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The new Kaleidescape Mobile App has been released!

MikeKobb

MikeKobb

Well-known member
◥ ◣ Kaleidescape, Inc.
Hello all!

After months of development and testing (with beta help from a number of you!), the Kaleidescape Mobile App for the iPhone has been released! We're very excited to bring this new product to Kaleidescape customers worldwide.

iphone-main-image-updated.png


The app includes many features, but the three key ones are:
  1. Browse and search the Kaleidescape movie store and buy movies anytime, anywhere. Want to choose a movie to watch when you get home? With a few taps, you can make a purchase and start it downloading.
  2. Gesture-based remote control for all Kaleidescape players. The remote is designed from the ground up to be used "eyes up" -- looking at the screen rather than down at your phone. It's easy to navigate the onscreen display and control movie playback with simple gestures.
  3. Stay in touch with Kaleidescape. The app includes a notification mechanism that will keep you abreast of new movie releases, new product/service announcements, and important messages about your system.

You can download it from the App Store

Note for those of you who participated in the TestFlight beta -- you need to delete the Test Flight version before the App Store will let you install the released version.

If you didn't participate in the beta and would like to learn more about the app, we have a page on our web site with basic information, and can also read the press release.

This version of the app is for Apple iPhone (and iPad) devices running iOS 11 or later. For those of you who use Android, we're working on an Android version as well! We'll share more about the Android version when the release date gets closer.

Let me take a moment to thank everyone who provided input during the app's development, either by participating in our user research, or as beta testers. You've helped make this a better product. Of course, we are eager to hear feedback from everyone as you use the app. There's a feedback mechanism built in, and I'll keep an eye on this thread as well.
 
Thanks!

One other thing I should mention. The app has two features that may be of interest to those that use control systems.

First, we register a custom URL scheme that other apps can use to launch the Mobile App, switch to the Remote tab, and select a particular player. So, if you have a control system app on your phone, that app can potentially launch the Mobile App when you select the Kaleidescape player as your source, allowing you to use the gesture-based remote control.

Second, the app can send volume and mute commands to your control system via the player you're controlling. This allows your control system to adjust the volume level of your display or audio processor. With this feature enabled, then there's no need to switch to some other app or remote control to adjust volume during movie playback.

We've published a document that lays out how both of these mechanisms work.
 
Awesome release Mike. Usual K type interface, meaning very intuitive and excellent. Congrats on another excellent addition.

A request: is there any way to add “UV enabled” tag to the movies? Another request is to indicate UV owned, Store owned and Blu-Ray owned, for titles that are owned by us.
 
Thanks for the kind words and the feedback! Keep it coming.

Regarding showing ownership, we do actually show your current ownership of a movie on the movie details pages. If you already own the store's version of the movie at the quality level that's currently selected in the price popup, then the price is just shown as "Owned". If you own some other version, the ownership information is shown just above the popup.

This is different from the ownership indicators on the web version of the store, but we felt that those didn't work as well on the smaller phone screen, and we were also trying for a simpler look while conveying the same information.

IMG_5125.png
 
Not to be "that guy" Mike but are us Android people going to feel some love soon?
 
Yes indeed! See the next-to-last paragraph in my original post above. :)
 
Thanks for the offer! We're not ready for testers yet, but I will certainly post here when we are!
 
I am in for testing Android, too. I have the iOS app on my iPad, and I have a question. If I am out at dinner and ordering a movie to watch when we get home, in the scenario described, how do I clear space if necessary? That's a really important function, I think, but haven't figured it out yet, if it's in there.
 
Thanks Mike. I see the ownership information now.

Is there any way to identify movies that are UV enabled when buying through the app?
 
Hi HiFiGuy,

That's a feature we're looking to add in a future release. We agree it's an important use case. In the meantime, it might be a good idea to leave a little space free for those same-day downloads.

20Hertz -- the app does not currently show whether a purchase includes UltraViolet. It does show UV ownership when that applies. Look for a future update on this one.
 
No update to share beyond what's been written in the thread already. We are working on an Android version, and will likely seek beta testers when the app is far enough along. We're too early in the development at this point.
 
