Squeezebox Players

[mcqz]

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MDmom23 wrote:

I listen to my local favorite internet radio station -which switched 6 months ago to iheart- everyday on my squeezebox radio.  There are workarounds.  It took me awhile to get it right, but it does work.  Follow the link provided to see how to do it using favorites.

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What link?  I haven't been able to find any way to play any of my now-IHeartRadio stations!

Thanks.

Fran

[EEoyui]

I'm one of the folks frustrated by the iHeart change. I've been in the technology business over 30 years... engineering, marketing, sales and business management.  I've seen my share of issues like this through those eyes. One thing I've learned is that every decision is a process of negotiation. I've also learnind that no one can be satisfied in any negotiation unless they agree on at least one thing. At least one thing has to be common ground in order to start to negotiate.  I think the common ground in this case is that the customers on this forum like to buy Logitech products and Logitech likes them to buy logitech products.  So I think we have a reason to negotiate with each other.

I think that the negotiation at hand is simply stated as: due to circumstances not in the control of Logitech or it's customers, users of Logitech products can't listen to their radio stations anymore. Based on reading the moderator's responses on this forum, Logitech doesn't appear to be terribly inclined to solve this problem. But why not? Customers really want their radio stations back. But, is it Logitech's responsibility to fix a problem that they didn't create?  Of course not.. Does it make great sense that they do it any way? Only if they believe that they will lose significant $ if they don't or make significat $ if they do This is why they ask for a survey. But why ask for a survey when losing customer respect and satisfaction is on the line? it just seems so intuitive to me that this has to be done.

Is there some cultural barrier at play in the corporate offices of Logitech?  Logitech has a new CEO. Guerrino De Luca took the CEO post recently after a mistake cost Logitech a lot of money. The mistake was a decision to build a product around GoogleTV.  The product, "Revue" was a product with an app tied to a cloud service. They lost upwards of $100M. I can draw a  parallel between GoogleTV and iHeartradio in that they are both cloud offerings. I think that it would be easy to see that making a case to support a GoogleTV-like service at logitech could be a sensitive matter. That said, we still have our common ground and our issue. And if I'm right and the issue is a cultural barrier. And given truth serum, anyone at Logitech would agree that supporting iHeartradio is intuitivey the right thing to do, Then I challenge someone at Logitech to find the courage to show this post to the CEO. Mr. DeLuca may ask "why don't we fix this?". He might say  "If there's a good reason, tell the customers - they deserve to know".  I would just hope that his response would not be "send our customers a survey". 

So I ask you. Do you have the courage to send this to Mr. DeLuca?... 

Dear Mr. De Luca, 

I'm a loyal logitech customer.  I have SqueezeCenter on my Netgear NV+, 2 Duets, 4 Harmony remotes (2 of them 1100s) and various keboards and mice. I trust Logitech. I'm also an avid listener to all types of music and I love listening to radio stations on my duets. Recently, all of the radio stations I listen to switched to iHeartradio and I can no longer listen to them on my Logitech products. I know that the switch to iHeartradio isn't your doing. But I also know that in the technology business we have to anticipate market transitions that effect the way customers use our products. I think you have an opportunity to be a hero to your customers and skate to this puck.

I'll sum up my plea this way; I've recently read the Steve Jobs boigraphy. It struck some chords with me. One chord resonates in the face of this iHeartradio issue.  I worked at Xerox back in the '70's and 80's and I remember clearly when Jobs "stole" the idea of a graphical user interface from Xerox. Xerox called the computer with the GUI, Alto. I witnessed Xerox as unwilling to get untangled from its beuarocracy of "surveys" long enough to see that the GUI was intuitvely important. I think that iHeatradio is your Alto isasmuch as it's inutivley important.

No matter what you choose to do, I ask you please to respond.

Best Regards,

[CatLogitech_OLD]

This is not fully up to us to make an App, but for IHeartRadio to want an App as we cannot make one without working with them, so if you want an IHeartRadio app it would be better to let them know.

[Carnivore]

I was under the impression that iHeartRadio does want an app. In fact it seems like they would like lots of companies to make apps, that's why they released the API and created a developer program, no?

I'm not a developer so maybe I'm missing something, but looking at the links in the original post of this thread it sure seems like iHeartRadio is doing everything it can to provide companies like Logitech with all the resources they need to support the service.  Could you explain how they are not working with you?

[CatLogitech_OLD]

Sadly Logitech employees cannot comment on the future of our products though no one other then the engineers would know this information.

[bnt1]

This thread has been very informative and useful.

I will NOT be purchasing a Squeezebox Touch because it does not support iHeartRadio.

Instead I will puchase the Sonos Connect.  Will have to pay more, but at least it will support my favorite stations.

As disappointing as the Squeezebox Touch not supporting iHeartRadio, the repsonses by the Logitech staff on this thread are worse.  The iHeartRadio service can be supported (e.g. the Sonos Connect does).  Irrespective, the excuses and lack of customer care on this thread is insulting to people who wish to support this Logitech product.

[joe85255]

I am a disenfranchised Touch owner who had a few problems early on with the Touch unit.  For example, since I use a

Virtual Private Network at home, the Logitech server had trouble connecting to my Touch...but that problem was NOTHING

compared to the issue of Logitech's lack of motivation or lack of desire to NEGOTIATE A SETTLEMENT with that miserable

middleman called iHeart Radio.  Lacking an app (we shouldn't NEED an app), we should have access to stable, non-changing, unencrypted URLs for these 800+ stations that no longer play on the Squeezebox series of players.  Having paid

so much for these units, Logitech is obviously more interested in the vacations and raises it's employees got with our money than working with iHeart to settle this matter.  I also have Reciva-module based radios, and Reciva dumped it's support and active tech support and do not handle iHeart URLs either.  The whole WiFi radio industry seems to be in chaos...

Logitech...be ashamed...BE VERY ASHAMED...that you have left your customers in the dark...with no solution is sight.