main reasons are likely that the amount of users with a lot of 24/96 files who also cares about audio quality or the amount of users with 65,000+ libraries, is both probably fairly small compared to the amount of users they can gain in other areas. Adding a new streaming service would probably easily give them a lot more users than what adding 24/96 and support for 65,000+ libraries would do. If I've understood correctly you can get around the 65,000+ limitation by using a PC as server using WMP, Sonospy or similar solution. It will of course require you to have the PC powered on but this is also the case for Squeezebox which needs LMS/SBS to be running on a PC if you want to have larger libraries than what can be supported with the built-in server in a Squeezebox Touch. Of course, I don't really have a Sonos myself, so maybe WMP/Sonospy creates other problems/limitations. The biggest obstacle for me with Sonos is their more closed model which makes it harder (but probably not impossible) to add functionality through third party add-ons if Sonos doesn't want to develop a certain functionality I like to have. Still, I've sometimes been thinking about getting one just to evaluate it a bit, I'm just a bit scared that I won't see the potential unless I switch to Sonos in all rooms and that's not something I'm prepared to do yet as the Squeezebox system I have really works great. erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
kidstypike wrote: Well if it's resting, I'll wake it up .. ::Wake up Logitech!!!:: Oh no, You stunned them, just as they were waking up. http://orangecow.org/pythonet/pet-shop.html bluegaspode's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=31651 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
How ironic that we are talking about how Logitech (squeezebox) should be more like Roku when the squeezebox trounced the Roku music streaming device 5 years ago or so. Roku rose from the ashes by revinventing itself. maggior's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9080 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
maggior wrote: How ironic that we are talking about how Logitech (squeezebox) should be more like Roku when the squeezebox trounced the Roku music streaming device 5 years ago or so. Roku rose from the ashes by revinventing itself. Very true. I remember giving the Roku boxes (particularly 'this one' (http://soundbridge.roku.com/soundbridge/index.php)) a serious look when I was wading into the network music player world seven years ago. If I remember correctly, the Roku having only wifi (b) was the dealkiller for me. I still think I made the right choice. aubuti's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2074 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
aubuti wrote: Very true. I remember giving the Roku boxes (particularly 'this one' (http://soundbridge.roku.com/soundbridge/index.php)) a serious look when I was wading into the network music player world seven years ago. If I remember correctly, the Roku having only wifi (b) was the dealkiller for me. I still think I made the right choice. Yes, the soundbridge. I couldn't remember the name. I had looked into them as a cheap alternative to the squeezebox, which at $300 was pretty steep at the time. The deal breaker for me was that it didn't support gapless playback. It was shortly after I had looked into them that they stopped making them. Like you I think I made the right choice. If I decided to sell one of my SB3's today, I wouldn't get my $300 back, but I'd probably get $150. You probably couldn't give a soundbridge away today. maggior's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9080 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mortslim wrote: Here is how Roku works with content developers: An open platform, Rokus Streaming Player enables content owners to bypass traditional distribution routes and reach views and consumers directly. Rokus platform allows a wide variety of channels and monetization options. There is no fee for joining the Roku Developer Program or for publishing a Roku Channel. Roku does not host any content. Your Roku channel connects to your existing service and servers or CDN to locate and stream your content. http://www.roku.com/developer I arranged for the Stitcher podcast service top brass to contact Logitech to host the Stitcher service on the squeezebox platform. Logitech wasnt interested. That was frustrating for me and really crystallized Logitechs problem with squeezebox. Content providers want control of their own hosting service, rather than be captive to Logitechs whims. Just out of interest: - Is Deezer available for Roku ? - Is Spotify available for Roku ? - Is Rhapsody available for Roku ? The problem with the Roku model as far as I understand is that it expects the content provider to do development to support a Roku specific protocol only used by Roku devices. If the content provider doesn't consider Roku to be big enough this will likely result in that you will never get access to their service on a Roku device. As you say, the problem with the Logitech model is that if a content provider want to be on mysqueezebox.com the Logitech model presumes Logitech is willing to do development to support the service. One advantage with the Logitech model is that it kind of support both models, it's just that it needs a plugin and a locally installed SBS/LMS to support a similar model as Roku which means that you need to have a computer powered on to use some services. This is also an advantage if Logitech would stop selling Squeezeboxes, they can still continue to work great for existing and new services using a local LMS installation even without involving Logitech at all. Do you know if Roku have any solution similar to LMS where you can run a local service and add support for services which the content providers doesn't want to offer support for ? To me it kind of feels like the Logitech model might be preferred as long as Logitech is willing to invest the necessary resources and the Roku model is preferred as long as the content provider is willing to invest the necessary resources. However, I can agree that one problem with the Logitech model is that Logitech tends to stop the development when they have enough functionality to advertise the streaming provider, after this the streaming provider might add more functionality but in many cases that functionality doesn't get available on the Squeezebox integration. Such scenario is probably less likely to happen with the Roku model as long as the content provider needs to update the Roku integration to keep existing customers or get new customers. erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
kidstypike wrote: Well if it's resting, I'll wake it up .. ::Wake up Logitech!!!:: This is the wrong place to try to wake anyone from Logitech, if you want to reach someone within Logitech you better go to their official support forum at http://forums.logitech.com where there at least are some Logitech employees reading. erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
erland wrote: This is the wrong place to try to wake anyone from Logitech, if you want to reach someone within Logitech you better go to their official support forum at http://forums.logitech.com where there at least are some Logitech employees reading. Yes, sorry about that. Post #140 by pallfreeman reminded me of the Parrot Sketch by the Monty Python team, this was taken further by bluegaspode, who obviously saw the connection. It won't happen again. kidstypike's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10436 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
erland wrote: the Logitech model might be preferred as long as Logitech is willing to invest the necessary resources and the Roku model is preferred as long as the content provider is willing to invest the necessary resources. A review of the forum requests by users for services and updates to services implies that Logitech is not investing resources at the moment. Even the Logitech webpage for Squeezebox is out of date as to the services offered. Content providers will show interest if they see sufficient market penetration for the squeezebox. They do a cost/benefit analysis just like Logitech. If the missing content providers see that they can reach a tipping point for eardrums, they'lll come to the platform. In order for Logitech to be more mass market, it should lower the price, turn up the volume and get rid of the LCD screen to keep the cost down (it's more efficient to put control into the user's hands on already owned multi-purpose devices,like iPeng on the iPad and the iPhone). Logitech already has the hardware for such lower cost products. It just needs to open up its software to make it easy for the content providers to be enticed to the platform. And as to the complaint that the Roku model generates a lot of uninteresting content, the solution to that is simple, don't listen to it. Pick and choose your favorite service providers and ignore the rest. Even on the Squeezebox now, I don't listen to over 90% of what is offered. We should be so lucky to wade through excess content to find what we want. mortslim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11039 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mortslim wrote: And as to the complaint that the Roku model generates a lot of uninteresting content, the solution to that is simple, don't listen to it. Pick and choose your favorite service providers and ignore the rest. Even on the Squeezebox now, I don't listen to over 90% of what is offered. We should be so lucky to wade through excess content to find what we want. Don't want to start a Roku Wars debate, but really there's no comparison between the quality services which are available on Logi and the hotchpotch of religious nutters, prepubescent youths aping around on video clips, clapped-out old video and film services which constitute the major Roku offerings! In any event, the nature of the beasts are very different - Roku serves up video junk, and Logi opens up the amazing world of international radio services. Even the Tunein channel on Roku is crippled because the stupid box can only stream mp3 audio, castalla's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=15624 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mortslim wrote: Content providers will show interest if they see sufficient market penetration for the squeezebox. They do a cost/benefit analysis just like Logitech. If the missing content providers see that they can reach a tipping point for eardrums, they'lll come to the platform. Which is also why it's hard to use the Roku philosophy before you have the volume, the content providers basically don't want to invest in making a proprietary solution for a specific product before they are sure they can get enough users on it and the dilemma is that the product won't get more users before the content providers have done their part with the Roku model. But I guess that as a content provider it's a matter of: - Either doing an analysis if you believe the manufacturer (Logitech, Roku, ...) will be able to sell enough devices and make the investment in advance to help them (and yourself) getting more users. - Or just deciding to wait and do the investment later when the manufacturer has sold enough devices to make it interesting. mortslim wrote: In order for Logitech to be more mass market, it should lower the price, turn up the volume and get rid of the LCD screen to keep the cost down (it's more efficient to put control into the user's hands on already owned multi-purpose devices,like iPeng on the iPad and the iPhone). I agree on the Squeezebox Touch if it would significantly lower the price, personally I still doubt that dropping the LCD would bring the Touch below $99 which I think is needed to make it attractive to the mass market who can purchase a AppleTV or AirPort Express for $99. I think the Squeezebox Radio still needs an LCD to be useful in kitchen and bedroom, but I could see use for a cheap device without display and without hard buttons but with a built-in speaker. It wouldn't be as useful as the Squeezebox Radio, but some people might like such device if removing the display and hard buttons can make it a lot cheaper than the Squeezebox Radio. mortslim wrote: Logitech already has the hardware for such lower cost products. It just needs to open up its software to make it easy for the content providers to be enticed to the platform. Just out of interest, which hardware are you talking about, is it the Touch without display or are you referring to some non Squeezebox hardware ? mortslim wrote: And as to the complaint that the Roku model generates a lot of uninteresting content, the solution to that is simple, don't listen to it. Pick and choose your favorite service providers and ignore the rest. Even on the Squeezebox now, I don't listen to over 90% of what is offered. We should be so lucky to wade through excess content to find what we want. Right, I want to listen to Spotify (which is the best premium streaming service available in Sweden), how do I do that on a Roku device out of the box ? erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
