John Darko
New skin for the old ceremony. There was so much talk of Roon (Ready) at this year’s CES that you’d be forgiven for thinking that all other software platforms are now dead in the water. They aren’t – not by a long shot. Use AURALiC’s Lightning DS app with a Roon-Ready Aries or Aries Mini and sidestep the need for a server elsewhere on the network and Roon’s US$119 annual fee. Connect a hard drive to an Aries variant and you’re top of the pops – Lightning DS for iPad is yours for free.
It also looks like AURALiC will be beat the Roon guys to the punch on bringing an iPhone remote control app to market. I sat down with the Chinese company’s CEO Xuanqian (“Shuan-shian”) Wang at CES for a walkthrough on new the app, one that very much is NOT a direct port of its iPad cousin; the iPhone version of Lightning DS offers a an all-new interface that’s more cover art and meta-data driven than its forerunner.
If you’re keen to see what the app looks like, how it will integrate with Roon, the possible positive side effects of disabling the Roon Endpoint service and when the whole shebang willl land in the App Store, you’ll need to sit down with a cuppa for ten minutes and watch the video interview:
I’ve been trialling a development version of the iPhone app (via Testflight) these past 24 hours and find it suitably intuitive and easier to navigate than the iPad version. It seems to be rock solid; zero crashes or quirks so far. Screenshots from an iPhone 6S+ below.
Further information: AURALiC
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