We rolled out iPhone streaming today!
So now when you go to somafm.com on your iPhone, you get an iPhone-specific site with links for both EDGE (32-56k) and WiFi (128k) streams.
Labels: infrastructure, internet radio, SomaFM, the new distribution, webcasting
posted by Rusty Hodge [SomaFM] at
Friday, June 20, 2008
44 Comments:
I don't have an iPhone (I live in Japan), but I do have my Soma FM t-shirt! This has absolutely nothing to do with your post...sorry!
Maybe an iföhn is hip, but why do you preserve this mini-site to iföhn-users? What's da url, when i want to use my no-apple-but-also-able-to-surf-and-stream mobile phone?
Thank _you_, Rusty and Tag! I've been looking forward to this since I got my ipod touch. I love GS! Keep up the great work.
Listening to Drone Zone on my Touch. Just need some graphics instead of the QT logo and I'm in heaven!!
AWESOME!
The mini-site is iPhone specific. We also have a WAP site and a XML site that gets displayed for the appropriate phones when they connect.
About that graphic for the QT player: there seems to be no way to make the player display a graphic, at least in this version of the iPhone operating system. Perhaps in version 2.0.
Any chance I can listen to GS on my Blackberry Curve? Show me how and I will send my donation in asap!
Thanks!
A huge fan
Rusty,
do you have a list of "appropriate phones"
I am running Windows Mobile 6, but my media player says "can't play playlist" when I try to connect.
This is absolutely awesome, Rusty. Thank you. Trying in the car tomorrow… curious how well EDGE will handle that! :-)
Try http://somafm.com/wma.xhtml from your Windows Media phone and let me know if that works.
Yes! that link for Windows Media worked like a charm - thansk for the help. It seems your new stations (i.e. Lush) aren't there but still fantastic plus,
Rusty,
Love the streaming on iPhone!
I hope you have time to see the new AOL Radio and Pandora applications for iPhone 2.0 and get inspired to do something similar for SomaFM. That would allow graphics and other cool features.
AOL and Pandora have lots of money, and lots of developers. Unfortunately, we don't have those kinds of resources.
One thing our solution offers however: it will background. So you don't have to stop listening to music to check email, SMS, etc. (You can't surf the web while we're playing, however.)
Hello,
i'm from the uk and your iphone streaming works perfectly via edge network and i also purchased a iphone app from the itunes store call "tuner" and it lists all your stations on there ,the problem is that your stations will not stream via the "tuner" player but work via your website via edge network on iphone and why is this?
Nick: I tested the iPhone Tuner app as well, and our streams were playing over WiFi. I don't have a 3G phone so couldn't test there, but I don't see why they wouldn't play. Are you using it on WiFi or Edge?
Hi Rusty,
Cool and I have dropped various messages about this on other message boards also...
What i'm doing is trying to connect via edge to your stream with the "tuner" app which i bought from the app store and it will not connect at all via edge but will stream perfect on wifi ,but when I go straight to your site on the iphone and then connect to a station choosing edge and it streams perfectly.
Please note all I can get in the rural area where I am is edge only and of course wifi but it seems to be defeating the object when i'm paying for it but then dropping to wifi.
Excellent work Rusty! I've been waiting on this. Some donations coming your. Keep up the great work.
-K
Nick:
If you're on EDGE, you'll need to use streams that are generally under 56kb of they won't work. The Tuner app I think defaults to the 128k streams.
So check the directory for the 56k streams (which rarely skip on EDGE) or the 24/32k streams which never skip.
I typically listen to the 56k feeds when I'm on EDGE.
I am considering buying one of the new 3g iphones-- will the somafm site for edge still work?
I have yet to buy an iphone, but this functionality has been something I've been dreaming about! Very exciting news!
(just donated, 'bout time I stopped being a mooch ;)
Yes, EDGE streams work just fine on 3G phones.
beautiful....many thanks!!!!!
Hi! Great!
I realize that all the streams are MP3, is there a chance to get aacplus streamed to the iPhone?
The iPhone (nor iTunes, or Quicktime for that matter) does not support aacPlus. We're hoping that a third-party player will come out with aacPlus support, and we'll support it when/if it does.
Hey Rusty,
As a SomaFM donator, I was very excited to find out you guys did me a solid with the streaming.
But dunno...Went to the link listed with my non 3G iPhone and got to the screenie pictured with the list ("Getting Started, EDGE Streams...")
but it seems the only link that went anywhere was "Main Site." All others did nothing but list the address in the address bar and remain static. Sorta feelin like my GrandPa right now.
Any advice?
Thanks in advance,
D
@DaveFromBrooklyn-
Make sure you have Javascript turned on. The behavior you're seeing is what might happen if Javascript is not enabled. go to Settings -> Safari and make sure Javascript it enabled.