erland wrote: I want to listen to Spotify (which is the best premium streaming service available in Sweden), how do I do that on a Roku device out of the box ? Roku has an official Plex channel. Plex connects the Roku to a media server. Plex Media Server seamlessly connects your Plex clients with all of your local and online media. The combination of centralized library management, streaming of online content, and powerful transcoding functionality provides an unrivaled level of flexibility and ease of use. Plex Media Server runs on your Mac, PC, or compatible NAS device and serves your media to all of your Plex clients. http://www.plexapp.com/getplex/index.php also: how to stream Spotify to the Roku http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=28t=44695start=0 erland wrote: which hardware are you talking about, is it the Touch without display or are you referring to some non Squeezebox hardware ?? Here are examples of Logitech products that dont have a screen and should be able to adapted to Squeezebox funtionality: Logitech Wireless Speaker Adapter for Bluetooth Audio Devices http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wirel.../dp/B004VM1T5S Logitech Wireless Boombox for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch with Bluetooth http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wirel...h+Bluetooth%22 mortslim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11039 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mortslim wrote: In order for Logitech to be more mass market, it should lower the price, turn up the volume and get rid of the LCD screen to keep the cost down (it's more efficient to put control into the user's hands on already owned multi-purpose devices,like iPeng on the iPad and the iPhone). mortslim wrote: Here are examples of Logitech products that dont have a screen and should be able to adapted to Squeezebox funtionality: Logitech Wireless Speaker Adapter for Bluetooth Audio Devices http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wirel.../dp/B004VM1T5S Logitech Wireless Boombox for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch with Bluetooth http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Boombox-iPhone-touch/dp/B005KQ2O26/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?ie=UTF8qid=1345493365sr=8-3-fkmr0keywords=%22Logitech+Wireless+Boombox+for+iPad%2C+iPhone+and+iPod+touch+with+Bluetooth%22 I'm probably missing something, or maybe the other thread about 'Better-Logitech-products-than-the-Squeezeboxes' (http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?95977-Better-Logitech-products-than-the-Squeezeboxes) has come full circle here. By those examples it looks like Logitech has already done what you suggested in the earlier post. The price is low, control is from the assumed-to-be-already-owned mobile device, and judging by the 4.5 star Amazon reviews the mass market loves them. The content issue is somewhat solved because that is provided via the source, and there are apps for Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, Stitcher and lord knows what for the iPad and other mobile devices. I could see using them in certain settings, though not as SB replacements. So what adaptations to SB functionality would you propose? I see three things missing. One is wifi / ethernet. A second is decent quality audio hardware (DAC, better circuits, digital outputs on the speaker adapter, better amp and speakers on the boombox). Go down that road and kiss your cost savings goodbye, because they all cost a lot more than the dime-a-dozen LCD screen. Third is the flexibility and scalability of LMS software. If I'm sitting in a suite (or a suit) at Logitech HQ, my question would be why adapt them at all to be SBs? This kind of product may be exactly the kind of thing Logitech knows how to produce, market, and support. aubuti's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2074 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Streaming services and the like are replacing radio, not music ownership. If you look at music purchases historically, including the yardsticks by which sales awards are given, you'll see that music ownership has always been comprised of a rather insignificant proportion of the music listenership. I'm not one to make bets, but if I were, I'd have no problem wagering that iTunes (or its Apple-owned derivative) will be around in 10 years time. Spotify and Pandora? I wouldn't make bets for that kind of longevity. I don't think I'd feel comfortable predicting they'll still be around in 3 years, let alone 10. Unless free streaming services all go away, I don't believe that pay streaming/rental services will realize the big money in this industry. Just look at how many of those companies/services have folded. It's like clock-work. That said, Logitech hasn't done anything with Squeezebox. At least with Harmony they managed to significantly grow the business and make it the de-facto non-disposable universal remote brand. Sonos by comparison has much greater brand recognition. Honestly, if it weren't for iPeng and the other third-party software supporting this platform, I think it would be in far more dire straights than it is now. MelonMonkey's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8466 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mortslim wrote: New article: Will streaming sites dethrone iTunes as king of digital music? With the growth of Spotify, Pandora, Songza, and other streaming music services, consumers now have the opportunity to treat the entire world of recorded music as their playlist. And as mobile devices transform the way we interact with our surroundings, its making the idea of paying to own songs look ever more expensive, even at $0.99. http://news.yahoo.com/will-streaming-sites-dethrone-itunes-as-king-of-digital-music--20120816.html A couple of years ago I'd go into a bar and the bartender would be playing tunes from an iPod, with very few exceptions. Now, I don't see many iPods. Instead, they play Pandora through their smart phones. I think we're less than a decade away from this being the main form of music play for the vast majority of people. It's where Logitech wanted to take the Squeezebox line, but failed miserably. I can still see them returning to this mass market, but they'll need to do it by churning out cheap boxes by the tens of thousands for well under $100 to do it. The Squeezebox product line as we once knew it is dead. JJZolx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
JJZolx wrote: The Squeezebox product line as we once knew it is dead. Although Squeezebox may provide good control of a local server-based music database, the demographic trend for future marketplace growth, as seen in the recent prior posts, is for internet streaming music. This is where Squeezeboxs problem is. The squeezebox walled garden approach is falling behind the marketplace. End-users beg for new services and request updates to existing services, and Logitech is either non-responsive or slow in responding. If Logitech wants to continue to be a player in the music delivery arena, it should be looking to Roku for a model business plan. Roku sells 3 different boxes, with its top of the line priced at $100. and going downwards from there (far cheaper than squeezebox in this cost conscious world). And Roku is an open platform. Here is how Roku works with content developers: An open platform, Rokus Streaming Player enables content owners to bypass traditional distribution routes and reach views and consumers directly. Rokus platform allows a wide variety of channels and monetization options. There is no fee for joining the Roku Developer Program or for publishing a Roku Channel. Roku does not host any content. Your Roku channel connects to your existing service and servers or CDN to locate and stream your content. http://www.roku.com/developer I arranged for the Stitcher podcast service top brass to contact Logitech to host the Stitcher service on the squeezebox platform. Logitech wasnt interested. That was frustrating for me and really crystallized Logitechs problem with squeezebox. Content providers want control of their own hosting service, rather than be captive to Logitechs whims. Both consumers and developers want more than Logitech currently offers. Unless squeezebox can meet these dual challenges, it will squander any hope of future opportunities. mortslim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11039 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
JJZolx wrote: The Squeezebox product line as we once knew it is dead. It's just resting. pallfreeman's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=37667 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
pallfreeman wrote: It's just resting. Well if it's resting, I'll wake it up .. ::Wake up Logitech!!!:: kidstypike's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10436 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mortslim wrote: Although Squeezebox may provide good control of a local server-based music database, the demographic trend for future marketplace growth, as seen in the recent prior posts, is for internet streaming music. This is where Squeezeboxs problem is. The squeezebox walled garden approach is falling behind the marketplace. End-users beg for new services and request updates to existing services, and Logitech is either non-responsive or slow in responding. If Logitech wants to continue to be a player in the music delivery arena, it should be looking to Roku for a model business plan. Roku sells 3 different boxes, with its top of the line priced at $100. and going downwards from there (far cheaper than squeezebox in this cost conscious world). And Roku is an open platform. Here is how Roku works with content developers: An open platform, Rokus Streaming Player enables content owners to bypass traditional distribution routes and reach views and consumers directly. Rokus platform allows a wide variety of channels and monetization options. There is no fee for joining the Roku Developer Program or for publishing a Roku Channel. Roku does not host any content. Your Roku channel connects to your existing service and servers or CDN to locate and stream your content. http://www.roku.com/developer I arranged for the Stitcher podcast service top brass to contact Logitech to host the Stitcher service on the squeezebox platform. Logitech wasnt interested. That was frustrating for me and really crystallized Logitechs problem with squeezebox. Content providers want control of their own hosting service, rather than be captive to Logitechs whims. Both consumers and developers want more than Logitech currently offers. Unless squeezebox can meet these dual challenges, it will squander any hope of future opportunities. Using Roku as an example of how Logi could progress is a red-herring. Roku is an utter mess of trivial channels, utterly rubbish channels and channels which don't work. Most of the other channels are simply pay-for-old-movies channels. And the whole outfit is being screwed down with the major involvement of Dishworld and Murdoch's News Corporation. the only decent channel is BBC iPlayer. There's a huge internet radio market out there, and Logi is a market leader if not the best provider of hardware and software support. It does fall down in promoting its products, and possibly in developing new products. I've tried lots of different internet streamers and Logi's audio products are the best available to the ordinary user. castalla's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=15624 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Yea, these commentators always have a really narrow view on the whole world of recorded music. Even though I don't listen to them, for me that would at least include some smaller acts like The Beatles or so but who am I to judge, I listen to Lady Gaga more often than to Paul MacCartney... Yet still... less than half of my music is on iTunes and iTunes is much better than Spotify and even on Spotify after 18 months I see that a significant percentage of what I once bookmarked (like 1/3 or so) is not there anymore. No, Spotify et al. are invaluable for occasional listening and to discover music but music you like, you still need to own, no way around that. pippin's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13777 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mlsstl wrote: This is somewhat off-subject, but the concept of an album as a complete work is a relatively recent idea in popular music. 