iOS Client to play music from the source MinimServer

[lyapounov]

@henning a little bit of explaination, if you allow me.

There are three basic components when you want to play digital music:

- a DAC (also called renderer) ,whose role is to receive music in a digital format, and to convert it to a analogic signal which is then sent to an amplifier.
- a server, which not only stores your music, but streams it to your DAC.
- a controller, whose role is on one side to display all your albums, and to let you decide which music you are sending from your server to your renderer.

Now, all those elements can be combined in the same place. A computer has a DAC, can store music, and tell you which music to play. AppleTV does not store, but has a DAC in it.

After, all is a matter of quality and usage. If you are a top level audiophile, then buy a top level renderer. There are even people who disconnect the network player function (which reads the music on the network) from the DAC, but it is becoming crazy at that level. I personnaly own a top level renderer which does both network and DAC, and very happy about it.

Now, comes the crazy question about protocols: how do those elements communicate between them.

Well, there is a standard which is open, UPnP (Universal Plug & Play). UPnP has a great advantage: most devices are compliant. It has a great disadvantage: it is very poor when about transfering information. Simon can tell you about the nightmare of making the Booklet available.

Therefore, some people came with closed, but richer standard. Roon is an example of this: you have a lot of information, but is it secret sauce, and very expensive (besides the roon founder is an autistic which does listen only to himself, but that is another problem). So to answer your question: giving back a feedback on a track is not standard UPnP. DS-Audio offers it, Roon offers it, but not Minimserver as it is (thanksfully) based on UPnP and not on propriatary protocol.

To finish this: comes the problem of the structure of your digital library. Well, there are tags inside the tracks. Howeverl, it is not easy as the model of classical music is totally different from Rock, as an example. Myself having 7300+ albums, I don't have time to properly tag everything. Fortunatly, thanks to Simon beautiful design, minimserver allows to browse by folders. If your tagging is well done, that may not be useful. For people with logical mind, well that is the savior !