I got a notice on my iPod Touch that Apple's "Remote" app was updated to version 1.1.1 and it said that it fixed album art display issues when controlling AppleTV directly. I was excited to see that since Remote does not seem to display MP3 album covers when controlling my two AppleTV units directly, but it DOES show them when controlling the iTunes primary library.
I don't know about for everyone else, but the art for MP3 files is still NOT being displayed with the 1.1.1 update, contrary to its claims of fixing the problem. I've tried it with both my AppleTV units. MP4 (AAC) files show art correctly, but MP3s do not. Again, it does show OK when controlling my Mac's iTunes library (which can output to the AppleTV units via AirTunes) but they do not show when telling Remote to control one of the AppleTV units directly (which is often more convenient since it doesn't change any settings in iTunes and will let you have independent songs playing in different rooms of the house whereas controlling via AirTunes sends iTunes own output to whatever rooms and so you can't get independent room settings (which is fine for party mode, but can be a slight pain to switch the rooms back if you are only using a single room temporarily).
I'm not sure if there is a way to build playlists on the fly yet from Remote (I know you now can from the latest AppleTV firmware using its own menu system by holding the play button down during a song (well it will add to the "On The Go" playlist at least). This is/was the best feature of "Signal" over Remote... to quickly be able to build an on-the-fly playlist. I can sit there and have a song play while I keep adding to the current play list. Even if I can add to the On-The-Go list, I'd have to remove entries for an on-the-fly list so I guess I'll be keeping Signal around for those times I want to build a list as I sit there.
The author of Signal is supposed to be working on an app version, which hopefully will be better than Remote (Signal can also display radio station art, which Signal and AppleTV do NOT do) but I'm afraid Apple might not allow it since it "competes" with Apple's own product (which really irks me with things like Opera since choice is good for the consumer even if I prefer Apple's product in the end). I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. Currently Remote is more pleasant to use for quickly finding and selecting albums (the album scroll mode with the alphabet on the right side is VERY nice and closely matches the iPod's own search), but I miss the on-the-fly playlist and radio station art features of Signal when using Remote. It'd also be nice if there were a button on the main "Now Playing" screen of Remote to switch speakers in iTunes Library mode instead of having to "go back" until you get to the "Settings" button and then bring up another screen just to turn speakers on/off. There's another place where both Signal and Remote Buddy are better (they DO put them on the main play screen as a button). Remote, being an app, is much faster than Signal or Remote Buddy, though.
Edit:
After playing with a few more things, I've found that it WILL display MP3 album art, but you have to play the song directly from one of the main lists to get it to load. I was playing songs from one of my playlists and the art would not load. After I played the song directly from the artist/album list, it loaded and then thereafter, it would show up when I played it from the playlist. So if you don't get art after the update, try the song directly instead of using a playlist and then it should show up (it did not show up either way in previous versions of Remote here; clearly there's still some kind of minor issue with choosing playlists instead of direct songs at first, but it's still an improvement over the last version.
I don't know about for everyone else, but the art for MP3 files is still NOT being displayed with the 1.1.1 update, contrary to its claims of fixing the problem. I've tried it with both my AppleTV units. MP4 (AAC) files show art correctly, but MP3s do not. Again, it does show OK when controlling my Mac's iTunes library (which can output to the AppleTV units via AirTunes) but they do not show when telling Remote to control one of the AppleTV units directly (which is often more convenient since it doesn't change any settings in iTunes and will let you have independent songs playing in different rooms of the house whereas controlling via AirTunes sends iTunes own output to whatever rooms and so you can't get independent room settings (which is fine for party mode, but can be a slight pain to switch the rooms back if you are only using a single room temporarily).
I'm not sure if there is a way to build playlists on the fly yet from Remote (I know you now can from the latest AppleTV firmware using its own menu system by holding the play button down during a song (well it will add to the "On The Go" playlist at least). This is/was the best feature of "Signal" over Remote... to quickly be able to build an on-the-fly playlist. I can sit there and have a song play while I keep adding to the current play list. Even if I can add to the On-The-Go list, I'd have to remove entries for an on-the-fly list so I guess I'll be keeping Signal around for those times I want to build a list as I sit there.
The author of Signal is supposed to be working on an app version, which hopefully will be better than Remote (Signal can also display radio station art, which Signal and AppleTV do NOT do) but I'm afraid Apple might not allow it since it "competes" with Apple's own product (which really irks me with things like Opera since choice is good for the consumer even if I prefer Apple's product in the end). I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. Currently Remote is more pleasant to use for quickly finding and selecting albums (the album scroll mode with the alphabet on the right side is VERY nice and closely matches the iPod's own search), but I miss the on-the-fly playlist and radio station art features of Signal when using Remote. It'd also be nice if there were a button on the main "Now Playing" screen of Remote to switch speakers in iTunes Library mode instead of having to "go back" until you get to the "Settings" button and then bring up another screen just to turn speakers on/off. There's another place where both Signal and Remote Buddy are better (they DO put them on the main play screen as a button). Remote, being an app, is much faster than Signal or Remote Buddy, though.
Edit:
After playing with a few more things, I've found that it WILL display MP3 album art, but you have to play the song directly from one of the main lists to get it to load. I was playing songs from one of my playlists and the art would not load. After I played the song directly from the artist/album list, it loaded and then thereafter, it would show up when I played it from the playlist. So if you don't get art after the update, try the song directly instead of using a playlist and then it should show up (it did not show up either way in previous versions of Remote here; clearly there's still some kind of minor issue with choosing playlists instead of direct songs at first, but it's still an improvement over the last version.