Remotescape 2.0 adds full movie support

[Zok]

Just a quick note to let everyone on the forum know that today we launched Remotescape v2.0 for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.

This is a major update, and by popular demand, Remotescape now lets your browse your complete movie library, directly on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch!

Here's a screenshot of the iPad version showing movie cover art:


And here's a screenshot of the iPhone version's movie cover art view:


This is a free upgrade for all existing Remotescape customers. Remotescape for iPad is on sale until May 1st, 2011 for $179. Remotescape for iPhone & iPod touch is still just $99.

You can find out more and see lots of screenshots at the Remotescape web site.

We're very excited about the 2.0 release, and we hope you enjoy it!
--Dan.

 

[nrwatson]

Great news

 

[JDS]

This is the upgrade I have been waiting for..... no excuse not to get an Ipad now.

 

[AnOutsider]

Cool! I'm running the iPhone version on iPad, but still works great!

 

[rtaylor3rd]

This is a great feature I'm sure many have been awaiting. I really like the "Show Movie on Kaleidescape". I use it to queue the chosen movie for later viewing. You must get the iPad version.

 

[brodricj]

Unfortunately it's not on sale in the Australian App store. The Remotescape iPad version is currently priced at $229.99 AUD which makes it about $243 USD, or $64 USD more expensive than the sale price in the US App store!
I wish you were able to offer an upgrade path for those who have the iPhone version but want the iPad version.

 

[JerryL]

Awesome- thank you.

 

[AnOutsider]

This is a great feature I'm sure many have been awaiting. I really like the "Show Movie on Kaleidescape". I use it to queue the chosen movie for later viewing. You must get the iPad version.

Perhaps, but I honestly just do not feel the price is justified. In the grand scheme of what we've dumped into the kscape ecosystem, it's not much, but that's not the point.

Unfortunately it's not on sale in the Australian App store. The Remotescape iPad version is currently priced at $229.99 AUD which makes it about $243 USD, or $64 USD more expensive than the sale price in the US App store!
I wish you were able to offer an upgrade path for those who have the iPhone version but want the iPad version.

I agree. I already feel the app is overpriced, something like this would at least ease the burden.

 

[brodricj]

I had a play with Remotescape 2.0 for iPhone on my iPad last night and it's great! Something else new (I think, can't be sure about this), is when you're in landscape music coverart view in the top left corner of the screen is a button to jump to movie coverart view. And in the top right corner of the same screen is a pause button. This makes life easier when the iPad is wall mounted in landscape. It would be even better if Dan could add the other transport buttons below the pause button in the next update.

 

[Zok]

Unfortunately it's not on sale in the Australian App store. The Remotescape iPad version is currently priced at $229.99 AUD which makes it about $243 USD, or $64 USD more expensive than the sale price in the US App store!

Believe it or not, it is on sale in the Australian App Store! The Apple App Store only allows developers to select a single "price tier", which is really just the USD price. Then Apple automatically sets the prices for all the other currencies.

I just checked current foreign exchange rates, and you're quite right that Apple's rates for USD->AUD conversion are way off. Unfortunately, there's no way at the moment to set prices separately for each country. (Google's Android Market has this feature, so maybe Apple will add it too?)
--Dan.

 

[josh]

I finally got around to trying this, and I'm blown away by the new UI and feature set. Movies were clearly "second-class" in the last Remotescape in terms of the full UI treatment, and this upgrade completely addresses that and brings a cleaner new look and feel. Congrats to the Remotescape team... I'm loving my new ipad Remotescape interface.

 

[brodricj]

Josh, did you have the iPhone v2.0 installed on iPad previously and have upgraded to the iPad v2.0, or are you directing your comments just at the new features of v2.0 generally?

 

[josh]

Josh, did you have the iPhone v2.0 installed on iPad previously and have upgraded to the iPad v2.0, or are you directing your comments just at the new features of v2.0 generally?

Personally, I will almost never install iphone apps on my iPad. So I had not installed the newer iPhone remotescape on my iPad, so this was my first exposure to the new functionality.

 

[josh]

Ok, now having spent some more time with the new Remotescape, I had a few additional things to add.

I continue to really be impressed with the new movies interface. It's very cool to navigate your collection natively on the iPad and control the Kaleidescape in a much more natural way than before.

It's got one real annoyance you should be aware of:

• NO MULTI-TASKING SUPPORT: the app is not handling iOS multi-tasking in the ideal way. If you switch over to another app or go back to the iOS home screen, and then go back to Remotescape via the "Running apps" task-bar/dock thing, the app should simply be exactly where you had left it. Instead, it runs through its startup process again just as if you launched it for the first time... splashscreen with the logo, scanning your collection to see if anything's changed, etc.
  
  This may be a serious usability issue unless you intend for this iPad to be a dedicated Kaleidescape remote and not be used for other iPad tasks or home control. Like most people, I use a home-theater iPad for a lot of things... i may toggle over to IMDB or Amazon for more info on the movie, may be looking at reviews or checking another system in the home. Having the slow Remotescape startup process be invoked every time you toggle back to the app is quite annoying.

And I do have a few wishes for future revs of the app (but I'm aware the majority of users may not care about these items one bit).

WISHLIST:

• PORTRAIT ORIENTATION: The app is permanently in landscape mode. It's well laid-out but I can't see a reason that the UI wouldn't work well in portrait orientation as well. Not a huge deal... but there will be users who use a tabletop mount or wall mount, or a particular case that can make one orientation necessary, or at least more natural. Would be nice to see it handle either orientation in the future.