78s and cylinders only allowed for a few minutes of music. While you could buy classical works on 78 records, you ended up with a group of 8 or 10 records. That wasn't done with popular music. Prior to the 1940s, sheet music outsold records and popular songs were purchased as individual works. The song After the Ball by Charles Harris was a sheet music pop best seller in the 1890s. It sold 2 million copies in 1892 and perhaps 5 million that decade. The LP (long playing record) wasn't available to consumers until 1948 and through much of the 50s was rarely used as anything more than a collection of songs by the same artist. Theme albums (other than Christmas, etc.) didn't really come onto the scene until some of the rock bands in the 1960s started to fancy themselves serious artists. So, one can argue that the sale of individual songs on iTunes, Amazon and similar services is actually a return to the more common way of enjoying popular music for most of the 140 year history of music sales to the public. Agreed, mostly. There have been a lot of theme albums, but not many that actually worked very well. Most albums (CD or otherwise) are simple collections of songs from a particular time in an artist's evolution. Some of the songs might be good, some not so good. On occasion this works very well as a reflection of a very creative or special period in an artist's (or group's) working life. Sadly, there are just not all that many Gracelands or Dark Side of the Moons or Broken Englishes. Ron RonM's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17029 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
pablolie wrote: . The people that used to have over a thousand CDs and hundreds of albums and cared for them lovingly, and played them on equipment they had emotional attachment to... you find a lot of them in these forums, but they weren't the majority 25 years ago nor will they ever be. This is a really good point, and one I haven't thought about before you mentioned it. Since I started buying records in the 70s, I can think of very few people who amassed large collections of music. They listened to the radio, and had 10-20 albums, max. Maybe a larger collection of singles (particularly when we were kids). Most folks cared about what was popular in the moment, and they could get their fix from whatever commercial station they fancied. You only became a collector if the radio didn't meet your need, whether it be eclectic stuff, deep cuts, whatever. Today's music consumer may not really be that much different. Subscription services may be more appealing to them, but that would only be the case (I think) if they can't find what they like on free radio. In any event, if Squeezebox is going to survive in the Logitech world it will have to tap into how the broader audience consumes music...us music nerds won't support the growth a public company needs. I just hope they find a way to do it and keep us nerds happy, too. GeeJay's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11388 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mortslim wrote: Music access, not ownership, is the future I dont know. Id rather pay the $120 every year to buy songs off iTune rather than waste them on some music rental services. I have so many monthly payments that, despite my love for music, I have not signed up for any music rental services. Music accesses are definitely changing. Consumers have more choices now than they ever did before. But I dont believe the vast majority will pay a monthly fee to listen to music. I do however believe a far more majority will pay for video services. My guess is the original Slim devices people, those who had vision and roadmaps of where they want the devices to go, are long gone. Logitech just doesnt quite know what to do with the product besides coming out with incremental products/fixes/changes. The way the product has evolved over the last few years is consistent with someones earlier comment about 3 different generations of management for this at Logitech. No one in charge has a good vision or bold enough to make big changes. This is different from Sonos. For Sonos, its their main product. Either they make it, or they die. So they put much more effort into it than Logitech (advertising, RD, etc..). The survival of Logitech does not depend on SB, the survival of Sonos depends on their products. As for specifics, there are quite a few things Logitech couldve done to improve the SB experience, in no particular order: - Replace Perl in SBS with Java or something less heavy. Perl is picked because it allowed Slim devices to originally bring the product to market fast, but it has far out lived its usefulness. Something more lightweight and efficient will enable better product development in the future and allow more efficient use of resources when SBS is run on less capable hardware. Basically a SBS re-write focusing on speed/feature/efficiency. - Improve music library management. When you have lots of music, how do you organize them? You can label them for example, my music, wife's music, baby music, with ratings, smart playlist, etc. Something that will enable more intelligent music playback that will impress the user. Yes, I can do some of it with addons, and I can manually create playlists. But what I really want is some integrated solution. Dont make the mistake of Palm which provided a basic OS and hopes 3rd party software vendors will fill all the holes. You need to make improvements to the products itself like Apple does. - Switch to a common platform such as Android (heck, is there anything else?). Provide video features. The first thing my brother in law asked me when I gave him a SB Touch is, can I hook this up to my TV and watch Netflix? ;) Can I see the playlist on the TV, etc.. Honestly, I think Logitech is the wrong home for SB. Google might be a better choice. Id love to see a combo device of Squeezebox and SageTV. The SageTV server is a much better server and it shouldn't be that hard to add SBS features to it. wildgoose's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=23501 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
I'm another one in the gathering of the dinosaurs here (and we all know what happened to them). Maybe I'm even a special kind of dinosaur, because I've grown up with tape decks and vinyl LPs and kept the habit of listening to albums and not to a sequence of unrelated (maybe even randomly selected) tracks. And I'm happy to buy the CDs and put them as FLACs on my server. So I know what I have and know that I'm independent of any online music provider or cloud thing. reinholdk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=36070 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
I think such trends in the end are cyclical and transitory. It is also merely an expression of the way stuff is marketed and current Zeitgesit - which can change at the drop of a dime. :) Furthermore, I think in this forum you have a somewhat distorted probe of people in general. I think that it is the people that, in the past, had a few sad albums on a neglected shelf (a scratched Best of Chicago CD and such), those are the ones that now at least have access to more stuff. They didn't buy much then, they certainly won't buy now, but at least now they have access to more up to date music, and the industry now can draw some steady if meager revenue from them. The people that used to have over a thousand CDs and hundreds of albums and cared for them lovingly, and played them on equipment they had emotional attachment to... you find a lot of them in these forums, but they weren't the majority 25 years ago nor will they ever be. One could furthermore point out that while it seems an eternal and unchanging truth that people's entire entertainment content naturally belongs in an Amazon or iTunes cloud, that phenomenon is recent, and immensely vulnerable to singular marketing mistakes or changing fortunes of the companies involved. pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
reinholdk wrote: ...and kept the habit of listening to albums and not to a sequence of unrelated (maybe even randomly selected) tracks. This is somewhat off-subject, but the concept of an album as a complete work is a relatively recent concept in popular music. 78s and cylinders only allowed for a few minutes of music. While you could buy classical works on 78 records, you ended up with a group of 8 or 10 records. That wasn't done with popular music. Prior to the 1940s, sheet music outsold records and popular songs were purchased as individual works. The song After the Ball by Charles Harris was a sheet music pop best seller in the 1890s. It sold 2 million copies in 1892 and perhaps 5 million that decade. The LP (long playing record) wasn't available to consumers until 1948 and through much of the 50s was rarely used as anything more than a collection of songs by the same artist. Theme albums (other than Christmas, etc.) didn't really come onto the scene until some of the rock bands in the 1960s started to fancy themselves serious artists. So, one can argue that the sale of individual songs on iTunes, Amazon and similar services is actually a return to the more common was of enjoying popular music for most of the 140 year history of music sales to the public. mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mlsstl wrote: ... the more common was of enjoying popular music for most of the 140 year history of music sales to the public. Interesting message. I am aware the debate is about recorded music. Let us not forget the music ideal, despite its sometimes compromised audiop quality, is the live performance. I think most stereo shrines pay tribute to pursuing that ideal. And longer compiled works give us the ability to tailor said pseudo-live performance to our ideal. In a technology unconstrained future, I'd probably have a hologram of my favorite -past and present- artists performing songs in a variety of perfect surroundings, and thanking me personally for my patronage. I'd probably own virtual rights to said performances, but the storage location is utterly seamless to me. I can just pop on my 3D Glasses and BW Nautilus headspeakers and rock on. :D pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
dasmueller wrote: I for one am a dinosaur and will not willingly go the rental route. I enjoy the flexibility of being able to do what I wish w the CD/hard copies or downloaded files that I have. I am not willing to rely on someone else to provide that flexibility for me. There is too much flux in technology to make me comfortable that the landlord will be there tomorrow. +1 I love the streaming model and use it extensively for checking out new music. However Spotify have yet to turn a profit and it is doubtful that unlimited streaming for as little as $10 a month is sustainable in the long term. I think quite soon we may see sharp rises in the cost of on-line music access combined with more rigorous enforcement against pirates. In the UK P2P is already severely constricted by most IPs making getting music through illegal torrents impractical. I have also analysed the quality of the streams from Spotify as they sometimes sound rather strange through my hi-fi, particularly when compared with a CD rip of the same recording. It is quite clear that many streams are not 320kbs and pretty well all have dynamics squashed through heavy compression. Spotify sound is closer to low quality FM Radio than CD. TheLastMan's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=16021 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