I was surprised tonight as we had some friends over to watch a movie. I could control the pausing and playing through my Apple Watch. Must be integrated with the new app. Sweet!
 
Yeah, glad you like that! We expose media controls on the iPhone lock screen when the phone locks while the app is controlling a zone that has active playback. That also has the effect of showing the controls on the Apple Watch.

Note: Apple's API for these controls is somewhat limited, and you can't really tailor the buttons and controls that it shows. So, the phone presents a volume slider that does not have any effect in this situation. It also shows icons that look like fast-forward and rewind, but that actually do skip forward and skip back.
 
I have a couple general questions on the iOS apps:

- is there also an iPad app with equivalent support and functions?
- can you control what was installed on your Strato in the app, anywhere? So deleted downloaded content or start downlaods?
- can you buy content in the iOS itself? Or does it kick you to the web page because of Apple’s 30% take?
- can you browse your owned content like the on-player movie wall and the have it do the reshuffling thing?

Thanks!
 
There are currently two iOS apps.

The Kaleidescape App for iPad, which is the older of the two, was designed to treat the iPad as a sort of "second screen" interface. You can use the iPad app on your LAN to browse the contents of your system on the iPad's screen, and choose content that will then play on your chosen player. It supports both a list-based interface and a covers interface, with shuffle. It has a button-based remote control. It does not run on the smaller iPhone screen.

The Kaleidescape Mobile App (recently released) is really designed as a phone app, but it will run on the iPad in Apple's standard zoomed-up presentation. You can have both apps on your iPad if you like. It is not a second screen app. It allows browsing the movie store, watching trailers, and purchasing movies that will be downloaded to your system. That functionality is available anywhere there's a network connection. If you're on your LAN with your system, you can also control your player(s) using a gesture-based user interface that is designed to be used "eyes up" while looking at the screen, rather than having to look down to find buttons to tap.

Neither app currently supports deleting content. The mobile app does support purchase directly in the app, and you can also manage your download queue. Since you're not buying content to consume on your mobile device, Apple's revenue share does not apply.

I hope that we'll eventually update the new mobile app to take proper advantage of the iPad screen.
 
(Okay, actually, three iOS apps. There's also Kaleidescape Disc Search, which allows you to scan the barcode of a physical disc to see whether you own that title already, and whether it's available for purchase from the movie store.)
 
MikeKobb said:
There are currently two iOS apps.

The Kaleidescape App for iPad, which is the older of the two, was designed to treat the iPad as a sort of "second screen" interface. You can use the iPad app on your LAN to browse the contents of your system on the iPad's screen, and choose content that will then play on your chosen player. It supports both a list-based interface and a covers interface, with shuffle. It has a button-based remote control. It does not run on the smaller iPhone screen.

The Kaleidescape Mobile App (recently released) is really designed as a phone app, but it will run on the iPad in Apple's standard zoomed-up presentation. You can have both apps on your iPad if you like. It is not a second screen app. It allows browsing the movie store, watching trailers, and purchasing movies that will be downloaded to your system. That functionality is available anywhere there's a network connection. If you're on your LAN with your system, you can also control your player(s) using a gesture-based user interface that is designed to be used "eyes up" while looking at the screen, rather than having to look down to find buttons to tap.

Neither app currently supports deleting content. The mobile app does support purchase directly in the app, and you can also manage your download queue. Since you're not buying content to consume on your mobile device, Apple's revenue share does not apply.

I hope that we'll eventually update the new mobile app to take proper advantage of the iPad screen.
Click to expand...

I would encourage you folks to (in the long run) to bring the apps together into a unified download and more parity in features. I always find that nicer in the iOS ecosystem having the same app listing be multi-download to iPhone/iPad vs. having individual apps.

In addition, I would further recommend adding capability to fully manage/delete content through the apps, whether on local network or away.

As I plan my entry into K, I will be a buyer that opts for just a Strato knowing my library will far surpass the storage. So, I will have to manage that storage and what is resident.

Actually, if it not there, it would great to have more involved content management on the systems. Like flags for downloaded content to not be deleted, but if a system is out of space, have it figure out what to delete (ex. oldest watched, unflagged content) automatically.
 
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