iOS client

When I travel now, I only take my ipad and phone. I know you are working on revising the touch app but have you given any thought to also doing a full client version for the ipad? I guess it could be combined with touch but I think there are good reasons for a separate app.

Don't know about anyone else but I would be willing to buy such an app at a price close to if not equal to the full Indigo price.

Thoughts?


Terry

[matt (support)]

Hi Terry,

We have considered adding more management/setup functionality to Indigo Touch. It could be done either as a separate app, or maybe an in-app purchase (agreed there are some reasons why a separate app would be better). We'll be evaluating our Indigo Touch / iOS feature requests over the next several months (after we get v6 final). It is definitely overdue for a major rev.

Would other folks be willing to pay for a more complete Indigo client on your iPhone / iPad? If so, what features management/setup features would you consider must-haves? And how much would you be willing to pay (if anything)?

Would other folks be willing to pay for a more complete Indigo client on your iPhone / iPad? If so, what features management/setup features would you consider must-haves? And how much would you be willing to pay (if anything)?

I'd be willing to pay for a more fully-featured iOS client, but I don't personally want or need management/setup features. A rich UI (such as a prettier app icon, customizable device icons (fan, lamp, etc.), maybe replace the device on/off pop-up with right-justified iOS-style switches, allow the user to sort the device list manually) and some new features (ehem, location-triggered Actions) is all I want. Control Pages kinda serve to customize the UI, but they're overkill unless you have some really specific goals. I don't. Indigo Touch is exactly what I want, it just needs some updates and polish.

Hi Terry,

We have considered adding more management/setup functionality to Indigo Touch. It could be done either as a separate app, or maybe an in-app purchase (agreed there are some reasons why a separate app would be better). We'll be evaluating our Indigo Touch / iOS feature requests over the next several months (after we get v6 final). It is definitely overdue for a major rev.

Would other folks be willing to pay for a more complete Indigo client on your iPhone / iPad? If so, what features management/setup features would you consider must-haves? And how much would you be willing to pay (if anything)?

It would be great if you could incorporate some location based goodness. Home and away are the obvious ones, but triggering arbitrary action groups based on a geo-fence would be awesome.

@bobeast: +1

For me the iOS client doesn't need management features. That's what I use the Indigo Client for on my Mac.

I don’t think i’d see much benefit from being able to administer the server remotely either.. I’d much rather the effort went into improving the control features such as the afore mentioned location services, plus improvements to the control page service like the ability to define different default pages for different users, lock orientation, push and hold functionality for buttons (E.G. scrolling through TV channels is a right pain as i have to keep pressing up up up up up all the time)

I would love to see some kind of location services/geofencing in the Indigo client.

While I already have growl/prowl setup, push notifications may be another feature that makes sense for the client.

For remote management, I use VNC on my iPad. While I may use/purchase it if it was reasonable ($5-$10), I'd rather have resources spent elsewhere (Insteon link management could use a bit of work, but that's for another post).

I would love to see some kind of location services/geofencing in the Indigo client.

I was just thinking the same thing. Geofencing would make so much sense, just think of the possibilities!

On the more boring front; at this point I would pretty much expect the iPhone app to have been updated for the iPhone 5 screen already. Any roadmap on that?

And yes, I'd absolutely be willing to pay for a more complete Indigo iOS client.

[matt (support)]

An update for the iPhone 5 screen size is definitely overdue, but unfortunately I don't think we'll have time to get to it until we work on the next major update of Indigo Touch (after Indigo 6 is released). With the App store process there is no such thing as a quick or easy release, unfortunately.

With the App store process there is no such thing as a quick or easy release, unfortunately.

At the company I work for; we've actually seen the Apple approval/release times drop dramatically lately, some of our app revisions have appeared in the app store within a few days from submission. Who knows the reason, maybe they hired more approvers, or maybe they're just more lax these days...It's definitely faster than it used to be though.

<veering off topic, caution ahead>
Matt and Jay being out of bandwidth is an entirely different subject though. Short of them employing additional resources, they'd pretty much just have to open source the IndigoTouch iOS (like my plans weith the Android client I'm working on) app in which case they'd just be two of the hopefully many developers working on it. Even though I doubt there is much if any IP in the iOS app, Perceptive Automation would lose creative control over the direction of the app which could clash with their business model. There are options to mitigate that of course...

<well off topic, turn back now>
What "I" would like to see from a mobile client is basically an HTML5 app that is wrapped in native code with the necessary javascript accelerators. I think that will provide Perceptive Automation the most versatility and support across the mobile market, and faster cycle-times across revisions/enhancements. Coded *properly*, an HTML5 based app can be as fast as a native app and certainly the current objects Indigo pushes to the client are well supported. Things like support for pop-ups, sliders, embedded audio/video then becomes exponentially easier to implement client-side, while at the same time allowing tie-ins to native functionality with the parent wrapper.