I use to buy alot of Cd's when you could only hear small clips of the music on the album. Now I use MOG for discovering the albums I really like to purchase and even with the 120 bucks/yearly I pay for it,I am definitely saving money by not buying albums I consider ok but not great. Now if streaming went to 20/month,I might drop this cd selection method. jhonsber...@msn.com's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4438 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
I'm also a dinosaur who likes CDs. Apple's iTunes Match makes for an interesting hybrid of the buy/rent setup. You get high quality, but not lossless, music to buy (256k AAC) and keep. And you get _all_ your existing music available on any iOS device; music that isn't in the iTunes catalogue gets transcoded to 256k AAC and uploaded to your iTunes Match account. I'll be sticking to my CDs for now though, apart from anything else they are much cheaper if you buy second hand ;) andynormancx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17417 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
The future is renting rather than owning. If you don't own anything, you don't need a local server. I think you are correct, the only thing that makes me doubt a little bit is the fact that Apple still only allows us to buy music and not rent it. It only gives me some doubts since they have done most other things right during the last years. I disagree that the future is with renting music - well isn't my future anyway. I own my house (well still paying for it, but will eventually own it...), and will not change to start renting my house. Similarly, I own a lot of CDs, which I have invested a lot of time ripping to a media library. I'm not going to start paying a monthly fee to rent that music at a lower music quality, and the thought of uploading it all, probably involving compressing to a lower quality, such that I can stream/download it for playing seems backward. I don't fancy paying a monthly fee to be able to play stuff and not own that content that I cannot do with as I please. I also have a lot of obscure music, which I would not be able to rent from any on-line service. I can't believe that any single future on-line service will have 100% of all music available on demand in high quality. I agree that cloud services and music rental may appeal to some people, and maybe this is an increasing percentage, but surely a large percentage of people like me are still not going to comit to a subscription based service to play music that they already own. ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Philip Meyer wrote: I agree that cloud services and music rental may appeal to some people, and maybe this is an increasing percentage, but surely a large percentage of people like me are still not going to comit to a subscription based service to play music that they already own. I agree with the overall proposition, but I think we may disagree on (a) the current relative proportions of those who prefer renting vs owning, (b) the rate of increase of the renters, and (c) how much more the music business cares about the renters than the owners (or more generally, the growing part of the market vs the shrinking part of the market). Also, while I don't imagine many people would pay a subscription solely to listen to music they already have on CD, many do subscribe to such services for music discovery. I'm also sure that many will end up listening to tracks they already own on CD just because it's more convenient (lossy warts and all), especially if they haven't already ripped the CDs or set up a music server. I believe people like us with thousands of ripped CDs and music servers are a shrinking minority, or as pablolie put it in post #47, dinosaurs. The bottom line is that you or I may not change our patterns to fit with the new mainstream, but companies like Logitech, Apple, etc definitely will. And the record companies will continue to be clueless. aubuti's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2074 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Millennials (generation Y) want access over ownership, streaming over storing, and rentals over buying. http://bostinno.com/channels/renting-vs-owning/ mortslim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11039 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Music access, not ownership, is the future http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/21/spotify-daniel-ek-brainstorm/ mortslim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11039 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Renting music reminds me of the old saying- Who makes money the tenant or the landlord ? While I and most others are not interested in making money from owning music I believe it gives one much more flexibility in how one chooses to use it. I for one am a dinosaur and will not willingly go the rental route. dasmueller's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=38035 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Well if they pull the plug my setup at the office would not work . We have no computers and only use tablets for our business. The Touch is directly connected to the router and only MySqueezebox is being used to play music. jhonsber...@msn.com's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4438 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
jhonsber...@msn.com wrote: Well if they pull the plug my setup at the office would not work . We have no computers and only use tablets for our business. The Touch is directly connected to the router and only MySqueezebox is being used to play music. On the other hand, seeing as the Touch (as the only SB to date) has its own rudimentary server it would still be able to perform a lot of its entertainment duties even if mysqueezebox was axed. alfista's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=32396 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
I doubt there will be any new and exclusively audio SqueezeBox based hardware in future. We might see an upgraded version of the Touch and/or radio but nothing totally new. I think it is most likely, however, that the Squeezebox branded Radio will go and be replaced with a much simpler and less ambitious Logitech branded internet radio that incorporates SB player circuitry that would allow you to utilize LMS or MySqueezebox without being dependent on either. I am sure Logitech will eventually drop the Squeezebox brand but keep the Squeezebox functionality. To me the blindingly obvious clue is the transformation of Squeezebox Server into Logitech Media Server with its dual DLNA and Squeezebox capabilities. I foresee Squeezebox functionality being built into future streamers / players that are likely to have a dual audio and video streaming role. I am sure Logitech will find a use for LMSs ability to play a multitude of codecs (either natively or trans-coded) as well as its multi-room and gapless playback abilities. They would be fools not to! SqueezeBox circuitry (or at least logic) is likely to be utilized in future products. LMS and MySqueezebox (MyLogitech?) will live on in order to provide links to peoples private music collections (locally or in the Cloud) as well as to the online services like Rhapsody and Spotify. However, Logitech will allow their players to also utilize users other DLNA servers as well in order to maximize their compatibility. TheLastMan's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=16021 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
alfista wrote: On the other hand, seeing as the Touch (as the only SB to date) has its own rudimentary server it would still be able to perform a lot of its entertainment duties even if mysqueezebox was axed. Yeah I see your point,but that server has a lot to be desired.very slow,etc. Maybe a upgraded touch will come out with a more robust server if they axe my squeezebox. jhonsber...@msn.com's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4438 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Logitech is laying off employees and losing money. Here is a link about the layoffs: http://allthingsd.com/20120608/struggling-logitech-bites-bullet-lays-off-450/ It is not in a position to be pursuing niche markets. It is refocusing on the mainstream user with simple products that are easy to use and have widespread appeal. Its not going to be doing anything involving servers. Most people don't know what a server is and don't care about them. The future is cloud services. The future is renting rather than owning. If you don't own anything, you don't need a local server. The original squeezebox was developed when there were no streaming audio resources, no cloud services. It filled a need when some consumers started ripping their own CD's to their computers and wanted an easy way to listen to them. The original squeezebox was just a step up in the evolution of music listening from the multi-carousel CD player. Now consumers don't buy CD's. Why should they? They can get any track, any artist, any genre, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for just $10. per month without the hassle of maintaining a server, or ripping CD's, or any of the other chores associated with collecting and maintaining your own music collection. And you'll never own even a fraction of the albums that the big boys have, e.g. Rhapsody, Spotify, etc. Look at the movie industry. DVD sales are down because it is easier to rent a movie on demand from your cable TV company, or though Amazon Video on Demand, or the several other movie rental services. Same thing has happened to the music industry. Why do you think Roku is so successful? Because it is open source, easy for a new company to put its app onto Roku and then stream to the public. And it is easy for the public to use a Roku. (A lot easier than Google TV) (And Roku, being open rather than a walled garden like Apple TV, offers much more choice). The public wants easy. If there is any future for Logitech to help deliver music, it will be on the Roku model, if at all. mortslim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11039 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
jhonsber...@msn.com wrote: Yeah I see your point,but that server has a lot to be desired.very slow,etc. Most of the issues with the Touch's built-in server are related to scanning. That's not an issue if you are mostly listening to outside streams, as you are now with mysb.com. You don't say what services you're using on mysb.com at present, but even if mysb.com disappears you can still listen to internet radio via the built-in server. That may be small consolation if you are presently using mysb.com for things like Spotify or MOG, but it's something. aubuti's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2074 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
