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Materialized – Remote Control Collection

Steppschuh22. February 2015 0 Comments

One of the things that make Android L awesome is the new Material Design. Of course the Remote Control Collection won’t miss out following new design guidelines – so I created the app from scratch and made sure it would fit well into the new Android environment.

New UX

I’ve completely redesigned the whole experience, not only the UI. Keeping the Google guidelines and lectures from my recent Human Computer Interaction class in mind, I changed the way users would need to interact with the app. For the first time ever, I took advantage of usability testing and used the feedback from communities, highly engaged users and testers to build an app that maintains it’s complex functionality while being super intuitive to use.

Comparison Over Time

Taking a look back to the first release of the app, which was in late 2012, the UI has changed quite a bit. Here’s a comparison of version 1.3 (Gingerbread), version 2.2 (ICS, Holo design) and version 3.2 (L, Material design).

Winning the SAP InnoJam and DemoJam

Steppschuh12. November 2014 0 Comments

Project: Remote Farm

You probably know about FarmVille, a game where you can build a farm in your browser. The problem is that you only have a virtual farm so you will never eat your harvested fruits. Remote farming provides the possibility to plant, water, fertilize, and harvest your own plants in real life taking into account concepts like social media and gamification. This app enables you to monitor the growth of your plants by checking live sensor data and even lets you watch the plants grow using a Webcam – literally.

SAP InnoJam

Together with 4 of my fellow students I participated at this years InnoJam in Berlin, a coding challenge contest where you get to learn about SAP technologies and partner with participants to build a prototype solution for a real-life business scenario or need. The theme was Internet of Things for the Agricultural Industry, so we came up with Remote Farm – and won the InnoJam.

SAP DemoJam

By winning the InnoJam we won the possibility to pitch our idea in front of a few thousand people at the SAP TechEd && d-code DemoJam. Six well prepared teams competed with us on stage, all having only 6 minutes to give a live demonstration of the apps. And it was up to the audience to choose the winner (with the help of the Clap-o-meter). We managed to convince the audience and also took home the prestigious DemoJam medal. You can take a look at the video of our demo presentation and at the live studio interview with Craig Cmehil, Global Director Developer Relations at SAP.

Remotify for Android Wear

Steppschuh14. October 2014 1 Comment

Get rid of your presenter and instead use your smartwatch to switch between slides. Skip the current track on your computer while sitting on your couch. Turn on the lights in your flat when you come home. Hook your smartwatch up to Arduino, Raspberry Pi or any other IoT-ready device and use it for whatever you want.

Google Award

Remotify is an Android Wear application that has been developed in 40 hours during the HackZurich hackathon by Leo Kotschenreuther, Fabio Niephaus an Stephan Schultz. It allows you to control any device with Internet access. Watch the demo video above to get a sense of what this prototype can be used for. It was nominated as finalist out of 101 other porjects from 350 participants and won the Google award as the best application with support for Android Wear.

Remote Control Collection Integration

The app matches well with the Remote Control Collection app for Android, which already has a community of over 1 million users that like the idea of home automation. For that reason, Remotify will be part of the Remote Control Collection and provide support for Android Wear, extending the usability even further. It will be available for users through the beta community on Google Plus.

Remote Control Apps – BB10 Native

Steppschuh26. March 2013 1 Comment

Es ist soweit, die Remote Control Collection ist ab jetzt als native App für BlackBerry 10 in der BlackBerry World verfügbar. Entwickelt mit Cascades und dem C++ App Framework ist dies die performanteste App, die ich bis heute veröffentlicht habe. Besitzer eines Z10 oder Q10 (und hoffentlich auch bald PlayBook Nutzer) können sich nun von dem bisherigen Android Port verabschieden.

Native BB10 vs Android Port

Doch warum der ganze Aufwand? Die Android Ports funktionierten zwar in der Android Runtime für BlackBerry, können aber in Sachen Design, Leistung und Systemintegration bei weitem nicht mit einer nativen App mithalten. Die neue Version bietet dem Nutzer neben einer, an das ‘Flow’ System angepassten, Benutzeroberfläche nicht nur ein ansprechendes Design. Auch die Performance entspricht einem vielfachen der Vorgänger, sie schlägt sogar die der nativen Android App um Längen.

Native BB10 vs Native Android

Kann die BlackBerry 10 App mit der Leistung der Android App mithalten? Um das herauszufinden habe ich ein Z10 (BB10) gegen ein Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Android 4.2.2) antreten lassen, das Ergebnis war verblüffend. Im direkten Vergleich konnte das Nexus durchschnittlich 1094 Befehle pro Minute übertragen, das Z10 stolze 6470!

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Remote Control Apps – Android Port

Steppschuh11. January 2013 0 Comments

Die neuste Version der Remote Control Collection, die seit einigen Wochen im Google Play Store verfügbar ist, steht nun auch in der BlackBerry App World zum Download bereit. Alle aus Android bekannten Funktionen sind enthalten, abgesehen von der Sprachsteuerung.

Neue Funktionen

Neben einem komplett erneuertem User Interface stehen zahlreiche neue Features bereit. Die Server Suche kann nun automatisch den Remote Control Server im Netzwerk identifizieren und erleichtert so die Einrichtung der Verbindung. Wird die App gestartet, verbindet sie sich automatisch mit bereits gespeicherten Servern.

Das übertragen von Daten zwischen Smartphone und Server basiert nun auf einem eigenen, stark komprimierten Netzwerkprotokoll. Dieses reduziert den benötigten Traffic auf nur 4% im Vergleich zu älteren Versionen und steigert die Performance enorm. Neue Funktionen der einzelnen Steueungen, wie beispielsweise die kombinierte Maus und Tastatur, probieren Sie sich am besten selbst aus.