When would you give the Bang&Olufsen App 5 stars at App Store? - A wish list

At the German App Store the Bang&Olufsen App has only 1,8 stars. What changes would you suggest / demand, to give the Bang&Olufsen App 5 stars?

I would give 5 stars, if all the following A + B would be implemented in order to get an App that supports me to manage my multiroom set-up. 

A) Short term optimisations:

A.I) Splitscreen / Multitasking possibility on Apple iPad

A.II) Same size of cover art used in „Music“ and „Radio“. Why is the cover art in „Music“ compared to „Radio“ bigger? I prefer the smaller cover arts at „Radio“, so I can see more on the same page without scrolling.

A.III) Much smaller picture on „Products“ page, so that more products are displayed on the first page. Better overview less scrolling. It makes no sense to have such big product pictures. Product pictures should have the same or smaller size as cover art size of „Radio“

A.IV) When displaying “show all” at Deezer picks (= genre) display a list with small cover art, not a matrix with big cover arts so that you see less than before on one page without scrolling. Same list style as at all other Deezer “show all” results.

A.V) „Status Window / Line“ of product selected. Include volume change „+“ and „-“ besides already existing „start / stopp“ and content information. Because these are the most used buttons. Additionally / Alternatively use volume buttons of iPhone / iPad.

B) Mid term optimisations:

B.I) „Multiroom“ page and selection of a product from “Product” page should be integrated in one page (“Multiroom” page should be the starting page, then)

B.I.1) Show ALL online multiroom products on the page „Multiroom“ with the currently used small icons (including status, what is currently playing  same content as in „Status Window / Line“ of product selected)

B.I.2) Possibility to select a product (similar to „Product“ page = highlight selected product) and add additional products by pressing „+“ (not like currently, that you can only add products to a before selected product at the „Product“ page)

B.I.3) Put „Turn off“ Button from the „Product“ page on the „Multiform“ page, too.

B.I.4) Possibility to Group Products (e.g. for a room), so that it is possible to select the group instead of individual products and control them together as one product

B.I.5) Keep the linked products or groups, even when these products are turned off / lose connection

B.I.6) Hide „Product“ page or put it to the right side, because it is only needed when a product has to be configured (hopefully not too often)

B.II) Much better handling / integration of DLNA server content

B.II.1) Show only Music relevant content / folders / files (e.g. mp3, wav, aac) of DLNA Server not Fotos and Video folders with empty content / respectively with jpg and mp4 files, that are not usable within the B&O app.

B.II.2) Show the content of the DLNA server in similar style like top part of „Music“ page (= Deezer content), that means Headline (e.g. Genre DLNA, Album DLNA, Artist DLNA, Album-Artist DLNA, Folder DLNA, Playlists DLNA) and below the Headline the first content line (for Genre e.g. Rock, Pop, Dance, Hip Hop) with a cover art (to make it easy, I would use the cover art of the first album of the relevant category)

B.II.3) Drill down possibilities per Headline “show all” for DLNA content: (a) Album -> Track (b) Artist -> Album -> Track (c) Genre -> Artist -> Album -> Track (d) Year -> Album -> Track (e) Album-Artist -> Album -> Track (f) Folder -> Sub-Folder -> Track

B.II.4) Possibility to change order of Headlines on “Music” page, so that I can mix DLNA content and Deezer content.

B.II.5) Offer the possibility to add already the Album to current playlist (not only on the lowest level the individual track)

B.II.6) Offer an alphabet selection list as sidebar, as soon as a list gets longer. So you can jump within the list by choosing the letter (would reduce annoying scrolling by long lists)

B.II.7) Offer a search function that considers also DLNA server content (not only Deezer). Could be similar as at the Beosound moment with a preselection how to search (e.g. by Album, Artist, Track, etc.).

B.III) Optimize Deezer content:

B.III.1) Include “Deezer Flow” on „Music“ age as a additional headline

B.III.2) Include “Deezer My Music” on „Music“ page as a additional headline

C) Visions to be better than competition

C.I) Two B&O Apps (instead of one App), one for controlling / playing multiroom products and one app for the configuration of all other products (to reduce complexity)

C.II) Nice / design table-stand for the Apple iPad (mini ?) and / or other Android tablets with integrated power supply and perhaps an integrated bluetooth remote (similar to Essence Remote - to steer volume, select tracks, stop/go, AND additionally scrolling and selecting in long lists). In combination with a hidden or in the table-stand integrated Beosound Core would be an interesting and easy to develop successor of Beosound Moment.

