Can iPeng make the iPad a Roon endpoint? [Yes. Implemented in iPeng 9.3]

He has contributed to this thread so this is the right place to ask.

heā€™s German isnā€™t it? #GrĆ¼ndlichkeit

I donā€™t know exactly where @Joerg_Schwieder is from but he is the one who communicated here. :slight_smile:

So, Iā€™m bit confused about this topic.

Am I right in thinking we may be about to see a way of using iOS devices as Roon endpoints/zones - albeit connected to Roon Core using their squeezebox implementation, and through a third party app written by ipeng?

If so, how is this possible? I thought from earlier discussions with Roon that they didnā€™t think it was possible to use a secondary piece of player code themselves to get around the Xamarin limitations?

In any event, if itā€™s turns out itā€™s possible, this is great news!

(Or perhaps Ive completely misunderstood?)

I suspect yes to above. Ipeng can emulate a hardware squeezebox, Roon can stream to a squeezebox. So it seems plausible.
p.s. Im a longtime user of ipeng. Best value ever for me in audio related purchases.

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and thatā€™s why grĆ¼ndliche German manufacturers like https://www.abacus-electronics.de/catalog/product/view/id/165/s/aroiosu/category/58/?___SID=U
persist including Squeezebox/iPeng in their products.

Garym, as an iPeng user I completely agree! :smiley:

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I was a long time LMS/iPeng user before turning to Roon. Canā€™t wait to see this happen!

Yes, Iā€™m from Germany. Berlin. :slight_smile:

@hifi_swlon
iPeng is not written using Xamarin but uses Appleā€™s native environment and native iOS APIs (technically Xamarin is also using native iOS APIs but itā€™s not using Appleā€™s programming languages/compilers and therefore has some limitations you donā€™t have with purely Apple-specific code).

Another iPeng user here - great program! Joerg - while youā€™re at it, please explain to Roon development that itā€™s not impossible to incorporate a simple WoL function into oneā€™s app

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actually, every iphone since the 6 has had a 24 bit dac.

Ah, good to know. But AirPlay is still just 16 bit AFAIK. But as I said: thatā€™s probably good enough for raw data transfer, the DAC in the iPhone probably also handles volume control and you do want more than16 bit for that.

But my experience with ipeng is that it stops playing if I switch focus to another program, such as the Roon remote, or Safari for that matter. Isnā€™t that right?

While it plays audio? It should not do that. Only if another App requests foreground audio, then iOS will get a signal to stop playback by iOS.
Works well with the Roon remote in my beta, the current App Store version doesnā€™t work well with Roon because of the way Roonā€™s Squeezebox emulation sends status updates.

Weā€™ll have a fix soon.

If you are talking about running the App while not playing audio please read the discussion above.

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Thanks for the update. :grinning:

For those who donā€™t have a Squeezebox, will Roon eventually play music through iOS devices? I have Roon with Bluesound and would simply like to listen to Roon-controlled music (stored on an NAS) on my wireless headphones, which connect to my iPhone by Bluetooth. Thanks.

There are two topics to consider in your question:

First, will the Roon IOS client be able to support audio playback? This has been addressed by the folks at Roon - unfortunately the cross platform development tool used has an issue with this capability on IOS (Xamarin, now owned by Microsoft). When and if Xamarin fixes this, Roon should work as it does on Android. There are a few threads on this if you want more info.

Second, can iPeng stand in until Roon supports IOS? iPeng is a wonderful app used in the Squeezebox/Logitech Media Server environment. If @Joerg_Schwieder is able to work his magic, it is very possible that you will be able to ā€œEnable Squeezebox supportā€ on the Roon server, purchase iPeng in the app store, and be happy :wink:

You would not need a Squeezebox ā€¦

My fingers are crossedā€¦

iPeng 9.3 with the Roon playback support is now rolling out on the App Store.
Iā€™ll write a bit of a bigger announcement in the coming days but just wanted to let you know here since this has been going on for quite a while.

Please let me know how it works for you.

Just to be clear in case you donā€™t have iPeng, yet: youā€™d need both the App (iPeng 9) and the ā€œPlaybackā€ In-App-Purchase since iPeng is essentially not a player app but a Squeezebox remote control app.

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It works. :smiley:

Iā€™ve been an iPeng user for a long time and itā€™s the app that made LMS work so well for me over the year. When I bought my Roon subscription I really missed the iPad playback that iPeng provided. I am so happy that it works so well now. I can now listen to music throughout my farm.

Many thanks Joerg.