TheLastMan wrote: I foresee Squeezebox functionality being built into future streamers / players that are likely to have a dual audio and video streaming role. In my mind Listen to music and Watch a video is two use cases with very different characteristics, not just from a functional perspective but also a hardware perspective. With music I need advanced browsing and search functionality and I need to be able to build and play albums and static/smart playlists with multiple tracks, with video I basically just need to find the single movie I want to see and then I'll watch it for 2 hours and then touch the remote control the next time to turn of the device. The common parts is basically only that you need to be able to output sound through speakers in both use cases. Can someone mention one stationary device which supports both audio and video which actually works good both for watching movies and browsing and listening to music ? I've seen some of these devices but their music browsing/listening support has always been pretty bad, so the result have been a video device which you can also use to listen on a song now and then. The closest thing that comes to mind that might work is AppleTV, but what kind of support do you really have in that for more advanced music related things ? Now, it could make sense to have a video support in a music player, because there are music videos and consert videos which are music related and could be of interest, but the issue is that everyone that tries to do such device tends to do a video device and then just add some minimal functionality to also make it possible to play music tracks on it. I believe Logitech Revue was a device that could do both things, but it was abandoned fairly quickly and I also believe its music support was fairly limited. erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mortslim wrote: Logitech is laying off employees and losing money. Here is a link about the layoffs: http://allthingsd.com/20120608/struggling-logitech-bites-bullet-lays-off-450/ And hiring new people: http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qgX9Vfw1v=1page=Job%20Descriptionj=oDqDWfwms=SimplyHiredsh_aa=1utm_source=simplyhiredutm_medium=jobclick http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qgX9Vfw1v=1page=Job%20Descriptionj=oRydWfwis=SimplyHiredsh_aa=1utm_source=simplyhiredutm_medium=jobclick http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qgX9Vfw1v=1page=Job%20Descriptionj=oZPjWfwNs=SimplyHiredsh_aa=1utm_source=simplyhiredutm_medium=jobclick mortslim wrote: It is not in a position to be pursuing niche markets. It is refocusing on the mainstream user with simple products that are easy to use and have widespread appeal. Its not going to be doing anything involving servers. Most people don't know what a server is and don't care about them. Agreed 100% mortslim wrote: The future is cloud services. Agreed 100% mortslim wrote: The future is renting rather than owning. If you don't own anything, you don't need a local server. I think you are correct, the only thing that makes me doubt a little bit is the fact that Apple still only allows us to buy music and not rent it. It only gives me some doubts since they have done most other things right during the last years. mortslim wrote: The original squeezebox was developed when there were no streaming audio resources, no cloud services. It filled a need when some consumers started ripping their own CD's to their computers and wanted an easy way to listen to them. The original squeezebox was just a step up in the evolution of music listening from the multi-carousel CD player. We have also seen a switched focus during last years from SBS/LMS to mysqueezebox.com where more and more things have been focused at making it easy to use mysqueezebox.com even if it makes it harder to use a local server. mortslim wrote: Now consumers don't buy CD's. Why should they? They can get any track, any artist, any genre, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for just $10. per month without the hassle of maintaining a server, or ripping CD's, or any of the other chores associated with collecting and maintaining your own music collection. And you'll never own even a fraction of the albums that the big boys have, e.g. Rhapsody, Spotify, etc. I believe you are right but it's also important to remember that a significant part of the population still likes to buy/collect things, they don't want to rent it as it means they might have to pay again if they want to use it sometime later. However, for the general population I believe you are still correct, the future is streaming services like Rhapsody, Spotify and similar. erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
aubuti wrote: Most of the issues with the Touch's built-in server are related to scanning. That's not an issue if you are mostly listening to outside streams, as you are now with mysb.com. You don't say what services you're using on mysb.com at present, but even if mysb.com disappears you can still listen to internet radio via the built-in server. That may be small consolation if you are presently using mysb.com for things like Spotify or MOG, but it's something. Well we mostly listen to MOG and Radio Paradise .80 percent MOG , 20 percent Radio Paradise . jhonsber...@msn.com's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4438 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mortslim wrote: I believe the Squeezeboxes are end of life. There most likely won't be any improvements to the line hardware-wise and no new apps. However the corporation Logitech will continue and because of the large squeezebox user base, it is very doubtful that the mysqueezebox.com service will ever disappear. Cloud hosting services are getting cheaper by the day, so it won't cost much for Logitech to maintain this database. If we assume you are correct regarding Squeezebox end of life (which I don't think you are, at least not yet), my belief is that there are three reasons for Logitech to keep mysqueezebox.com running after stop selling Squeezeboxes: - To avoid breaking previously sold Squeezeboxes which are still under warranty period. - If they can earn money on keeping it up and running (I doubt this is the case if they don't sell new Squeezebox hardware and don't keep services provided by mysqueezebox.com working). - If they can make mysqueezebox.com work with non Squeezebox hardware and due to this earn money indirectly on it by selling new non Squeezebox hardware. Keeping it running even at low costs just to keep customers happy is unlikely to happen unless they earn money on it or unless they get increased costs by shutting it down (through a lot of warranty returns). So from my perspective this means that after the last Squeezebox is sold they will likely try to keep mysqueezebox.com running for 1-3 years and then shut it down unless they can make it work with non Squeezebox hardware. However, even without mysqueezebox.com, I'm not that worried about support for streaming services, because if Logitech doesn't provide support for them I'm fairly sure that there are service providers which are interested in letting some third party developer offer support for their service on the Squeezebox platform when Logitech's solution stops to work. Similar to the support we have already today for Spotify with Triode's Spotify plugin. Of course, this whole discussion is very theoretical because Logitech are still selling Squeezeboxes and just a few months ago they scaled up mysqueezebox.com to be able to handle higher load and they are trying to hire additional people where they mention Squeezebox in the role descriptions. erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
I believe the Squeezeboxes are end of life. There most likely won't be any improvements to the line hardware-wise and no new apps. However the corporation Logitech will continue and because of the large squeezebox user base, it is very doubtful that the mysqueezebox.com service will ever disappear. Cloud hosting services are getting cheaper by the day, so it won't cost much for Logitech to maintain this database. But there are examples in internet history for once popular services to shut down. If it does disappear, I started a new thread as to what I consider a better alternative, as far as streaming services are concerned: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?95977-Better-Logitech-products-than-the-Squeezeboxes mortslim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11039 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
aubuti wrote: As Erland noted, you can have smart playlists today by using his SQL Playlist, Dynamic Playlist and License Manager plugins. Or MusicIP may be an option for you, with or without the Spicefly Sugarcube plugin. Erland's plugins use a rules-based approach, where you explicitly write the rules. In MusicIP and Sugarcube the rules are a bit more of a black box, like the way Pandora generates playlists. MusicIP can be a challenge to set up, and its developer did pull the plug some time ago. But it still works quite well. MusicIP works just fine. Sugarcube is a nice plugin. I haven't used any of Erland's plugins other than Trackstat and Licence Manager but I'm sure they are all good. My view is the ecosystem is excellent for me. It would be perfectly fine without the extras but the plugins make it wonderful and probably keep the size of the user base up. If The Sun Refused to Shine, I would still be loving you... in other words if Logitech dropped it the server and hardware will continue to do the job and there is no rush for me to change. I have been a Slimdevices customer for a long time and I have no reason to wish to change. As for video I am happy to use different hardware for that. I don't want a TV on while using music. fairyliquidizer's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3678 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Very interesting read, everyone (although i confess I skipped on the DLNA debate :). I'm not a frequent reader of this forum. I actually stumbled upon this thread while trying to know when smart lists would be implemented, confident as I was in the way Logitech (or rather Slimdevices) would keeb LMS at the spearhead of audio diffusion innovation. My trust waned a bit when I read the roadmap at http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Software_Roadmap which is obviously obsolete (last update of this map is in march 2011). I then came to this forum to see how the beta builds were going. Slowly at best it seemed. So I checked staff (at least the couple of forum users I know are staff) activity on the forum. Worrying. Finally, this thread that deals on Logitech pulling the plug. If it was purely theoretical I guess it wouldn't be discussed. Well, I guess I won't listen to smart playlists on my LMS anytime soon. :( mll's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13074 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mll wrote: Very interesting read, everyone (although i confess I skipped on the DLNA debate :). I'm not a frequent reader of this forum. I actually stumbled upon this thread while trying to know when smart lists would be implemented, confident as I was in the way Logitech (or rather Slimdevices) would keeb LMS at the spearhead of audio diffusion innovation. My trust waned a bit when I read the roadmap at http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Software_Roadmap which is obviously obsolete (last update of this map is in march 2011). I then came to this forum to see how the beta builds were going. Slowly at best it seemed. So I checked staff (at least the couple of forum users I know are staff) activity on the forum. Worrying. Finally, this thread that deals on Logitech pulling the plug. If it was purely theoretical I guess it wouldn't be discussed. Just remember that nobody in this thread probably have much clues regarding what's going on inside Logitech, the only strong indications I'm aware of are: 1. Logitech isn't doing much marketing/advertising of the Squeezebox devices and as far as I know they have never done so. 2. Logitech seems to try to hire new people and they do mention Squeezebox in the descriptions of the new roles. 3. Logitech have decreased their activities in the community, it's pretty clear that they are doing more work in-house these days and have less interaction with the community. Everyone have to do their own interpretation of this but I don't think we should consider Squeezebox to be dead just because we don't see much activities from the outside, there might be a lot of stuff going on inside Logitech which we aren't aware of. mll wrote: Well, I guess I won't listen to smart playlists on my LMS anytime soon. :( Depends, if you are willing to purchase some third party plugins you can get it already today by installing SQL Playlist, Dynamic Playlist and License Manager plugin and purchase real license to SQL Playlist or get a free 30 day evaluation license. erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
erland wrote: Depends, if you are willing to purchase some third party plugins you can get it already today by installing SQL Playlist, Dynamic Playlist and License Manager plugin and purchase real license to SQL Playlist or get a free 30 day evaluation license. That's an option, especially if the smart lists planned for the v8 on the wiki never comes. We'll see... mll's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13074 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mll wrote: Finally, this thread that deals on Logitech pulling the plug. If it was purely theoretical I guess it wouldn't be discussed. ( I doubt discussion on forums has zero correlation with likelihood of ending this product. garym's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17325 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mll wrote: Well, I guess I won't listen to smart playlists on my LMS anytime soon. :( As Erland noted, you can have smart playlists today by using his SQL Playlist, Dynamic Playlist and License Manager plugins. Or MusicIP may be an option for you, with or without the Spicefly Sugarcube plugin. Erland's plugins use a rules-based approach, where you explicitly write the rules. In MusicIP and Sugarcube the rules are a bit more of a black box, like the way Pandora generates playlists. MusicIP can be a challenge to set up, and its developer did pull the plug some time ago. But it still works quite well. aubuti's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2074 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
