I’ve updated the audiostream-meta project hosted on Google Code to include all the updates I’ve made to the original AudioStreamer example from Matt Gallagher. In addition to parsing audio stream metadata the latest code will play AAC and AAC+ V1 (thanks to Brian Stormont) streams. The stream bitrate is also detected and displayed, along with the metadata, on the sample view.
The next version of Stream.ly Radio has been submitted to Apple for review. I’m excited about this release. I feel like this next version really cleans up the interface and adds some great features. You’ll now be able to search the radio directory and Live365 members can enter their username & password in the Settings app so they can play even more Live365 stations. The Live365 login feature came about from a four year old [!] blog post by a guy named Jim Russell. Thanks Jim!
I’ve removed the Twitter/Song.ly integration from this new release. That feature has always felt half-baked to me anyway. It’s easy to get excited about integrating everything (Twitter, Facebook, etc., etc.) into an iPhone app, but Stream.ly is about streaming radio, so that’s where I want to focus future development.
Since the iPhone only allows one program to be running at a time users of streaming radio applications can’t read their email or look at Twitter while listening to music. The new iPhone OS 3.0 has added a feature that helps make this possible, although it’s not perfect.
If you open a compatible streaming radio link in Safari on the iPhone it will open a QuickTime player that will play the stream. Since Safari is allowed to run in the background, you can press the home button and start up other applications while the stream is still playing in Safari. The downside is that you can’t do anything else in Safari while the stream is playing.
Try it. Click on the Indie 103.1 playlist URL or the Houndstooth Radio stream URL from your iPhone.
I’ll add a feature to Stream.ly in the next update to do this automatically from the application. I’ll also update the Stream.ly website so you can browse the station directory from Safari on the phone and listen to a station without needing the application itself. The application adds a lot of nice features though. 
UPDATE: It’s still in a “beta” stage, but you can now browse around the Stream.ly Radio web directory and play stations in Safari from this URL. iPhone only for now.
I checked in a small but important bug fix to the audiostreamer-meta iPhone streaming audio project. There was a case where the SHOUTcast interval byte would show up on it’s own (buffer length == 1) and that byte was incorrectly getting sent to the audio queue which would cause a sound skip. 
It’s fixed now so if you are using the project look at the diff or grab the new code.
Here are some free download codes for Stream.ly, my new iPhone streaming radio app. Check out the Stream.ly website for some stream URLs to get started. The codes are only good for one use so first come first serve.
MWHXKN6Y3W9L
XFPT4LPTJWWE
ERL74NXJL9RW
WKMF7TYLLKPR
NY3R6PE7WHTL
64TWKLAN9HFA
R4NNWK3A3PE6
LAL7MJPTAT76
J6EFKX7ANKYK
EN3PWFP3X3F9
You can copy-paste one of these code into iTunes. Click on the Redeem link in the iTunes Store Quick Links box.
Enjoy!
A few people have looked at the source of my Indie 103.1 iPhone App and asked about reading SHOUTcast metadata (artist and track information) from the audio stream. The Indie App code won’t read metadata for SHOUTcast streams – but it does work for Icecast streams. Turns out that SHOUTcast and Icecast (two of the most popular server applications for streaming radio) are supposed to be compatible, but the response message from each server is slightly different.
SmackFu has a great page that documents the ShoutCAST metatdata protocol. They don’t mention the difference in the server response, but you’ll find references to it on Google.
When you send an HTTP GET request to an Icecast server (like Indie 103.1) it replies with HTTP 200 OK. This is what we’d expect, and you can use CFHTTPMessageCopyHeaderFieldValue to read the response header where you get the Icy-MetaInt value. SHOUTcast responds to an HTTP GET request with ICY 200 OK. When this happens CFHTTPMessageCopyHeaderFieldValue returns null.
One solution is to look for the ICY 200 OK response and parse the headers manually. I’ve created another Google Code project called audiostreamer-meta and used Matt Gallagher’s execelent AudioStreamer example as a sample project. The sample application will parse the metadata from both server streams. Check the debug window in Xcode to see the metadata. The code needs some clean up, and it would be nice to display the artist, tract, and other metadata on the view itself. Feel free to join the project and help make the code better.
If your looking for the Indie 103.1 iPhone app it’s been pulled from the app store until Entravision releases their official app. In the meantime, you can still pick up the stream on your iPhone with FStream, a nice free streaming radio app from Julien-Pierre Avérous.
You’ll have to configure FStream with the following URL:
http://provisioning.streamtheworld.com/pls/KDLDFM.pls
Later today I’ll be removing my Indie 103.1 iPhone app from the iTunes store. Entravision (the parent company of Indie) will soon be releasing their own official Indie iPhone app. I’m just a fan of the station and don’t want to get in the way of company business. I think it’s great that they’ll soon have their own app, whatever keeps the station going is a good thing in my opinion. The new app will be free from what I understand, but I haven’t seen it yet.
Download stats for the three weeks my app was available (2/2/09 – 2/22/09):
US downloads: 5,140
Non-US downloads: 1,802
Total worldwide downloads: 6,942
Thanks to the people at Indie and everyone who downloaded my app. It’s been fun!
UPDATE: app is no longer available.
A new version of the Indie 103.1 iPhone app has been published to the iTunes App Store. This update adds artist and title information from the mp3 stream. If you’ve already installed version 1.0 you’ll get an update notice on your phone, or you can update to the new version in iTunes.
NOTE: If you don’t see it yet it could take a bit for your iTunes to pick it up. I just got the update from the App Store on my phone.
Indie 103.1 App Version 1.1
Big thanks to everyone on Twitter who has helped get the word out. We’ve been climbing up the Top Fee apps list in the music category on iTunes. Let’s push it to the top!
UPDATE: app is no longer available.
Apple finally got my developer account in order so my Indie 103.1 iPhone App is now available in iTunes! The version in the App Store does not show the artist and song information, but I’ve already got that part working. I’ll send Apple an update and it should show up in iTunes in a few days. You can install version 1.0 now and you’ll get an update notice for the new version when it’s available.