<returning to topic>
+1 on at least retina screen support ASAP.

Terry

[jay (support)]

they'd pretty much just have to open source the IndigoTouch iOS (like my plans weith the Android client I'm working on) app in which case they'd just be two of the hopefully many developers working on it. Even though I doubt there is much if any IP in the iOS app, Perceptive Automation would lose creative control over the direction of the app which could clash with their business model. There are options to mitigate that of course...

Open sourcing iOS apps is much more challenging given that apps must go through the app submission process to be installed by users. Not impossible for an open-source project, but of course someone has to take responsibility for building/submitting, etc. And you'd need to be very diligent about watching that functionality not allowed doesn't make it's way in. All in all, it's probably more than we want to tackle (at the moment at least). And giving up some control is definitely something we'd want to consider closely.

What "I" would like to see from a mobile client is basically an HTML5 app that is wrapped in native code with the necessary javascript accelerators.

Much easier said than done. For instance, one problem we found when originally doing Indigo Touch is that embedded WebKit views couldn't programmatically supply credentials (as far as we could find - and that may have changed) so facilitating the login sequence (particularly given the prism reflector insertion) was problematic. I believe there were some issues with https as well.

Then you have the problem of device-specific functionality that's not (consistently) supported in HTML 5. Of course, by mixing webkit views in with native functionality you may be able to deal with it, it's just not as clear-cut as just going native for everything.

In all honesty, HTML5 looks great and I definitely think that's one possible future direction. But I'm not convinced that it's quite as good a user experience as using native apps/controls (yet). Many of the HTML5 things I've seen just look and feel a bit wrong. Again, maybe someday it will improve to the point that we're satisfied with it.

The much more likely scenario is that we'll beef up the IWS web pages so that the look & feel is more like IT - they should also adapt to the browser size characteristics better so they look better on various devices. The user experience won't be quite as good as IT, but it should be pretty decent. This is a task that's pretty high on our list for the next major revision of Indigo (post Indigo 6) but of course we can't really commit to anything beyond Indigo 6 at the moment.

Plus one on paying for more features, one person said location aware! That would be awesome.

For me, paying and always paying is not so nice.
I know it's a lot of work, but really, the last update was in 2010, 2 and a half year ago. The app is free but the server isn't.
I don't change my phone every month but now I have iPod Touch and iPhone 5 who have an app with s small screen use only.
When I think about a pro version of Indigo I assume that the iPhone/iPad client (with normal use) should be free and updated more frequently, really. I see thousands of updated app…
This version miss the new screen size, and the ability to activate/deactivate scheduled items, and I would appreciate the schedule list to at least see next things.

For administration, why not, in a new app or not. But I think I would prefer on the same app so I'm sure we have more updates of it.

Indigo is really something huge, nice, we love it and this version 6 seems to brings a lot of new great things.
But then we use it every day and the touch app too, who don't ?

I hope after 6 is finally officially out a first update of Touch comes really fast to correct the size screen, and then later new functions.
And I hope then updates comes more frequently (ok not for nothing). I hope because I like, I use and I can't make without :

Thanks

[jay (support)]

Keep in mind that our competitors charge for the client and for per-client licenses. Having an unlimited free client is not something you'll find with anyone else...

So lets say Indigo updates yearly at ±$75 and iTouch updates yearly at ±$25. That's $100 a year, $8 a month, or $.30 a day.

Your HA runs 24/7, and look at all the great functionality we get. Is that not worth $.30 a day?

Nobody likes spending money [except my girlfriend] but geez this is the most reasonably priced software ever! Then you add the near-real-time FREE support! It must be tough being a software developer in a world where users are used to $.99 apps, and won't buy it if it's $2.99.

I vote for charging whatever you feel your market will bear, BUT I would want more features and faster turnarounds.

My must have features ASAP:
- Control page editor redo [so hard to get professional GUI results from an editor that feels like 1980's]

- Pop-up editor [the ability to stay on the same iPad screen and get details via a pop-up instead of linking to a different screen, so an editor that allows you to create all facets of a custom pop-up GUI]

Unfortunately these are part of Indigo, but they create items for Touch. So what good is a Touch update if we can't create the designs/functions we need?

- More direct involvement from PA re: 3rd party plugins [Charging? Profit sharing? If developers stop updating their plugins that we count on, we are all in a world of hurt]

My full wish list in detail http://www.perceptiveautomation.com/userforum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9445