MrSinatra wrote: yeah, thats right, b/c you're the one coming on here and acting like the rest of us have no place to speak, and then get all huffy when we don't agree with you. take it easy, francis! I reread my original comments and you're taking offense where none was intended. There is nothing I wrote that said you were wrong. I just pointed out that when one is watching as a consumer on the outside, there are a lot of things we don't know. There are explanations other than yours that are quite possible. Rather that state with great certainty, as you did, that this is what happened or the company should have done this instead, I pointed out there are a lot of facts unknown to those outside management that may alter the picture being painted. There is a big difference between my providing alternative possibilities and your claim that I said you were wrong. Can you point out the sentence where I told you or others not to speak or that you were wrong? I don't think you'll find it unless you have an unusually active imagination that doesn't require much material to weave an over sensitive response. mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
erland wrote: And IMHO that's a much bigger issue than the fact that we haven't got any new Squeezebox hardware the last 2 years, I think some advertising that made people aware of the existence of the Squeezebox products would make a big difference. In the US. The media is infatuated with Sonos despite the high price. Call it the Bose factor. Despite it's lack of remote support, it's just a matter of time before Airplay overwhelms SB. This is due to a casual disregard for music quality and the inevitability of the expansion of iCloud to larger free accommodations. Along these lines, the Touch is a misplaced product. The display is too small to make it useful across the room and by the same token you can't cable it to the real stereo on the other side of the room. There has to be a high quality audio product like the Receiver that sells for just under US $100. TinySBS was a real waste of resources. With an emphasis on remote (read phones/tablets) access and enhancements to MYSB.com to make this process simpler, the spiral might be slowed. If anything can be taught, LT's snubbing software players has to end. People would be eager to gain access to everything if it were adequately explained. Also, ditch the picture/video aspect until you are ready to fully implement remote access. bfl banned for life's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=56269 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Everyone, please calm down a bit, everyone is allowed to have an opinion and post so but *mlsstl* is right in the sense that very few (probably none) of the forum people posting have experience of being in charge of a big company as Logitech, I'm fairly sure none of us would have done a better job than Logitech management did, we might have done things differently but probably not better. It's also often easy to think that some things they do look stupid or unprofessional but we also have to realize that we don't have access to all information Logitech management have when they make their decisions and we have no idea what kind of exciting Squeezebox products they might currently be working on. We don't have a clue if Squeezebox so far has been an economical success or failure, all we know is that it's a great music streaming product for geeks like ourselves. However, the fact that Logitech still produce and sells Squeezeboxes indicates that it's not a total failure or that they are really trying to understand and remain in the music streaming business, else Squeezebox would have been shutdown in the same way as Revue was by now. erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
come on erland, i know you don't believe that, just based on other posts you've made about differentiating the product, ie. why would someone want a SB over something else, especially something cheaper. anyway, i happen to believe i would do a better job than the folks at logitech. sean and dean certainly did. remember them? they were the guys who invented this stuff in the garage, and logitech came along and bought it. amazing that logitech couldn't do what they did with all their brainiacs and corporate structure and precious info. look, my beef here was with the notion that people posting here didn't have any credibility while logitech had all the credibility, and therefore us unwashed masses should stuff it. thats nonsense imo. its fair to say we may not be credible, but given logitech record, its fairly demonstrable that they are not credible. MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
The following may be helpful - it was part of Morgan Stanley Telecom Feb 2012 conf call with Logitech CFO Erik Bardman. It feels to me the briefing notes are providing non committal answers for the analysts but with an excuse why sales are limited. Code: Francois Meunier Morgan Stanley And you mentioned the Squeezebox, which is a company you bought maybe two years ago. Erik K. Bardman It's probably about four years ago, I think, now. Francois Meunier Morgan Stanley So, whats going on there, because I remember when you bought it, I thought it's a pretty good idea to have them. Erik K. Bardman Right. Francois Meunier Morgan Stanley It was a software, which was a big source. Erik K. Bardman Right. Francois Meunier Morgan Stanley Where is it now? It's bit like off the radar. Erik K. Bardman Yes, so its a product that among its most loyal users, is very, very popular, right? And we've made some good improvements, we came out with a new product a little over a year ago called the Radio, which was one of the smaller form factors for it. We actually are taking some of the technology capabilities and its helping us in some other product that will necessarily be clear to the end-consumer, they dont really care where the technology comes from, so were leveraging some of that. We also think if there is opportunity over time, there are improvements we need to make it a little more user friendly, because its such a powerful product in terms of what you can do with it, but it's still not easy enough to use right out of the box. The out of the box experience has got to get better, that's one of the things that's on our product roadmap. But, we like the capability. We like the technology that it gives us. bpa's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1806 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Looking at the Camridge Stream Magic 6, this IMHO could have been the Transporter II in 2010. Cambridge are still struggling with the s/w to do gapless. Logitech never recognised the IPR they had there, and could have done an blitz on AV Receiver manufacturers etc. who ended up using crappy DLNA for streaming. Some say Logitech $$ saved Slimdevices after the Duet debacle and delays to the Touch. More like gave it a lingering death. amcluesent's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10286 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Some say Logitech $$ saved Slimdevices after the Duet debacle and delays to the Touch. More like gave it a lingering death. It would have been _before_ the Duet. Just to be correct on the timing. -- Michael ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
MrSinatra wrote: come on erland, i know you don't believe that, just based on other posts you've made about differentiating the product, ie. why would someone want a SB over something else, especially something cheaper. I think they can do a better job, I'm just saying that I don't believe most forum members know how to manage a product within a big corporation as Logitech. It's easy to think that Logitech is one united company, but in reality I suspect it works similar to any other big corporation which means that in reality it consists of many smaller organizations wanting to do things their own way with none or minimal communication between upper management hierarchy and lower management structure that actually produce the products. To make it even more complex, higher management need to give most attention to the areas that produce most income or is most important for the corporation as a whole, I strongly suspect Squeezebox isn't considered to be one of these areas, which is likely one reason why the last year has been as passive as they have been. erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Seems all too likely the Division Head who decided to buy Slimdevices with a strategy to grow that business has been moved on/fired and no-one else is much bothered so it's being run on a shoestring. Certainly in London, there's been plenty of Sonos adverts on the Tube (our metro) but you never see Squeezebox advertising in any media. amcluesent's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10286 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
I find it interesting is that I bought my first Squeezebox (SB3) several years ago in response to a very positive review in Linux Format. I never had any significant problems setting it up - at that time on an Ubuntu box, or in maintaining the system, now running from LMS7.7.2 on a NAS box and which has two SBRs attached. Conversely, while reading the Sonos and Philips Streamium web pages, I find it really difficult to identify what components of those systems I would need to buy, and which operating systems are supported. If Logitech pulled the plug, I'd buy a few Squeezeboxes for future use. I think the system, particularly as added to by iPad apps, is excellent. My own view is that I'd be interested in seeing future Squeezebox products with different grades of hardware (to suit different users' audiophile habits), but probably losing the touch screen in favour of the sort of screen used on the SB3. I'm not about to leap over to the HiFi to search for the next track or album on a touch screen. Robert Grumpy Bob's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=41857 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
amcluesent wrote: Certainly in London, there's been plenty of Sonos adverts on the Tube (our metro) but you never see Squeezebox advertising in any media. And IMHO that's a much bigger issue than the fact that we haven't got any new Squeezebox hardware the last 2 years, I think some advertising that made people aware of the existence of the Squeezebox products would make a big difference. erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
amcluesent wrote: Seems all too likely the Division Head who decided to buy Slimdevices with a strategy to grow that business has been moved on/fired and no-one else is much bothered so it's being run on a shoestring. Well, it's more a case of nobody taking or being given the time. Keeping your management around for more than a year or so would certainly help. In the four years I've had contact to Logitech on the Squeezebox now I've met at least three generations of management people and none of them are still around today. pippin's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13777 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Then again, maybe Logitech wanted to enter the kitchen cookware marketplace and there was a misunderstanding... [image: http://uk.russellhobbs.com/images/sized/details/product_b742_15071_inset1.jpg] amcluesent's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10286 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
amcluesent wrote: Then again, maybe Logitech wanted to enter the kitchen cookware marketplace and there was a misunderstanding... Ah a colorful display, that's it :) I'd like to thank to bpa for an interesting post (#89) in this meandering thread. And also Grumpy Bob (#94) for having expressed my exact opinion, FWIW. epoch1970's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=16711 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
amcluesent wrote: Then again, maybe Logitech wanted to enter the kitchen cookware marketplace and there was a simple misunderstanding! What might have been... but does it work with online fruit? MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
