Thread: Introduction from Blue Hawk Solutions

Seeing that I have yet to really choose a front end, I wouldn't mind testing your software. But one thing is a must: good integration with gps software. If I can rid myself of Windows altogether, you have a winner...

Sir you just made my day.... I would love to help you out with development of a high quality mac based front end. As a hobby CarPC builder I have seen a lot of my friends and clients interest in a mac based carpc solution wavered by the lacking of a good high quality front end. I currently use ICE3 in my car. It is a good media playing front end, but lacks many features.

Here is a list of features that I would like to see in a Front End:

1. Both intel and PPC support, I find that the older ppc mac mini's more favorable because of their price, power consumption, and cooling. If a viable mac front end is available, otherwise its the intel ones to run windows.

2. Turn-by-Turn GPS integration, Something that has not been seen on macs at all

3. Plug and Play support, When I plug in a flash drive or CD/DVD an option apears to play the media from it.

4. XM/Sirius SAT Radio support, there is someone that has developed a USB adapter to control a sirusConnect radio, and while the drivers is available for Mac no software has been developed.

5. Bluetooth integration, The ability to connect phones and PDA's for hands free dialing and A2DP media streaming.

6. Plug-in API, Allowing users to develop plug-ins and skins.

This is just a quick list I put together, from working on Windows based CarPC's. I don't expect anything this developed as a first release, but it is nice to see a development company take up the charge, instead of a few users developing in their spare time.

I am not a developer, I wish I was, but I have a firm grasp of what people want and how things should work. I also have a good eye for UI design. So Please let me know if I can help with Beta Testing, or just suggesting Ideas. PM me for my email, I'm more easily accessible that way.

Jonathan

The main problem with a Mac front end that can't be easily dispensed with is lack of suitable GPS software. This is because you can simply pick from one of the many Windows solutions and run it on the Mac if you wish. Making a Mac specific version would be nice, but there's not much percentage in it for a car front end.

Any FE that doesn't integrate GPS into the software is going to be ignored.

How about doing something more interesting with the iPad? A front end app on the iPad would probably have much broader appeal and with 4.0 OS you might even be able to switch between the heavy hitter apps like music, gps, video and so forth using some kind of front end control. Plus, you would have net connectivity for those with 3G or using an iPhone.

I suppose you could build it so that it detects a Mac Mini or Macbook or whatever and could access music and data on those devices whether locally over WiFi or BT or over the net from your house. You'd need a little server program but I'll bet there are programs out there that are open source that would give you a leg up to do something like that. MediaTomb is one I've been experimenting with.

Originally Posted by bluehawk

Hey guys my name is Dave owner and CEO of Blue Hawk Solutions. We are a software and website development company located in vancouver canada. Our company car has been running a carpc for about 2 years and i'm sick of the windows os constant bluescreen etc. so because we have been specializing in mac and iphone development we have decided to make a "centrafuse for the mac". We want to offer the same quality in application as the centrafuse program does for the windows users.

We would like to know how many people would be interested in this software, as the current mac carpc software isn't anywhere near the quality of centrafuse. We would be willing to do a free BETA test to the people who are interested. Also we have a good application outline but if you guys would like to suggest features please do so here.


List of must have features:
Excellent GPS integration
Look and feel of a high quality windows program

Thanks!
Dave

Dave

Shoot me your contact information and we can help you pull together a beta testing group and set you up a forum.

Originally Posted by Bugbyte

The main problem with a Mac front end that can't be easily dispensed with is lack of suitable GPS software. This is because you can simply pick from one of the many Windows solutions and run it on the Mac if you wish. Making a Mac specific version would be nice, but there's not much percentage in it for a car front end.

Any FE that doesn't integrate GPS into the software is going to be ignored.

How about doing something more interesting with the iPad? A front end app on the iPad would probably have much broader appeal and with 4.0 OS you might even be able to switch between the heavy hitter apps like music, gps, video and so forth using some kind of front end control. Plus, you would have net connectivity for those with 3G or using an iPhone.

I suppose you could build it so that it detects a Mac Mini or Macbook or whatever and could access music and data on those devices whether locally over WiFi or BT or over the net from your house. You'd need a little server program but I'll bet there are programs out there that are open source that would give you a leg up to do something like that. MediaTomb is one I've been experimenting with.

I will second this for sure. An Ipad front end app would be great.

While I agee that an ipad app would be benificial, I think there still is a market for a mac front end. For me an ipad would not fit well in my current vehical. I don't know if it is possible to make a cross-platform app that would work for most of the ui while haveing the backends be platform specific.

thanks for the input guys! if that is the case we will make a Mac FE and an iPad FE the same name and features just ported to the proper OS. I'm going to update the first post with the new requested features

If this comes to light I would like to test it out

Originally Posted by red_parchel

If this comes to light I would like to test it out

Great! I'm very pleased to see everyones involvement ! Stay tuned for updates as today we are finalizing BETA 1 features.