Thursday, September 03, 2009

Logitech finally announce Touch and Radio

- Announced for IFA

In my original posting regarding the Logitech Touch (yes - it was me that found reported the FCC report for the Touch) I suggested that the launch would be at this week's IFA in Berlin.
Looks like that is the case - as the first official info arrives on the press briefing day.

SB Touch and Radio presentation

Long-time Squeezebox fan, Radish, was a beta tester and has made a video showing off the Touch device. You can see it here (Windows Media file)

Official press release
Squeezebox Touch
Squeezebox Radio

Logitech Blog

Given that most of the information that was used to make the earlier postings had come from reliable sources (e.g. FCC test reports and mistaken publishing on Logitech sites) then it was unlikely to have much new information.
Couple of things I spotted - plus a confirmation from the Slimdevices forum:

For the Touch - a cut-down SqueezeCenter (new name coming) runs on the device so that the access music from the USB disk or SD card. This includes proper searching and providing album art not just browsing by folder ... and potentially even more useful ... it can act as a server to other Squeezeboxes (not the original Slimdevices but everything from SB2 onwards).

The Touch presents the contents of the USB/SD as a network attached drive - so you can copy files to it. This is still work in progress, since the device is not expected to ship until end of November, but beta testers report it as working.


For the Radio - the battery pack and remote are indeed optional (50 USD for the pair as an "Accessory Pack") and the six buttons around the screen are presets to store favourites.

New facility to post to Facebook (presumably all devices will get this since it will be a feature of the server software rather than the device) and see friend updates (presumably on the new full screen versions only).
Plus - a Flickr-based screensaver (clearly only applicable to the new devices with regular display screens)

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