I’m a former Sooloos user migrating to Roon. It’s a great idea, building off of Sooloos (not surprising since you guys were the ones who designed it), but a few of the same blind spots exist, some even worse than Sooloos. Here goes:
Ipad screen orientation … as Delta discovered, absolutely NO ONE likes an Ipad landscape screen orientation. It’s hard to grip the Ipad, requires two hands, and the original idea that it provides a better screenscape is totally backwards. It’s actually awkward, counter-intuitive (because no one else has found a good landscape design - and those that had them migrated back to a potrait design).
What’s with hiding the volume control - this is insane! To change the volume, I have to open the app, tap the volume, and then adjust the control with two TINY -/+ buttons that are right next to each other so it’s incredibly difficult to control whether you hit the up or down volume. When will your app stay on the lock screen like Sonos does, so that stop/start/next/volume etc are all controlled without even having to open your phone. Or at LEAST make the volume control large, visible, and accessible from anywhere!
Go back and look at your original Sooloos design … everywhere, on every screen, it was easy to go back and “swim” (now shuffle) with one click. Now, it’s a bit buried in the menu’s …
When I leave Sonos and return to it, it resides in Iphone memory and is in the exact same place, same mode, as when I left. With Roon, it reloads every time I leave the app … why?
I too much prefer landscape orientation, I never use portrait mode on my iPad Pro, that said Roon really need to support portrait on the smaller iPads. it has been asked for many times.
Totally agree with your other points especially the volume controls.
I like both, but that is moot. YOU don’t like landscape and that’s all that matters. The 12.9" iPad Pro supports Roon in portrait mode.
The Sonos app does almost nothing and uses almost no resources. iOS keeps it “hot”. Roon’s UI is much heavier (all those graphics connections require memory) and gets booted from RAM if you are running low.
The 12.9" iPad also reloads less often due to large amounts of RAM. What iPad are you using?
Play and Swim are the same thing in Roon. Roon Radio will automatically start at the end of your queue. 0 clicks.
I don’t mind landscape on my ipad air 2, except for displaying lyrics. Big advantage to be able to view/read them in portrait mode.
Buying an ipad Pro specifically hereto is too far stretched, even for me
Dirk