MrSinatra wrote: but does it work with online fruit? aha. online fruit. online groceries. Remember WebVan. starting to all make sense now;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan garym's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17325 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Your earlier comments with respect to the financial performance of Logitech certainly suggested they are failing to do something others routinely get right. That was the whole point of the Apple comparison I made. They may be the big cheese at this particular moment, but Apple has certainly had their financially down years and various products that didn't capture the public's imagination for whatever reason. And, interestingly, when I looked at the unaudited 2012 year end financials for Logitech, they still showed a profit for the year (a bit over $70 million) -- just not as much as they made for 2011. Big difference between not making as much as investors would have wanted versus losing money for the year. mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
hey pal, you need to settle down. people are free to make comments. your POV is valid but so is the opposite POV. the whole point i was trying to make to you which was done in good humor, is that logitech is not above criticism. you seem to act like b/c they are a company, or because they make money, they are. thats silly imo. furthermore, i cited an example of a product they lost hundreds of millions of dollars over, and as was said, got their CEO fired. that just happened recently. so if that happened recently, it puts other things they are doing in a questionable light, does it not? it certainly would seem to at the very least harm their credibility. now if you want to point out that people posting here also have credibility issues, i think thats totally fair. but that doesn't mean we can't say what we think, or that logitech is above criticism. i'm sure people defended IBM when it put out WARP, ...does IBM still being around today make those criticisms invalid? MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Settle down??? What have I written that has been so contentious? You talk about alternate points of view but the tone of your post suggests I should have kept my comments to myself. It's either a public form or it's not. mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mlsstl wrote: Settle down??? yeah, thats right, b/c you're the one coming on here and acting like the rest of us have no place to speak, and then get all huffy when we don't agree with you. take it easy, francis! MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
ko...@sietsma.com wrote: On a (to me at least!) slightly positive note - I picked up a set of Logitech speakers for my PC today, I got some that have optional coax inputs - and I note that all over the documentation it pushes the Squeezebox, with lines like to use the RCA inputs ... plug your Logitech Squeezebox, DVD player, or game console into the RCA jacks. Another good sign is that even if they are cutting other parts of the organization, they still seem to hire people to specifically work with Squeezeboxes: http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qgX9Vfw1v=1page=Job%20Descriptionj=oRydWfwi http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qgX9Vfw1v=1page=Job%20Descriptionj=oZPjWfwN Future will tell what's going to happen, but it's nice to know that the oldest Squeezebox (Classic) I've had for over 6 years are still going to continue working great for local music and for streaming services through third party plugins for many more years, independent of what actions Logitech takes. I can honestly say that the number of hardware devices which are used on daily basis that survives 6 years in my home are fairly limited, the Sherwood amplifier still beats the Squeezebox but most other newer devices have already been replaced. Is anyone sure anything from Apple (except for computers) which you purchase today is going to be useful 2018 ? I think my iPod Touch 1G was purchased 2007 and it became more or less useless about 2-3 years later, theoretically it still works but in practice most new apps requires newer iOS versions than the iPod Touch 1G supports. erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Both of my 1G iPod touch's are still being used every day although both not by me. I bought the first one on the day it came out, that's almost 5 years now. You are right, App support is almost nonexistent anymore (I can't even make iPeng builds for it myself now, for example) so they've pretty much become what the Squeezebox has always been: single purpose devices as a remote control or an actual audio player (something the iPod touch hasn't been throughout the first few years of it's life. Although one is still being used for internet browsing an e-mail, too. But you are right: my SB3s are still the _most_ used Squeezeboxes I have so there's clearly a difference in the level of aging. pippin's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13777 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
pippin wrote: I won't comment on the rest of your observations. Whatever. 20-20 hindsight is a wonderful thing and no other company makes mistakes. Still think you guys should volunteer to run the place. ;-) mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
MrSinatra wrote: n but apple has determined that there is little to no need for the media adapter you connect to your other gear to have a display, and i agree with that. in most usage cases, its not needed or even desired. And I and my family are happy about to have an alternativ. For us is a control feature and display on the device a very usefull feature and we would miss it. We can control the boxes via PC, Tablet, Smartphone, iPod, IR remote and device keys. But very often the direct device control is been used insted for digging for a mobile control device. What's playing now is simply answered by have a look at the device display. TV is not running 24 hours and in every room here. jo-wie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17952 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
MrSinatra wrote: neither the apple TV nor the airport express has a display. the apple TV does connect to a TV obviously. but apple has determined that there is little to no need for the media adapter you connect to your other gear to have a display, and i agree with that. in most usage cases, its not needed or even desired. your handheld, tablet, or TV can be the display. so apple has both choices, audio only, for like $60, or audio + TV, for $99. slim is dreaming to think the touch even has a place. the whole product line needs to be re-thought out. For me a display and ir (or rf) is a must. Squeezebox is the only audio device that have what I want. bernt's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1342 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
This is also, why I (beside the price point) cannot switch to Sonos. My wife wants to hit a button in the kitchen or bathroom to start the radio. And my son (2 1/2) needs the 6 preset buttons to start his own tunes (yes - he is having is own Squeezebox already :) ) bluegaspode's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=31651 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
in response to the posts above since mine, let me clarify... i don't begrudge anyone a display if they want one with a display. but where is the SB ALONE with NO display? the SBR isn't sold alone anymore, right? and certainly isn't easy to setup if its all one has. and again, while i don't begrudge it, i don't think most people need it [a small display on the device] or want it, esp at the price logitech puts it at. apple would seem to agree, and while i'm no apple fan, i think at this point one has to bow to their market research. this is probably because most people don't need to see whats playing to know if they want to hear it or not, they merely listen to determine if they should skip the track or not. i mean, first of all the price for slim stuff is ridiculous. lets start there. then consider what it costs to do up your house with that stuff, vs alternatives, be they apple or otherwise. then consider there is no video. then consider you can't connect to a TV. then consider that the screens on the devices, in most cases, are too small to see what they say unless you are nearly in arms reach anyway. again, i don't begrudge anyone their own preferences, i surely have mine. but if we want to see the slim paradigm survive, i think it needs completely rethought out. MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
MrSinatra wrote: and again, while i don't begrudge it, i don't think most people need it [a small display on the device] or want it, esp at the price logitech puts it at. not everyone has a 'droid' or 'iThingy' so a screen becomes necessary. I can't imagine how anyone could control an SB without some sort of visual feedback ??? bonze's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6150 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
bonze wrote: not everyone has a 'droid' or 'iThingy' so a screen becomes necessary. I can't imagine how anyone could control an SB without some sort of visual feedback ??? no, not everyone does, but pretty much most everyone considering slim stuff do. and the webui is how it would be done without one. let me be clear, i support the option of having a self contained server with a display, b/c then you don't need anything else. i get that. but it should not be your MAIN product, but instead should be a high end niche filler in your lineup. MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
MrSinatra wrote: ...if we want to see the slim paradigm survive, i think it needs completely rethought out. We can discuss individuals use cases forever, but essentially i think it comes down to one thing - profit. I cant see how it's really that profitable for Logitech. The money is in content these days, so unless Logitech get a significant cut of the Spotify/Last.FM/etc, i cant see it continuing personally. And even then, audio revenue streams are small compared to video. Many one last ditch attempt to rescue the line is on the cards, but if take up is not very high I'm extremely pessimistic about the Squeezebox's future. I hope i'm wrong, i really do. A few years back i got laughed off the forum for suggesting a switch to Android. Is that still such a crazy idea? autopilot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1763 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
MrSinatra wrote: this is probably because most people don't need to see whats playing to know if they want to hear it or not, they merely listen to determine if they should skip the track or not. I agree but that was not the idea behind my words - just a display to see whats playing to dig further into unknown music. Devices with displays can be the difference between the systems, if I need an Apple solution will I buy Apple. Why should be a Squeezebox the same as an Apple device? They can learn from Apple but a copy ... no please. I agree with you that we need also some kind of new Receiver without display to complete a SYSTEM. jo-wie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17952 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Interesting how many people in this thread seem to think they have unusual insight into what Logitech should be doing as respects their product line up. As a profitable company that's been around for awhile, I strongly suspect they have more than a few people who know what they're doing when it comes to making a buck. I think the odds are pretty good that they've done some market research and have a good idea where they are going from here. Maybe they don't want to compete with the video streamers with sub $100 Rokus and the like. Sometimes a company finds it more profitable fulfilling a smaller niche than competing in a more congested, lower priced market. Same thing with the video screen. Some portion of market would love a screenless player, but what's the percentage? Would those sales justify the design, production distribution costs? Once again, we're pitting our rather biased individual preferences against a company that is in the business, has access to a lot more info, and is probably a shade more dispassionate about the whole matter. Yes, there are any number of companies that I wish would bend the specifics of their product a bit more to my liking. Sometimes a company takes heed of customer input and sometimes they don't. It's just rather unrealistic to think that every idea I have is going to end up a high priority for a manufacturer. I'm not in the consumer electronics field, but after 35 years in the business world I know that decisions often include quite a bit of info that is pretty much invisible to those on the outside. Sure, sometimes in hindsight a business may wish they'd made a different decision, but if they are successful in their industry, the overall odds lay on their side of the court. mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Indeed! Who are the unwashed masses to question the minds behind the mighty revue!? MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Just love it when one gets a one-line reply that not only discusses nothing but also seems to illustrate that the poster didn't bother to read the entirety of the prior post. mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