That brings up a good point though, we should test to make sure Javascript is enabled, and tell you to turn it on if it's not...
Eureka!
Javascript now enabled...
Works beautifully.
Many thanks, Rusty.
Say Hey to Big Url for me.
For what it's worth, the streams and mobile homepage work great on the Samsung Instinct. Awesome tunes folks.
could you share with us how you enabled shoutcast streaming on the iPhone ?
Basically, you have to modify the headers sent to the iPhone to trick it into thinking that it's receiving a fixed length MP3 file, which is will play while it's downloading it. You do this by adding a Content-Length: header if an iPhone client connects. You also need to not send the ICY-Name: header when iPhones connect, as they choke on that.
I believe there is a hacked version of Icecast (with source code) going around as well.
mind sharing the code with us?
I'd love to create a page for myself with my favorite local stations
thanks!
Shoutcast isn't open source, so that can't be distributed. I can't give you a hacked binary either for that same reason.
I've heard that there are patches for Icecast floating around that do the same thing...
There was also a ICY protocol proxy going around that runs under PHP5, but that isn't very scalable.
There was also some company that makes a personal streaming solution which works on iPhones... alas I can't remember their name right now.
You're aware of the 2 different streaming radio applications available on the iPhone now? Tuner.app and Visuaradio/allRadio - They're $5-10 each.
Rusty:
Been listening to groove salad on my iphone. First off, thanks for everything. Luv it.
Second, can't receive incoming calls when streaming. Is it suppose to be the case? Or am I missing something?
I only have an iPhone 1st generation, and when I'm playing a stream and a call comes in, the stream fades out and the phone starts to ring.
What happens when someone tries to call you when it's streaming? Do they just go to voice mail?
I am using 1st gen iPhone which is experiencing the mentioned issue. I am playing the EDGE stream. For my phone, when I am streaming, tried calling my phone several times from a landline, all went to voicemail after the normal number of rings. Voicemails were left to test. The voicemails do not show up on the phone until some time delay after I stop streaming. Weird...that I am not having the same experience you got. Been missing calls I needed to take due to my stream of groove salad at those moments.
Groove Salad uses a slightly higher bitrate than the other EDGE channels. Try testing with Secret Agent or Indie Pop Rocks and see if the same behavior occurs. It's possible that all the available bandwidth where you are is being used for the stream, and there isn't enough bandwidth to your phone to complete the call. (I'm just guessing here, I don't know enough about how EDGE works to be certain.)
hmm. I thought that edge could not be used at concurrently with voice. But now that you mention it, I'm not certain if that applied to outbound only. I can't recall what the behavior was with my 1st gen iPhone. I can tell ya this: iPhone 3g in edge mode while playing a stream will send the call to voice mail. This is with the 2.02 build of the iPhone software. What release are you on rusty?
I run 2.02 on a first gen iPhone. I've also tested it on the 1.x software.
But doing some web research seems to point out that some EDGE cells support voice and data at the same time, but older EDGE cells don't. Here in San Francisco, you seem to be able to get calls while using EDGE.
There is a little more discussion about that here:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=80915
Good find. I guess ATL and Peaceman's neck of the woods can't handle simultaneous Edge voice/data yet.. I wonder, if those type of upgrades will ever occur, now that the push is 3g expansion on the carrier side.
Rusty:
Just getting back to your questions.
Yes, I tested with other channels like Secret Agent, Drone Zone, etc. and all had the same issue for the incoming calls. My iphone runs the old 1.1.4 software and is operating in Seattle, WA. I guess for now got to go by the thinking of the difference pointed out between the old and new EDGE cells OR move back to SF :)
Thanks. Peace man!
Thank you so much for this feature!
I've been anticipating the day when I'd be able to listen to GrooveSalad in my car for years now. While my wife and friends were not as excited, it completely made my day/week when I found out.
I have the iPhone 3G and live in a 3G covered area, but the 3G stream drops pretty frequently. A pause/restart fixes it. I'm pretty confident this is just a bandwidth / AT&T problem though. The EDGE stream plays perfect and never drops. And since I'm stuck with a fm transmitter, the quality difference is not really noticeable.
Anyways, thanks for all your continued improvements and streams - they are definitely noticed and appreciated.
We are testing Blackberry support right now. We've tested on Blackberry 8330 Pearl so far (not sure of the other models).
Just go to http://somafm.com in the default Blackberry web browser, and you'll get a special page with our channel stream links on them.
Let me know if it works for you, and what model you have.
Works fine on the 8320 (Curve) after upgrading from version 4.2 of the OS to 4.5.
It has been my dream to have SomaFM in my car while sitting in traffic and you guys made that dream come true. I cannot thank you enough for this. Awesome, just frickin' awesome.
Why is SomaFM: Nu Musik not listed in the list of iPhone streaming stations? That's the best one!!! :-)
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