Thread: Front End App for iPad

I've been waiting for something like this. I got some ideas for settings.

-if you could set it up to stay on whenever it is being charged.
-option to display videos on the iPad or output to headrest monitors etc.
-when power is not sensed, so if you turn your car off the music is paused and it automatically locks the screen.
-set dim times, so you can specify that it dims from 8pm to 7am because it gets very bright at night.
-tethering option within the app to connect to MyWi etc for wifi only models.
-music search integration. You might checkout SoundHound. It let's you find songs with voice control and displays lyrics and YouTube videos so you can listen to full song.
-customizable themes, or at least some features to change it up a bit.
And integration of music and video library....

Awesome to hear more dev going into Car iPad apps!

Since the iPad takes up so much space, having climate control would help a ton, especially if you're trying to relocate your climate controls, you could eliminate them all together. Or is there more to that?

Definitely need something like one of those cop spotting social networks. Would be nice while driveing to see where the dildos like to hide

Originally Posted by torres1708

I've been waiting for something like this. I got some ideas for settings.

-if you could set it up to stay on whenever it is being charged.
-option to display videos on the iPad or output to headrest monitors etc.
-when power is not sensed, so if you turn your car off the music is paused and it automatically locks the screen.
-set dim times, so you can specify that it dims from 8pm to 7am because it gets very bright at night.
-tethering option within the app to connect to MyWi etc for wifi only models.
-music search integration. You might checkout SoundHound. It let's you find songs with voice control and displays lyrics and YouTube videos so you can listen to full song.
-customizable themes, or at least some features to change it up a bit.
And integration of music and video library....

These are some great ideas. Let me echo a couple for +1:

1. Always on when power is on, i.e. doesn't go to sleep. Early beta feature.

2. It would be nice if you could make it output video to a separate output *while* displaying something else like the speedo or Google map on the main screen. I'm not sure this is possible, but it's definitely worth looking into, although maybe as a later feature.

3. Auto sense of power to pause music would be really, really cool. Early beta feature.

4. Dim times! An early feature, for sure. Either can be set by the user and/or use location to figure out sunset and do it automatically.

5. I have voice control enabled on my iPad and it works pretty well unless you have the windows open. Maybe holding down on a button for more than 2 seconds or something like that would activate it. Later feature.

6. Customizable themes would be nice. Maybe you can pick backgrounds from the photos menu or whatever.

7. External communication with other devices. One request was for a Fusion Brain type plug in. I think if you ever look at that option, you should pretty much allow the FE to communicate with a web server. Then, you can control an FB module plugged into a separate computer like a low power Sheeva or igep running a server that can interpret your commands. That allows you to control stuff not only in your car but also anything connected to your network. If you have a local Lan, you can control stuff on your local network. If you have internet connectivity, you could control stuff out in the ether.

One option for the external stuff is to look at the OSDash project, which provides services you can interface with. Anyhow, that's a later enhancement.

8. One other feature I thought of is some type of bluetooth configuration control. I seem to always have to go into the settings to get my BT device to work. It would be nice to be able to control that from in the app.

Just as a basic design principle I'd suggest building core functionality and leaving less common stuff out of the app. The user can always switch to another app and run that. While it isn't 'integrated', using something like Circuitous or iOS4 app switching, it's not all that bad.

Most FE's work pretty well at the beginning, then slow down and become difficult to configure and set up because they get too many features. The nice part of the iOS approach is that you can add functionality via additional apps without bloating the original package. So, for example, if you want to control your hvac, maybe there's an app for that rather than putting it into the FE.

Thanks BugByte for putting that list together. Some very cool ideas. I've already started researching most of the features I hadn't thought of and they look very promising.

I totally agree that apps can get bloated and can cause slow down, but it all depends on the programmer, if he/she does proper memory management, then there shouldn't be that problem.

I'm getting more and more excited about putting together this app. I knew coming here would help to advance the app past my imagination. I'm moving this weekend, but when I get my office set up this following week, I will get back to this, and hopefully have some screenshots to show for ideas/suggestions/complaints.

Originally Posted by darbpunk

Awesome to hear more dev going into Car iPad apps!

Since the iPad takes up so much space, having climate control would help a ton, especially if you're trying to relocate your climate controls, you could eliminate them all together. Or is there more to that?

I will research some options, but it might require an extra system for the ipad to talk to, in order for it to work.

Taking from what PaulF did with CF, maybe have it communicate with a sheeva plug to work with all the hardware?

Originally Posted by optikalefx

Taking from what PaulF did with CF, maybe have it communicate with a sheeva plug to work with all the hardware?

My thoughts exactly.

The sheeva plug sounds really cool, and I can see many applications for it. When I can get my hands on one, I will definitely work on getting some extra things working with the app.

I'm moved in so I should be back to working on the app soon.