No. You are wrong and MrSinatra is right, that's how it is. pippin's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13777 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
pippin wrote: No. You are wrong and MrSinatra pretty much nailed it, that's how it is. You should also have a look at Logitech's financial reports as to profitable company. Their 2011 report shows a profit of $128 million on sales of $2.3 billion, and a shareholder equity that increased over 20% to $1.2 billion. Seems like they made a few bucks. But, perhaps they need some new directors for product development production. Sounds like we have some talent here in the forum ranks! mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Their reporting year ends in Summer. Look at the 4 quarterly reports since then. They discontinued Revue and fired their CEO in that period. Happy and confident company. pippin's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13777 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
They've also reorganized the company. Yet again. Seems they've done that about every 12-18 months since buying Slim Devices. I have no idea what they now call the business unit that the remaining Squeezebox products are under. They're a company that's been treading water for the past four or five years as they try to break away from dealing in commodity computer peripherals. Without much success. JJZolx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
One quarter of problems in this economy? Big deal. Don't forget that at one point (1985) Apple's Board stripped Steve Jobs of all authority and he left the company. In 1997, Apple lost over $1 billion. They've come back, but it's a pretty safe bet that they'll still make a few errors here and there in the future. As noted before, every company makes mistakes they wish they could recall. That doesn't mean that every back seat driver on the outside has the answer. And it sure doesn't mean that what I personally envision for a product represents what the majority of the public wants. mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
mlsstl wrote: One quarter of problems in this economy? Big deal. 5 quarters. 4q/11 was already bad, you should read the reports you quote. As noted before, every company makes mistakes they wish they could recall. We were specifically talking Revue above where you discredited an actually very accurate observation. I won't comment on the rest of your observations. pippin's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13777 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
Calm down a bit folks - no point getting so heated in speculation about what a company may or may not do, nor what they should or should not do - it's all highly hypothetical and not worth getting steamed up about! (this wasn't particularly about mlsstl - I just picked a post to reply to at random...) On a (to me at least!) slightly positive note - I picked up a set of Logitech speakers for my PC today, I got some that have optional coax inputs - and I note that all over the documentation it pushes the Squeezebox, with lines like to use the RCA inputs ... plug your Logitech Squeezebox, DVD player, or game console into the RCA jacks. - Korny On 4 July 2012 10:29, mlsstl mlsstl.5f5...@no-mx.forums.slimdevices.comwrote: Interesting how many people in this thread seem to think they have unusual insight into what Logitech should be doing as respects their product line up. As a profitable company that's been around for awhile, I strongly suspect they have more than a few people who know what they're doing when it comes to making a buck. I think the odds are pretty good that they've done some market research and have a good idea where they are going from here. Maybe they don't want to compete with the video streamers with sub $100 Rokus and the like. Sometimes a company finds it more profitable fulfilling a smaller niche than competing in a more congested, lower priced market. Same thing with the video screen. Some portion of market would love a screenless player, but what's the percentage? Would those sales justify the design, production distribution costs? Once again, we're pitting our rather biased individual preferences against a company that is in the business, has access to a lot more info, and is probably a shade more dispassionate about the whole matter. Yes, there are any number of companies that I wish would bend the specifics of their product a bit more to my liking. Sometimes a company takes heed of customer input and sometimes they don't. It's just rather unrealistic to think that every idea I have is going to end up a high priority for a manufacturer. I'm not in the consumer electronics field, but after 35 years in the business world I know that decisions often include quite a bit of info that is pretty much invisible to those on the outside. Sure, sometimes in hindsight a business may wish they'd made a different decision, but if they are successful in their industry, the overall odds lay on their side of the court. mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Kornelis Sietsma korny at my surname dot com http://korny.info We do not quit playing because we grow old, we grow old because we quit playing - O.W. Holmes ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
i have to say that my exps with upnp and DLNA are not overwhelmingly positive, but it does mostly work to some degree, just not usually elegant. interestingly, thats exactly what i think of the squeezebox paradigm. neither one is elegant. by far, the single best thing about apple is airplay. i'm not an apple guy, i typically do not like their stuff or their hardware or the choices they make. but airplay IS elegant. airplay IS robust. airplay IS flexible. i mean, audio, video, computer, TV, tablets, handhelds, mirroring, streaming, local, online, it does it ALL and it does it even with everything in wifi. and the adapters are CHEAP. apple tv = $99. i mean, come on! the problems with it don't bother most people, but do me. itunes is, for me, a non-starter. i won't use it. and there are some technical questions regarding the quality of apple hardware adapters and how they do their airplay magic that again, are for me, an obstacle, but for the vast majority, are not. also notice how airplay is going into other companies products. does anyone really believe that an audio product should exist today whose main UI is webui? i would bet most people still using server are using some other UI. i hope logitech sells slim to someone else. i thought they'd be good for slim. i was WAY wrong. MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
MrSinatra wrote: i hope logitech sells slim to someone else. i thought they'd be good for slim. i was WAY wrong. Logitech misunderstood this product and messed up development in so many ways. They could have really made something of it but they blew it, concentrating on the hardware and missing the bigger picture. I hope they sell it too, to a company that has imagination to realise it's potential. I don't think the boat has sailed just yet. ModelCitizen's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=446 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
I tend to think, sadly, that for slim devices to make money, they need to integrate video. Audio fans want their crisp neat audio interface, but I think the mass market wants video as well - they want their downloaded tv/movies, they want youtube and netflix and whatever else they are watching. I'd love something that was a hybrid of the Squeezebox with something like the WD-TV (http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330), give it a simple 2-line display like the old slimp3 for when the TV is off and you just want audio, and a HDMI TV output for video or for more complex music browsing, and the squeezeserver web interface for full power. I'd buy one! (actually I'm not sure how you'd do audio with the tv off - the simplest wiring uses HDMI to send audio as well as video, if you had separate audio cabling it might not play well with HDMI devices.) - Korny On 2 July 2012 17:50, ModelCitizen modelcitizen.5f2...@no-mx.forums.slimdevices.com wrote: MrSinatra wrote: i hope logitech sells slim to someone else. i thought they'd be good for slim. i was WAY wrong. Logitech misunderstood this product and messed up development in so many ways. They could have really made something of it but they blew it, concentrating on the hardware and missing the bigger picture. I hope they sell it too, to a company that has imagination to realise it's potential. I don't think the boat has sailed just yet. ModelCitizen's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=446 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Kornelis Sietsma korny at my surname dot com http://korny.info We do not quit playing because we grow old, we grow old because we quit playing - O.W. Holmes ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What if Logitech pulls the plug
MrSinatra wrote: does anyone really believe that an audio product should exist today whose main/native UI is webui? i would bet most people still using server are using some other UI. No, I don't think an audio product whose main UI is web based have a strong future. To expand this even further, I don't think an audio product whose main UI has to be accessed from a computer have a strong future. In comparison, I think a web UI has a greater future than a Windows based UI, because there is at least a theoretical chance the web UI will work on tablets/smart phones. However, the web UI is not the main UI for the Squeezebox products, the main UI for a Squeezebox is either a smart phone/tablet or the on-device controls (Touch screen, hard buttons) and this kind of UI's definitely have a future. If we would have a poll among all Squeezebox users (not just the geeks on this forum), I imagine that a very small percentage would say that they sit beside the computer when they control their Squeezebox. MrSinatra wrote: i hope logitech sells slim to someone else. i thought they'd be good for slim. i was WAY wrong. In theory, Logitech provides what Slim Devices didn't have: - Economical strength ( of a large company) - Global distribution - Knowledge about mass market users In practice I see similar issues as you do, but the issue isn't the above points, the issues are other points like: - Lack of product strategy - Lack of knowledge regarding user needs around music streaming - Lack of marketing/advertisement skills Most of them were supposed to come from Slim Devices but unfortunately Logitech didn't succeed in keeping everyone from Slim Devices as Logitech employees. It's not as simple as just dedicating more resources to the development, first they have to understand what kind of functionality the users want. Regarding possibilities to sell to someone else, the only thing I see a real value in is: - SBS/LMS (which is already open source and free for someone else to take) - Agreements with service providers (which Logitech probably can't or at least aren't willing to sell) So hoping for someone to suddenly buy Squeezebox product family is probably to hope too much unless someone in the community or among previous Slim Devices employees would decide it was of interest erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95603 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
