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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.
