Linn Kazoo

[DavidHB]

(12-05-2014 10:14)bbrip Wrote:  Not quite true. LUMIN App works perfectly with Linn DS's and MinimServer on the iPad and has most of the features you could wish for. I'm using it 95% of the time since it came out.

Point taken. As you gather from the context, I am not an iOS user and, sadly, there is no Android version of the Lumin app. One thing that can be said in favour of Linn is that they have made significant efforts to make their control software multi-platform. I hope that the fact that there is no far no Android version of Kazoo is not a bad sign.

What features does Lumin have that, say, Kinsky lacks? In previous posts, I have identified a number of features which, for me, make the Bubble control points preferable to both Kinsky and Kazoo. Are the preferences similar in the case of Lumin?

(12-05-2014 10:14)bbrip Wrote:  I certainly find KAZOO in its current shape and form severely disappointing and not worthy of a high end audio system in the price league of Linn. It's just Kinsky with slightly better looks.

In my book, Kazoo (at least on Windows) is somewhat better than this implies. Everything works, and the interface is clean and reasonably intuitive. Better use is made of available space than in Kinsky, and this is an important usability point. Overall, I'm not a fan, but I'd say that the beta has some promise.

(12-05-2014 10:14)bbrip Wrote:  But this is Linn-strategy inherent: A "one-size-fits-all" multi-platform approach will never be fully satisfactory on any of the platforms its trying to serve.

As you gather, my view on the multi-platform issue is diametrically opposed to yours; I think that the multi-platform approach and maximum consistency are helpful to users. Kinsky on Android is actually weakest in those areas where it is different from the iOS and Windows versions. By contrast, I think that the Bubble apps have been improved by Bubbleguuum's efforts to maintain maximum commonality between the two versions. Consistency in the code base is usually good programming practice in any case.

Also, I doubt that any device manufacturer will ever wish to maintain more than one in-house control point at any one time. Kazoo will presumably replace Kinsky as the supported application in due course. I do however worry about the amount of effort that Linn must be putting into Kazoo Server, which seems to me to be a wholly unnecessary piece of software.

David