iPhone/iPod Touch Orbiter?

[totallymaxed]

So...back to the original premise...Thom, do you want me to set up a ChipIn for this project and all who are willing to contribute can do so to pay for your time? 

The reason I kicked off this thread was to measure peoples interest in the iPhone as an Orbiter and also to start a discussion about what an iPhone Orbiter should be... and hopefully to find a group of Forum members who could run with it and develop it. The objective was not to load Thom up with yet another piece of code to develop :-)

We need to find people have the skills to develop for iPhone... or have the motivation to learn that skill. It seems that there are a few Forum members who may have that interest...hopefully they will step up and run with this.

All the best

Andrew

[joederp]

Sorry, that was totally my bad, I should've clicked back to the OP & seen it was you, Andrew, not Thom. With all the cool stuff Thom's been crankin' out, I assumed it was him while reading the n-th page of replies 

I'll come right out & state my caste...Linux programming know-how is an infant skill on my end, but I got plenty-a-dough to help you guys out. 

[dlewis]

Motivation to get the iPhone/iPod application created sooner? http://appsfire.com/appstar

[caiman]

Andrew,

The reason I kicked off this thread was to measure peoples interest in the iPhone as an Orbiter and also to start a discussion about what an iPhone Orbiter should be... and hopefully to find a group of Forum members who could run with it and develop it.

I have bought the SDK for this, and started learning cocoa. Already got a (very stupid) app which allows me to execute scenarios (via the web gui). Yes, I know it is not the right way, but one needs to start learning somewhere. And I find it very useful already. I am willing to contribute some time (I don't have a lot) this winter to learn more and build a nicer solution.

• I agree with Thom that a full orbiter would be WAY too complicated for newbies like me to implement. LMCE would run on quantum computers before I get close.
• I also would love a fast, native iphone app, even if it has less functionality than a full orbiter. (e.g. text only)
• Using mobile orbiter could be a great first step though, and I am ok with that, if we could run it over TCP instead of RFCOMM

Does anyone have the skills, time and desire to make the server-side of mobile orbiter work with bonjour/TCP instead of RFCOMM ?

[totallymaxed]

Andrew,

The reason I kicked off this thread was to measure peoples interest in the iPhone as an Orbiter and also to start a discussion about what an iPhone Orbiter should be... and hopefully to find a group of Forum members who could run with it and develop it.

I have bought the SDK for this, and started learning cocoa. Already got a (very stupid) app which allows me to execute scenarios (via the web gui). Yes, I know it is not the right way, but one needs to start learning somewhere. And I find it very useful already. I am willing to contribute some time (I don't have a lot) this winter to learn more and build a nicer solution.

• I agree with Thom that a full orbiter would be WAY too complicated for newbies like me to implement. LinuxMCE would run on quantum computers before I get close.
• I also would love a fast, native iphone app, even if it has less functionality than a full orbiter. (e.g. text only)
• Using mobile orbiter could be a great first step though, and I am ok with that, if we could run it over TCP instead of RFCOMM

Does anyone have the skills, time and desire to make the server-side of mobile orbiter work with bonjour/TCP instead of RFCOMM ?

Great to hear your digging into how iPhone apps are built... great news.

However we believe there maybe some significant gains to be had from separating the Orbiter UI from the way it connects/interacts with the backend DCErouter etc. We definitely feel, and in that sense agree with thom, that implementing the monolithic Orbiter on the iPhone (or any other platform) id not the ideal approach at all. Separating the Orbiter UI from the backend seems the right approach to us as it then makes the UI frontend something that can be built in almost any language you choose to use.

Separating the two is not a trivial task as they are totally intertwined currently...the current Orbiter is somewhat of a 'hack' in that respect. Anyway this needs some more discussion and planning but this approach is one we feel is 'right'.

All the best


Andrew

[vato4ever]

i say thats a yes $20 to $25, no arguments, i'll gladly go for it.

i'm still on symbian phone, but few others would be happy lot many others.

[chrisbirkinshaw]

How about adding a REST interface onto the web site? It would be easy then to make client devices on all platforms.

Regards,

Chris

[Marie.O]

How about adding a REST interface onto the web site? It would be easy then to make client devices on all platforms.

There is already a feature request ticket open for something similar.

http://svn.linuxmce.org/trac.cgi/ticket/354

[cirion]

Look you and i have different views on this...I'm not 'inciting' an argument at all. But as I have said before, and I firmly believe, that the MO is not necessarily the right approach for iPhone. We see iPhone as a rich device that has a whole aproach to Apps (and their UI) that is very different. We just dont see that the MO is the right approach on iPhone at all. We'd like to see a nicely crafted iPhone app that feels like an iPhone app to users and exploits the iPhone's UI paradigm fully (and respectfully). In our view doing anything less on the iPhone would not be a great idea. It would be like porting a Windoze style App to the Mac...and not doing a real Mac UI...how many times have we all seen that in the past.

I agree that MO should not be used as is on iPhone.

I have been using XBMC for a while now (Still using my LinuxMCE Core as a NAS and dualbooting my MD's as XBMC/MD exept for the diskless ones).
There is a iPhone/iPodTouch remote app for XBMC and it works very well for XBMC.

I'm not saying that this is the only way to do it, just that it is a good indication on how it can be done...

They have 2 videos on their site, showing off both XBMC and the remote:
http://remote.collect3.com.au/

[totallymaxed]

Look you and i have different views on this...I'm not 'inciting' an argument at all. But as I have said before, and I firmly believe, that the MO is not necessarily the right approach for iPhone. We see iPhone as a rich device that has a whole aproach to Apps (and their UI) that is very different. We just dont see that the MO is the right approach on iPhone at all. We'd like to see a nicely crafted iPhone app that feels like an iPhone app to users and exploits the iPhone's UI paradigm fully (and respectfully). In our view doing anything less on the iPhone would not be a great idea. It would be like porting a Windoze style App to the Mac...and not doing a real Mac UI...how many times have we all seen that in the past.

I agree that MO should not be used as is on iPhone.

I have been using XBMC for a while now (Still using my LinuxMCE Core as a NAS and dualbooting my MD's as XBMC/MD exept for the diskless ones).
There is a iPhone/iPodTouch remote app for XBMC and it works very well for XBMC.

I'm not saying that this is the only way to do it, just that it is a good indication on how it can be done...

They have 2 videos on their site, showing off both XBMC and the remote:
http://remote.collect3.com.au/

Yes I agree that XBMC iPhone remote looks nicely crafted... and is pretty much in line with what I would think we need from an iPhone Orbiter UI.

Andrew

[davegravy]

Any updates, Caiman?

[Viking]

Just to fill in - I would also pay 25$ (or more) for an iPod orbiter if it were available.

[davegravy]

Bump

[caiman]

Any updates, Caiman?

Yes, this is still going on with the architecture, feature list defined and the main individual features tested separately. Now I need to put it all together

[Philosophy]

[Disclaimer:  total noob to both LinuxMCE and iPhone/touch apps] 

any complications / possibilities now that the iPad has been announced? 
Or,
does everyone expect the LinuxMCE web interface on the iPad to be much more usable?