MagicPlay: the Open Source AirPlay 177
New submitter JonLech writes "Ever since Apple launched AirTunes in 2004 (later renamed AirPlay) they have remained unchallenged in the Wi-Fi music streaming market. With various manufacturers releasing AirPlay-only Wi-Fi speakers, Android and other non-Apple device users have been left out in the cold. Today that changes with the release of MagicPlay, an open standard for music streaming (think 'HTTP for music') with a BSD-licensed open source reference implementation that any app developer or hardware manufacturer can integrate into their products. For the Linux fans out there, I've written up some instructions on how to turn your Raspberry Pi into a MagicPlay device."
Re:What about UPnP? (Score:4, Informative)
Bingo! urn:upnp-org:serviceId:AVTransport & urn:upnp-org:serviceId:ContentDirectory already provide this... and have been implemented in quite a few devices & OSes.
Re:Incompatible with AirPlay? (Score:4, Informative)
Um, because AirPlay is proprietary.
There are people who's media world doesn't revolve around an iPhone. And while there are various stop gap measure for those users - including using AirPlay in unauthorized ways - it is still a proprietary protocol, and this is Apple so we know they will release the lawyers when the time comes.
I actually find it remarkable that I should have to argue that an open standard that does something like AirPlay would be a good thing if it were done right and caught on.
You are 100% correct in everything you say. But he still has a point.
Being Apple compatible is the "sexy" thing to do in the manufacturing world these days, and this is all rather useless if you can't go to Best Buy and pick up a device that supports it.
Add to that the fact that there is an existing standard that can already do this stuff (UPnP/DLNA), and do it better. And those standards actually have some device support, although the implementations all seem like they were a quickly hacked together afterthought.
That said, being outside of the Apple world, I have found that Plex media server + Roku + Plex Android app handles all of my media streaming needs just fine.
Re:Already dead on arrival. (Score:0, Informative)
You do realise that most media centres run XBMC, which would have no problem supporting this standard.