First let me say welcome to all of our new users! This has been an amazing few weeks for us. I'm finally getting the opportunity to surface for a small breath of air and so I'd like to give you all some insight as to what is happening behind the scenes.
Most of our user feedback has been tremendously positive but we've also gotten a handful of requests for more information. You all are definitely paying close attention to everything we're saying. So, with no further adieu – let's check out the FlyTunes virtual factory.
First Product Last, Second Service First
To make a long story short, we released our intended launch product (a PC download providing personalized music, thousands of stations, streaming to the iPhone etc.) to the first 5000 users and found that it was way overkill for what most people wanted – streaming music on their iPhone/Touch through a simple interface. Most importantly, You found the router configuration through UPnP to be either scary (security concerns) or daunting (when the UPnP technology didn't set up the router automagically).
As it turned out we had planned to release a fully online (no download) "second service" after a few months in the market. When we compared the feature set of the second service with what you were asking for (i.e. easy to access streaming music on the iPhone) we found that we could pull out a few of the features preventing immediate deployment and give you what you wanted immediately – so we did that.
FlyTunes Premium .. Coming soon
For customers that really want personalized stations, time-shifting a-la TiVo, massive station selection, syncing of station to the iPhone and other features – we'll be offering that soon as a relatively inexpensive upgrade package. Hopefully, that means the majority of the people have what they want and the power users will soon be able to get what they want too.
What's New This Week?
This week you'll see a few great upgrades to our free service:
1) Better streaming over Edge – we'll be adding an "Edge/Wifi" toggle so that you can request that the streams be optimized for hi/low bandwidth situations.
2) New stations & New Content. Some of you have been requested more stations in a few categories, and some have made specific station request – we've tried to accommodate everyone we could. If we didn't add a station you requested stay tuned you may still be able to get it in a few weeks through the MyFly services.
3) Music History – many of you asked for a feature showing you want songs you've listened to so you can learn more about the artists or buy the songs. In response, we'll be adding a preset to your list which is labeled "Music History" – on that preset you'll be able to browse the last 45 songs you've listened to, watch the videos for those songs, and (yes) purchase the songs if iTunes stocks them.
What's been the biggest complaint So Far?
Probably the most frustrating technical glitch to us and a few of our users has been "stream drop" – where they tune into a station and it stops playing almost immediately. What's really happening there is that the iPhone is signal hopping in an attempt to get a better connection – this may even be true when it is showing "full bars" on either WiFi or Edge. The iPhone's wifi radio is a bit tempermental and we can't account for that in a pure Safari app … which brings us to the next item …
Will FlyTunes create a native iPhone app when the SDK is released?
The answer there is, "of course !" We're still not exactly sure what the SDK will allow us to do (or when – come on Apple?!). But, yes, we will wring out every ounce of improvement we can once it gets released.
Anything Else To Look Forward To?
I've now given you a view into our private back-rooms but I have to keep a few surprises up my sleeve – what I can say right now is that we are on the verge of announcing a few things that will really knock your socks off. So please, stay FlyTuned!
