Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Anyone using iOS7 with the iPad control app ?

I want to say first of all: I realize I'm venting and I do not enjoy placing you (Carl) and the other good folks who put a lot of effort into this forum into a position of having to defend Meridian. That said, I do need to get this off my chest.

I want to enjoy the music, I really do. But if my only UI to my collection is failing, there's not much I can do. I agree that one should buy Meridian for what it is, but Apple having moved the playing field is hardly an excuse. I bought Meridian partly because I thought that using the iPad as the control was a smart approach. It's an approach offers the required flexibility to add features and fix defects. Being an Apple developer, Meridian presumably had access to iOS 7 and retina displays months before release � they knew where the playing field was going to be. Besides, the iOS 7 upgrade is not the only issue I'm complaining about, we've all discussed (and reported to our dealers) numerous bugs and enhancement requests to Core Control.

M chose this product strategy, so they should invest and prioritize accordingly. Besides, if I were evaluating M today "for what it is", it would fail to meet my standards, so applying that rule cuts both ways.

For me, any bugs in the UI are minor and do not stop me enjoying the music.
The truth of it is (for me) that I have never had such easy access to my music at a quality that constantly pleases considering the age of most of my equipment.

I have tripled the size of my collection and I can't see that trend stoping anytime soon as I am finding more and more holes that must be plugged.
The ability to create and adapt playlists is impressive. I can quickly search for anything and know within seconds if I have it, and can be instantly listening.

Also I find the Review section very helpfull as I can read up on the music as I listen.
On import, if I have no review, I add an artist biography and anything else I consider appropriate.

Just my thoughts, Chris

The comments from Chris echo my own experience. Sure I am disappointed that the iPad app has not been further developed (had hoped iOS7 would trigger a new release) but for me the gains as Chris describes more than outweigh the disappointments. Meridian has brought music back into my life big style and I am grateful for that.

Best.

I haven't experienced any significant problems with the Meridian app on iOS7 (touch wood). Hopefully an updated app will be along soon in any event though. I've waited some time to enter the world of Meridian Streaming, having held back until I felt enough confidence in the system and it's control. To be frank, I've also waited until I'd got enough confidence back in Meridian as a company. Some dealers and individuals have assured me that they're back on right path, so I hope they repay my confidence.

My view is that irrespective of sound quality, the control app and stability of operation is critical in this arena. I know that many retailers share that view too, so it's certainly not something that developers should ignore. Whilst many Receivers, Processors and Players advertise network and streaming capability these days, the user experience can be pretty woeful in terms of control and 'useability' (sic).

It's taken Naim a long time to get their app to where it is, so I don't think it's as easy a ride as some people think. They're having to issue a further update, hopefully this week, because things aren't behaving as they did with the Beta version of iOS7 for some users (not all, which would also seem to be the case for Core Control).

I'm of two minds on this thread:
1. Tweaking and testing software for compatibility with a new OS can be a lengthy and costly process. Let's give M a bit of time.
2. In general, M's software is shamefully buggy, and needs the help of a professional UI designer. Given how much we've all paid for their products, we ought to demand reasonable reliability and design work from their software group.

Strictly off topic for this thread but the issues raised above are just the software equivalent of the G Series PSU problems.

Meridian are aware of the problems via feedback on here or elsewhere but are slow to react or to give reputation saving FOC repairs to complainants.

You might say "Given how much we've all paid for their products, we ought to demand reasonable reliability and design work from their hardware group.

I wonder, how much time is reasonable? I have sympathy for software developers, having been in this business myself for decades, both in an OS and above it.

That said, the fact that Apple continues to release new devices and operating systems could hardly have come as a surprise to M. The first beta of iOS 7 was released early June 2013. Is 4 months a reasonable time to wait? 6 months?

I can even see the arguments in favor of M's strategy of being sparse with public announcements about product updates. Maybe M is feverishly developing on a new release of Core Control. Maybe they have been doing a complete rewrite since March last year. Maybe the core software needs to be overhauled first. Who knows? The absence of any information whatsoever causes many to speculate and create their own narratives. If nothing else, I would have appreciated advice from M that discourages customers to upgrade to iOS 7. At least that tells me they are looking at the issues.

For what it's worth, I contacted M technical support yesterday and described the missing buttons issue to them (with screenshot). They said they'd not heard of it before and suggested, if possible, to downgrade to iOS 6 while they look into it.

Hi,

I have been using my iPad mini for a while on iOS7 with no issues have plenty of other issues with iOS7 but not Meridian related.

You can't roll back iOS devices can you? Never had to try it so don't know.

Regards
Edd

I believe if you have a backup from before the iOS 7 upgrade done with iTunes, you can use this restore procedure to effectively roll back to iOS 6 or 5.

I don't have such a backup, so I'll light another candle for an updated version of Core Control coming out soon.

When you say missing buttons, do you mean missing buttons or missing backgrounds/surrounds?

With iOS7, all buttons are flat, so there is no background. I've posted an example below. There are indeed buttons here, but with the new iOS7 look, their surrounds and backgrounds disappeared. So I'm going to have to do a bit more work to make app intuitive on iOS7. You can see this a bit better in the image strap with the update button. Previously this was on a solid background so stood out, but now I'm going to have to add my own background to make it obviously stand out from the background.

As well as missing flat look, iOS7 treats disabled buttons differently. The 12 button in the example is actually just disabled, which prior to iOS7 would have resulted in a dimmed down button. But in iOS7, by default, it's actually hidden. It's up to the programmer/designer to add more code/images to undo what the new look intends.

The backup does not contain the OS so it will just restore to the settings and contents.