There is a new Android Honeycomb Tablet in my home. I'd love for it to be a top-tier multi-zone Squeezebox controller for the 9 Squeezebox players in our home.

We have iPod Touch's that run both iPeng and the logi App and though I feel it has a slightly steeper learning curve, iPeng runs circles around the logi app. Same deal with Android phones, where Squeeze Commander is king. Unfortunately on Honeycomb devices, Squeeze Commander seems incompatible for the time being and it’s questionable whether the developer will re-engage. I have posted to the legacy Squeezebox forum, suggesting there is a market for iPeng to be ported to Android. The iPeng developer Pippin, responded, essentially signaling that he did not feel the market was worth his effort. Part of his rationale was that he’d have to compete with the free logi app.

So where does that leave those of us who favor Android? Squeeze Commander is current king, but with a lack of support from the dev, there are issues with newer Android OS versions and the app is unusable on Honeycomb tablets. With iPeng being an iOS only app, the official logi app is the best of what remains. Unfortunately in any head to head comparison with iPeng or Squeeze Commander, the official app pales.

The logi app falls short in the areas of usability, multi-zone control, party-mode functionality and switching to/from & control of mysqueezebox.com (aka squeezenetwork) connected players. Adding or inserting a song into a playlist is dodgy, requiring a press and hold. For Rhapsody, it appears only functional on the current Beta release. Picture the tablet being passed around where party guests can browse and add songs to the current playlist. With the default behavior to play the selected track and all others in the album “now”, it is inevitable that a carefully built party track gets unintentionally erased in an instant!

Other low hanging fruit is better access to player on-off and volume control. There should be a single screen that allows volume, power and sync/unsync of multiple players in any combination. I believe that the official logi app should be the premier app for both android and iOS devices. I paid $10 for iPeng and am willing to pay that or more for an Android app with equivalent ease of use and functionality. Perhaps there is room for both a basic (free) app and a premier (paid) app?

I encourage others to chime in with their experiences and enhancement ideas, especially those that use both the logi app and iPeng and/or Squeeze Commander. It would be great to also hear from Logitech to establish or re-affirm their commitment to developing a great controller app and their commitment to the revolutionary Squeezebox product line in general! s