C.III) Management of each individual channel of 2 channels (Stereo) to >10 Channels (for e.g. Atmos) via B&O multiroom. Idea is on one hand to set up several loudspeakers as a stereo speaker (e.g. two Beosound 1 speaker in one room use one as left and the other as right speaker) or to set-up several loudspeakers to dolby surround (e.g. use a shape with several cores / several amps for surround sound - controlled individual or as group by the B&O App).

C.IV) Integration of MoodWheel or MOTS or something similar into the “Music” page of the B&O App for all people, that have still personal music libraries (connected via DLNA server)

C.V) …

 

What are you desired functionalities of a good Bang&Olufsen App?

I'm not a heavy user – until two weeks ago I only used it for controlling my kitchen V1 while being away from the regular remote, but since two weeks I also have a Core and I now use the app for controlling music played via DLNA from my plex server.

I have a quite large music library, and I find it tedious to navigate to the music I want to hear. My main issue is the missing scrollbar in the Artist view, as it os is now I need to scroll and scroll and scroll instead of just touvching"P" when I want to listen to Propaganda, for example. So yes, smarter handling of DLNA is on my wishlist.

henrik:

So yes, smarter handling of DLNA is on my wishlist.

Yes that would be a killer function but unfortunately I don’t think B&O will invest anymore here. Their latest step in the DLNA management was the Moment and I must admit that it was close to be a success before they dropped the product. The search feature or the collection browsing, DLNA & Deezer included, was what i was expecting and I’m still using it the Moment UI from time to time.

If they had a DLNA server solution or if they worked closely with third party DLNA providers, e.g by leveraging their API like they do with Deezer, they could achieve it in the B&O app, but so far the app is a simple DLNA controller leveraging navigation exposed by the third party DLNA server.

I have 3 media served running at the same time against my large collection sitting on my NAS: Twonky DLNA server mainly for the Moment as I also manage missing artists tiles, MinimServer DLNA server because it has the most flexible navigation setup such as the one you are looking for,

I.e artist index by letter, as well as more evolved things like moods or bit rate/frequency, and, I also have PLEX without DLNA as it does not work for tracks higher than 44100Hz so I’m using the PLEX interface to control streaming to B&O products over ChromeCast or through my TV plugged into the Core.

Complex setup I agree, but depending of the way I want to listen to music, I use one or the other.

A unique B&O solution would make my life simpler for sure.

Back to the app, it is for me (audio only user) a Deezer like app tailored for B&O products, not much more.

They should reintroduce the possibility to use a v1/Avant etc without the beoremote or virtual remote menu.

In the old app you could set speaker groups, stand positions and so on directly in the app without having to use menu and arrow buttons. The new one is ridiculous in this sense.

Agree with much of what you say - though we have made these observations before.

DLNA support seems unlikely to change i.e. remain very basic / unusable. Why this is the case, I don't know.

Deezer Flow would be good also.

As for the UI, again we have made these observations before - it takes far too many taps to achieve basic things.

And regarding functionality, having the option to chose products groups, in addition to individual products should be achievable.

So yes I agree - but I expect nothing to change.

Its been 2 years, and aside from one visual refresh, progress has been minimal.

 

DLNA Server content: let it be this way. B&o should not change this! this is freedom. If I want to use Twonky I do get the structure of Twonky. If I want to use Minimserver I do get their structure, if I use Plex I get..............etc. etc. 

The content one sees is the content your DLNA server collects dependent on its/yours setting. If you set your server right you will have no issues with the app. So in my opinion the app works as supposed, it works good!

Sandyb:

DLNA support seems unlikely to change i.e. remain very basic / unusable.

Try different music servers (with the appropriate settings) and see for your self what happens,

Carolpa:

 

Try different music servers (with the appropriate settings) and see for your self what happens,

 

 

 

First = Twonky, second = Minimserver.

 

Just a small impression

 

Carolpa:

Sandyb:

DLNA support seems unlikely to change i.e. remain very basic / unusable.

Try different music servers (with the appropriate settings) and see for your self what happens,

Thank you! I just installed Twonky, and yes - it's a substantially different experience compared to Plex. I'll explore various dlna servers to find which one I prefer, and use Plex only for video (using the excellent app for the AppleTV).

