CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal | Version 1.2 (2011-08-05)

CouchPotato MediaPortal Remote is an iOS app for iPhone and iPod touch that acts as a remote control for your MediaPortal.


You can get a good first impression of the app by watching this video that I quickly put together for the beta:
YouTube - CouchPotato MediaPortal Remote



Download

You can download the app from Apple's App Store:
CouchPotato MediaPortal Fernbedienung für iPhone, iPod touch und iPad im iTunes App Store

I will update you on any progress in this thread and on Twitter (@MePoCouchPotato).

I thought long and hard about making this a free or a paid app. To publish it on the App Store (the only way you can publish an app for more than 100 devices that are not jailbroken) I have to pay a fee to Apple every year. Because of this the app will cost some bucks, sorry guys.



Features

• Remote Control MediaPortal
  You can control MediaPortal like you would do with a normal remote control: There are buttons to navigate (up, down, left, right, ok and back), action buttons (menu, info, home, fullscreen, channel up, channel down), volume buttons (increase and decrease volume, mute and unmute) and player control buttons (play/pause, fast forward, rewind, next, previous)
  
  You can even control the basic features of MediaPortal with easy gestures without looking at your device.
  
• “Configuration free”
  There is no need to configure CouchPotato, it will auto-detect all MediaPortal installations on your local network. Just tap a MediaPortal in the server list and you are ready to control it.
  
• Open plugins
  You can select a plugin from a list to directly open it
  
• Power options
  You can shutdown your HTPC, send it to hibernate or standby, suspend it, exit MediaPortal or log off windows
  
• Keyboard input
  Enter text on the onscreen keyboard. When a keyboard appears in MediaPortal it will also appear in CouchPotato
  
• Get status information
  CouchPotato has a status display that shows the name of the connected MediaPortal, the active module and the currently active element.
  
• Get information about now playing media
  When you start playing a file an info button will appear. Pressing this button will display information about the currently playing media (MP-TV Series, Moving Pictures and MyVideos are supported at the moment).
  
• Wake on LAN
  Start your MediaPortal with CouchPotato via Wake on LAN.

Goals

When I started this project about a year ago my goal was to make a native iPhone app that was as “Apple-like” as possible. Apple-like in my opinion is something that is easy to use, does most of the thinking for you and looks and feels good.




How it works

CouchPotato finds your MediaPortal through Bonjour and connects to it via wifi, so you have to be on the same network as your HTPC. It needs a process plugin called “WifiRemote”. Click the link to learn more about this plugin.




Requirements

To use CouchPotato you will need an iPhone or iPod touch with at least iOS 4.0. Also the MediaPortal you want to control needs the WifiRemote process plugin installed and running and it has to be on the same network as your iOS device.

For Wake on LAN to work your HTPC has to be connected to the network via cable and it has to be configured to wake up on WoL signals.




Roadmap

This is how I see future development of CouchPotato at the moment. Please be aware that this may and will change! But it may give you an idea where I want to take this. Your input is of course very welcome and will be considered!


Version 1.0 Released

• First release, remote control.

Version 1.0.1 Released

• Fixed: crash when adding/removing favorites
• Fixed: possible crash on server detection
• Fixed: keyboard blank space not working
• Fixed: connection problems with active bluetooth
• Fixed: Keyboard not disappearing when returning from background
• Fixed: Changed deployment target to iOS 4.0
• Changed: intro screen to match website logo

Version 1.1 Released (forum post)

• New: Control MediaPortal with gestures
• New: Add servers manually
• New: Social integration (post now playing to FB, Twitter, ...)
• New: Progress bar for now playing
• New: My Music now playing
• New: Setting to fully hide toolbar
• New: Spanish translation (Thanks a ton, Aitor!)
• Fixed: Some bugs regarding connecting and reconnecting

Version 1.2 Released (forum post)

• New: Status display on now playing view
• New: Now playing view updates according to MediaPortal
• New: Swipe with two fingers left and right to change channels
• New: Pinch when player not in fullscreen mode to go to home
• Changed: Optimized gestures: tap -> ok, double tap -> back, two finger tap -> play/pause, two finger double tap -> stop
• Changed: You can now tap the progress bar anywhere to change player position
• Changed: (Hopefully) optimized gesture recognition
• Fixed: Hide/show toolbar with two-finger-swipe up/down now also working on remote view
• Fixed: Ok and back gestures didn't work in fullscreen player mode
• Fixed: Taps on gesture area sometimes triggered remote buttons
• Fixed: Fixed some small bugs

Version 1.3

• Feature release. Browse media library and start playback of files.

Version 1.4

• Feature release. iPad layout, conversion to universal app.

Version 1.5

• Feature release. Streaming from MediaPortal to CouchPotato?

Screenshots

See attached images.

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

Hey Andy,

thanks for the kind words.

I tested on iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3. DieBagger tested a while back on an iPod touch, but if one or two of you iPod touch users out there could drop me a PM that could be helpful.

Upload status: I only have to polish the "tutorial", then will hit the submit button ... Let's hope Apple is okay with this version and doesn't reject it

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

Great, that is what we need, a decent iOS app that controls MP. Are you planning to add Media Browsing and selection capabilities as well as an iPad orientated interface?

The reason for my questions is, that I am looking for a good solution to use my iPad to browse my Music library and start it playing from my htpc without turning on the TV. MPDisplay2 did not work (no touch controls on iPad), iPiMP does work, but the interface needs a lot of improvement (aka coverflow?).

Did you have a look at the android remote app (aMPdroid, http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/w...-ampdroid-android-mediaportal-client-92111/)? You guys should share the backend.

So if you go ahead and add all that I would definatly give a contribution (donation / buying). I can also assist in Testing as I have my device jailbroken (iPad not yet).

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

btw: great icon!

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

We already do (WifiRemote)... For mediabrowsing and tv I use other services though (GmaWebservice/Tv4Home) which shukujen is not (yet? ).

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

Right, not yet

As you can see on the "Roadmap" (first post) I want to do media browsing and an iPad layout. I have to admit that I am kind of slow, so please don't expect that to happen in the next week ;-)

I am definitely looking at what DieBagger is doing with aMPdroid and we are talking about that stuff, too. This already resulted in some good features and improvements for the WifiRemote plugin ...