• ACCESS TO COLLECTIONS (*): I'd like to be able to add movies to collections (or remove them) and better manage my movie library from the app. You can call up a movie's details and see the basic metadata, but you can't manipulate the Kaleidescape collections tags for the movie. At the very least, I wish the UI would let me see my collections and select movies for playing that way, as I use this Kaleidescape feature extensively.
  

• FAVORITE SCENES & SCRIPTS (*): Similar to the request for Collections, I'd like the app to allow me see my favorite scenes for a movie while I'm on the screen for that movie's details. Better still, I'd like to be able to add FS's, edit them, name them, etc.
  
  
  (*) YES, I'm aware I can use Remotescape's "Remote" mode to control the on-screen Kaleidescape UI to get to these functions, but I'd like to be able to browse and edit collections and FavScenes right from the native app, even while a movie is playing, just like I can do with browsing actors, genres, or viewing all the covers. ​

• INTERNAL LINKING: It's cool that it has lists of directors and actors, so I can find all Harrison Ford movies, but when I'm on the details of a Harrison Ford movie, but there's way to access that search function from a movie's details page. Would be great to have the cast list on the details page become hyperlinks that could take you to the other movies where that actor/director appears. Remotescape can accomplish this, but it's a long manual process: view a movie, see an actor's name, go back to "Cast & Directors" and now manually type in that name or find it in the list. Simple workaround is for Remotescape to permit iOS copy and paste functions (it doesn't right now). Then at least I could copy an actor's name from the details page, and paste it in to the search function.

• EXTERNAL LINKING: Want to really blow people away? Add in "See this movie on IMDB" or "See on Rotten Tomatoes" or "Search for Reviews" or "See it on Common Sense Media" functions to the movies details page. I'm always looking for reviews of movies in my collections before I watch or "re-watch" a movie for the night. It's frustrating that Kaleidescape apparently USED to have movie reviews on their details pages (rumor?) in very early versions of the software (much like they do for music), but apparently removed it as directors and producers that were Kaleidescape customers didn't like seeing negative reviews of their own stuff in their homes. Remotescape can bring back this excellent functionality for us.

• OFFLINE MODE: The app seems to copy all of your movie data into local storage. I see in the 1Remote youtube video that they implemented an offline mode so you can see what's in your collection when you're away from the home. That's brilliant... wish Remotescape had it to help me with purchases while at the store. (Kaleidescape has it's own app for this, but integrating it into the remote app is a nice idea).

That's what I can think of now, will add more as I use it more. Hope that's helpful for users considering this app (and maybe for the devs also).

--josh

 

[JDS]

Thanks for posting your observations. This app seems to be developing very well.

I also noted that the 1remote app has an offline mode. This function will be useful to non US based owners as the K app is not available outside the US.

The ability to view my collection details when away from home is a great function which I look forward to benefiting from.

 

[Zok]

Remotescape 2.1 released!

NO MULTI-TASKING SUPPORT: the app is not handling iOS multi-tasking in the ideal way. If you switch over to another app or go back to the iOS home screen, and then go back to Remotescape via the "Running apps" task-bar/dock thing, the app should simply be exactly where you had left it. Instead, it runs through its startup process again just as if you launched it for the first time... splashscreen with the logo, scanning your collection to see if anything's changed, etc.

This may be a serious usability issue unless you intend for this iPad to be a dedicated Kaleidescape remote and not be used for other iPad tasks or home control. Like most people, I use a home-theater iPad for a lot of things... i may toggle over to IMDB or Amazon for more info on the movie, may be looking at reviews or checking another system in the home. Having the slow Remotescape startup process be invoked every time you toggle back to the
app is quite annoying.

Josh -- this is fixed in v2.1, available in the App Store now. We added support for iOS 4 multitasking, as you suggested above.

EXTERNAL LINKING: Want to really blow people away? Add in "See this movie on IMDB" or "See on Rotten Tomatoes" or "Search for Reviews" or "See it on Common Sense Media" functions to the movies details page. I'm always looking for reviews of movies in my collections before I watch or "re-watch" a movie for the night. It's frustrating that Kaleidescape apparently USED to have movie reviews on their details pages (rumor?) in very early versions of the software (much like they do for music), but apparently removed it as directors and producers that were Kaleidescape customers didn't like seeing negative reviews of their own stuff in their homes. Remotescape can bring back this excellent functionality for us.

We read your detailed forum thread about this feature, and thought it was great. We've added buttons on the movie details views in v2.1 to look up the movie on IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, or Common Sense Media. I hope you enjoy it!

All your other suggestions above are also much appreciated, and we've added them to our feature wishlist.
--Dan.

 

[brodricj]

Yes, the v2.1 is available for update in the App store, however I can't see any release notes for it there in the App description. It still says "What's new in version 2.0.0"
An upgrade path from the iPhone version to the iPad version would still be nice (other than just buying the iPad version outright, and thus not having a use for the iPhone version any more).

 

[Zok]

Yes, the v2.1 is available for update in the App store, however I can't see any release notes for it there in the App description. It still says "What's new in version 2.0.0"

It might take a few hours or so for the app information to propagate to all the App Store countries. It should eventually show you what's new in 2.1.0.
--Dan.

 

[brodricj]

Dan, can you also add to the wishlist to have portrait mode work whether the power button on iPad is up or down? It only works with the button down. Landscape mode works whether the power button is left or right.

 

[Zok]

Dan, can you also add to the wishlist to have portrait mode work whether the power button on iPad is up or down? It only works with the button down. Landscape mode works whether the power button is left or right.

I believe that's because on the iPhone, the portrait mode only works with the home button at the bottom, and you're running the iPhone version on an iPad. If we do a portrait mode for the iPad version, it won't have this problem.
--Dan.