Am I missing something?

The B&O app offers limited user experience with DLNA / NAS music.

No search, just long lists to scroll through.

Sure I could use another app for DLNA music, though the thread pertains to the B&O app, which is severely lacking for music on your NAS.

Carolpa:

The content one sees is the content your DLNA server collects dependent on its/yours setting. If you set your server right you will have no issues with the app. So in my opinion the app works as supposed, it works good!

If you have a large library you'll want a 'search' function, and that's afaik something that needs to be done in the DLNA receiver/controller – ie the B&O app.

 

So, search functionality and the regular iOS scroll (as in, for example, Apple's own Music app) would do lots for me.

henrik:

If you have a large library you'll want a 'search' function, and that's afaik something that needs to be done in the DLNA receiver/controller – ie the B&O app.

So, search functionality and the regular iOS scroll (as in, for example, Apple's own Music app) would do lots for me.

In order for a controller to implement a search function, it needs to

Option 1: index de collection learned from the DLNA server and store the information, as well as other metadata, on the device running the App, e.g. your phone or tablet. This requires a good & solid software development. Glider is a good example of this kind of setup, I have tested it, it works pretty well, while sometime resources consuming on very large collections, and unfortunately does not work very well with B&O products (at least when I tested it)

Option 2: Develop a Media Server + client interface in the App

Option 3: link to existing Media Servers solution to avoid reinventing the wheel. Twonky, PLEX or Minimserver must have API to leverage

Yes, option 1 is what Glider does and it seems to be working fine. If there are satisfying and well-documented APIs, option 3 should be the way to go, but I don't know if there are. If not, I'd like B&O to go for option 1 – dlna is well supported amongst servers, and by using local caching in the receiver/client at least some of dlna's shortcomings can be avoided.

...but in any case, please give us a scroll bar or quick-jump functionality :)

I don’t expect anything in that direction to happen from the sw team!

Building a good DLNA control point software - especially if you have to draw on diverse DLNA servers - is an extremely time- and manpower-consuming job.

And adding this to the rather complex ui of the Bang & Olufsen app would be a task on its own.

I guess they have a lot of other things to focus on.

Indexing the files is also a heavy task for the playback device/s.

The fact is, that just a few B&O costumers are drawing on an extensive DLNA-based 

Most are in fact using online music services (and netradio) and/or have just a few files on a local drive.

 

Personally I have my good old Logitech Media Server (from the time of the Squeezeboxes) running on my NAS.

I use 8Player Pro (iOS), from which you can access all your different playback devices - in my example here also my Essence.

From that I can expand/join from to my BV’s.

Not the finest solution - but the 8Player lets me do the searching that I need.

Since I am not using my local content that much anymore it’s a solution that I can live with.

That said - a simple alphabetic scrollbar in the app would be enough to make me use that more than I do nowadays.

 

P.S. I would be much more interested in a revive of the now missing DLNA renderer function of my BV’s (an Avant/2014 and a V1), since they are my main playback devices. This way the HomeMedia players there could be accessed directly from the 8Player app (or any other DLNA control point).

 

MM

Millemissen:

The fact is, that just a few B&O costumers are drawing on an extensive DLNA-based 

Most are in fact using online music services (and netradio) and/or have just a few files on a local drive.

Agreed

Millemissen:

Building a good DLNA control point software - especially if you have to draw on diverse DLNA servers - is an extremely time- and manpower-consuming job.

B&O already did develop DLNA control point software at least two times (Beosound 5 encore and Beosound Moment). From a professional company with a solid IT strategy, I expect that the knowledge and the source code is available and that the adaption to a different platform should be a minor task.

If not, I would fire the responsible IT Manager and the responsible board member because of incompetence and burning value of the shareholders.

Rating of different multi-room apps within the German Apple App Store:

App Name                    Grade      Votes

Bang&Olufsen                  1,8            56
Teufel Raumfeld                3,0           211
BluOS Controller               3,1            58
Roon Remote                    4,5            42
Sonos Controller               4,6        124.000
Bose SoundTouch             4,6          43.700
iPeng / Squeezebox-App  4,7            861

Why is Bang&Olufsen not able to offer a competitive app?
Even amateur apps are rated much better.

