Could not say it any better, specially the user experience on a 24" 4k monitor vs Iphone. In my opinion they are not the same thing. What if Adobe Photoshop was trying to make an app that looks and works exactly the same on an Iphone than it does on a 32" monitor? Well, that is exactly what Roon is trying to do.
Not worried about lack of vertical scrolling, horizontal scrolling is like reading a book. But other items on the list of bust things that are not UI choice but software deliverables that donât work and that is frustrating.
Just joined. I realized adding missing artwork to albums takes a minimum of 6 clicks and since Roon doesnât want to do the work I have to type it into a search engine, yes type, because I canât select text from the screen. I canât drag and drop images and from what I understand, I canât use the identify album feature for an album cover without messing up the track names even though itâs the right album cover.
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I just cannot understand why text isnât selectable & that large editing screen just sits in the middle of the screen without a means to move it as you would any window on your computer. Drives me nutsâŚ
So the more music you have and therefore the likelihood the need to edit, the more infuriating it becomes. Itâs like something from the era of the floppy disc (maybe prior) & not 2020.
Unfortunately, this comes up in many a thread and similarly assume itâs been a feature request. Of course, there is no comment from the devs (as they donât comment on future developments), so all in all any discussion is amongst users and therefore a bit futileâŚ
Akin to talking to a brick wall (not meaning us users).
YupâŚthat would definitely be a basic missing feature!
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This and that you cannot rate within Roon a song from 0 to 5 stars (And afterwards use track ratings for playlists purposes)
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Yes yes yes yes. Me too.
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This question gets asked every time someone says something critical about Roon. Should we remain silent because every other product is equally flawed? I use it because for my requirements itâs the best there is, but it doesnât mean I donât think that some parts of it are poor or that new features are prioritised wrongly. Itâs not the job of customers to come to a productâs defence when someone criticises it or to belittle them when they havenât thought of a convoluted workaround that compensates for one of its shortcomings. $699.99 gives me the right to say whatever the cluck I like about Roon, as long as I am respectful of others and constructive in my opinions.
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I come to these threads to find out if there ARE any good alternatives to Roon. Iâm going yearly to check it out and did some due diligence before settling on Roon, but Iâm always looking for other perspectives. Roon UI certainly has a lot of issues and wonât work well for everybody (horizontal scrolling is satanic). The closest and most seamless experience for me and my 6 endpoints in my house was iTunes. When not at work, I live in the apple ecosystem.
iTunes is a mess and always has been. It got really bad when they cobbled a store into my slim music player. Itâs a mess on the mac, and absolutely horrible on a windows machine. linux is just SOL. But it has a nice integrated airplay solution that would work with all my endpoints. 99.8% of my music is 44.1 redbook so airplay works well for me. But it gets flaky with computer sleep etc. Apple music is also well integrated, but the apple music recommendations are amazingly retarded, they have access to my entire library and still recommends something that is massively out of character with what I listen to. âNo, apple, I donât want to listen to the new Beyonce album!â
Jriver on the mac has a user interface that is so bad it should be a war crime. It doesnât seem like it wants to push music out to any remote endpoints. Given what a mess the UI is and the fact that it seems to want me to pull music rather than push it or play locally, I bailed on it. It reminds me of an offshoot of winamp. Hard NO on that oneâŚ
Sheldon
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I think youâve hit the nail on the head about the reasons behind some of the complaints Iâm reading here (and elsewhere), and I think this is definitely something worth addressing (whereas not all âfeature requestsâ are). Itâs principally a need for better communication and managing user expectations.
Letâs just step back for a second here and give ourselves a reality check. If we were instead talking about a product from a major âhousehold nameâ brand behind this product, no one in their right mind would realistically expect they had a ârightâ to demand the inclusion of any new feature. Perhaps with the exception of a company like Fuji who actively improve their existing products with regular firmware updates/features and pride themselves on listening to customers and rewarding loyalty, most major brands just offer you their product âas isâ and then expect you to buy another one when they produce an improved version or pay for an upgrade! Ok, so weâre talking about a software based product, so itâs slightly different, but no one realistically âexpectsâ Apple will listen to all their new feature requests and you just count yourself lucky if they do.
Even in the early days of Sonos, whilst there was regularly new features added, and an active community forum this was never more than a place to find technical help or talk about new ideas in the hope they might be adopted. You might be a loyal customer and a stakeholder in the whole product development process, but you donât âownâ the product in the sense that you have a right to take it in what ever direction you want and expect that it will happen because you ask. Even if you view a product as a service you pay for each month itâs not like this. Does anyone tell Netflix what movies to show or features to add? Yet all good businesses should listen and perhaps even consult (which is why you have this forum), but thatâs not the same as expecting to get what you ask for.
Letâs face it, just because âa lotâ of people want the same thing doesnât mean that everyone wants or needs it, or that itâs even possible or wouldnât create issues none of us have even considered, or that it is inconsistent with longer term objectives for product development. Sadly you simply cannot please everyone. But what you can (and should) do is communicate with customers to make sure (a) they feel listened to, and (b) understand why sometimes something canât or wonât happen, or if it can or will then when and where this figures in future plans and might come to fruition.
To say you want a particular feature, or a list of long standing, popular requests fulfilled is one thing, but to just say that Roon lacks âbasic featuresâ is simply not true (even if you think the features you want are basic). Itâs also not true to describe Roon as âjustâ an interface for playing your music, when the transcoding and other functionality under the lid does so much more than this to ensure you receive the optimum quality of music available for each listening device for any given source. Look Iâm sorry to hear some people are unhappy but it would be more constructive to focus on improving the dialogue with Roon about why specific features havenât been adopted (or adopted yet) and to understand their future plans. That way at least everyone would understand and could then decide if they want to continue using Roon over other alternatives. Personally Iâm very, very pleased with it.
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Great post.
If Roon had a sleep timer I could delete all my other music player apps, but since it doesnât, I must still use BubbleUPNP every dayâŚ
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Core competence in Roon UI/UX.
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The only way to be happy with Roon is to make peace with the fact that you should have no expectation other than to continue to be frustrated and disappointed.
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These things are all things that get you on the playing field, they are not differentiators. Itâs great that Roon has RAAT if you have a compatible endpoint because it offers some unique capabilities and makes integration easier, but itâs not a game changer - most people do not have Roon Ready devices, and they work just as well under Roon as they do with Volumio etc.
Hi,
Best post in this Thread! Nothing more to say.
RĂźdiger
Because Roon is not a web page it is a generated image just like a video game.
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This was a game changer for me. When I started looking at Roon, I didnât know my Oppo 203 was a Roon ready device. When I discovered that, I immediately subscribed to Roon. Problem solved.
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I agree that the volume control being buried below a few clicks on a phone or iPad is a major downside of this platform. So damned basic itâs like they have an inside joke at Roon that theyâre never going to fix it.
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