B&O sales the most expensive loudspeaker and multi-room equipment (of the peers listed above) but offers the lowest rated app. How does this fit together?
Are there any plans to change this?

How are the B&O ratings in other Apple App Stores around the world? Are only Germans so critical with B&O? Perhaps the B&O app is loved in all other countries?

The internet isn't being kind to B&O....

UK Trustpilot Reviews here ....  If you're researching wether to buy some new B&O, this should serve to scare you off quite nicely.

Lots of people having bad experiences with Play products, then with Customer Service (or their Dealer).

Lack of spare cash to create a decent support and service network is biting them, sadly.

 

mm08642:

Millemissen:

Building a good DLNA control point software - especially if you have to draw on diverse DLNA servers - is an extremely time- and manpower-consuming job.

B&O already did develop DLNA control point software at least two times (Beosound 5 encore and Beosound Moment). From a professional company with a solid IT strategy, I expect that the knowledge and the source code is available and that the adaption to a different platform should be a minor task.

If not, I would fire the responsible IT Manager and the responsible board member because of incompetence and burning value of the shareholders.

I think they need to blood eagle the whole IT team, and throw the CEO and top executives in there for good measure.

The US store is also 1.8 with 66 votes. I have a Google Wifi Mesh network at home. The B&O App works fine for me as does all my Beoplay products. I seldom use the app though.... just airplay 2om my ipad or iphone with Apple Music.

Crikey that is bad reading!

Urgently I would suggest to enable the Bang & Olufsen App to function without internet access within a home network (more details see https://forum.beoworld.org/forums/t/37504.aspx). That would be really great and helpful.

How embarrassing!
B&O sells the most expensive speakers of the listed competitors but offers by far the lowest quality App (based on the ratings in the US Apple App Store).

App Name                     Grade       Votes
Bang&Olufsen                   1,9             84
Teufel Raumfeld                4,0              2
BluOS Controller               2,3            126
Roon Remote                    4,5            101
Sonos Controller               4,8         600.703
Bose SoundTouch             4,7           69.854
iPeng / Squeezebox-App  4,7             880

Where is B&O burning all the money they earn more than the competition?

Great job, the new update 2.7 is available and two of my feature wishes (A.III and A.V of my first post) are implemented.
B&O please go on considering my suggestions for improvement. I am grateful for each single improvement!

Great to see, that A.III, A.IV and A.V (unfortunately only on iPhone not on iPad) from my wish list are implemented. Great and many thanks to B&O. Please go on!

In June 2019 with release 2.6.2 the app had a rating of 1,8 in the German App Store. Since then we see a continuous improvement of the app as well as  of the rating at the App Store. B&O overtook Teufel Raumfeld!

Currently the rating of the B&O app is 2,8 from my viewpoint that is more than fair rating. Looking at the user experience compared to the competitor apps many functionalities can be improved or are missing (see my wish list first post of this thread). There is still a long long way to go!

Ratings in German App Store October 2019:

App Name                    Grade        Votes
Teufel Raumfeld                 2,7            266
Bang&Olufsen                  2,8             31
BluOS Controller                3,0             64
Tidal                                   4,1            982
Nativ Sound                       4,2              6
Roon Remote                     4,3            45
Qobuz                                 4,5          2.235
Deezer                                4,5         26.053
Bose SoundTouch              4,6          47.004
Sonos Controller                4,6         132.173
iPeng / Squeezebox-App   4,7             910
Spotify                                4,7          1.1 Mio.

Simply, it will never happen. Feels like one thing gets better two gets worse. And it's not just B&O.

Esax:

And it's not just B&O.

Unfortunately yes. But the question Bang&Olufsen should ask themselves, what does Sonos better?

Sonos has also some negativ ratings. But Sonos has a very strong community that loves the Sonos Controller app. In total Sonos has 135.401 votings (German App Store), most of which are very positiv.

Looking at the Bang&Olufsen App, there is nobody really using or loving this app, there is no community that supports it. With a total of only 80 rating and most are very negativ, it seems that not even the B&O dealer ship seems to be believe into the Bang&Olufsen App. Otherwise at least the dealers should vote positiv on the app.

If I were responsible for the Bang&Olufsen app I would look for a new job!

Reading

HH1971:

If I were responsible for the Bang&Olufsen app I would look for a new job!

I remembered the following picture.