Next Update?

[x5800]

Jay and Stefan, I love iCam and all the work you put into it! It's great how active you are with the community and all the support you offer!

I'm curious about future updates for iCam. Can you offer any time-frame or features we can look forward to or is that top secret?  

Thanks! - Aaron

[Stefan]

I'm glad you love iCam, and thanks for the great feedback!

We do try to be as responsive as we can when it comes to support, so we're happy to hear that it is appreciated. 

As for what we're working on, we're actually doing a "Snow Leopard"-esque re-write of the core "zero-config" connection logic to improve the connectivity from outside networks, namely 3G. (We're basically improving things as opposed to introducing any major new functionality.)

From our estimates, iCam already "just works" for about 90-95% of our users with their default network configurations, even when connecting from a different WiFi network or from 3G. We are currently implementing a re-write of the "zero-config" logic that should get that number up to 99%. Obviously there are some situations (strict corporate firewalls, multiple NAT-ed routers on the same network) where there isn't really anything we can do without some additional user configuration, but after studying how our users' routers and 3G networks from around the world interact with one another, we feel that we now have a much better solution to the "zero-config" problem.

We started working on this before Apple announced the iPad, simply because we did not want to move in any major new direction if Apple's announcement was going to significantly change things for us. Also, increasing the "zero-config" success rate would reduce our overall support load, thereby freeing up more time for new development. There have been exceedingly good sales days when all we've done is respond to support e-mails. We obviously can't do that all the time or else nothing new would ever get developed.

Now that the iPad has been announced and the cat is out of the bag from Apple we are going to have a series of discussions this month to determine which directions we are going to move in once the "zero-config" update is complete. I am sure the iPad will be discussed (as will other platforms) in addition to the new features that have been requested for our existing applications.

We are probably going to be looking for beta testers for the "zero-config" update within the next month or so, so stay tuned for that as well.

[x5800]

Sounds good! I'm sure from a business standpoint, it makes more sense to acquire new users (like with the iPad) before developing additional features. It's also good to hear that you're working on improving core performance before adding features.

However, as an existing user with everything working well, I look forward to any new features down the road! Especially things mentioned on the forums already: support for multiple cameras in one instance, motion-detection and recording scheduling, definable motion areas, video resolution and format options, proc-amp, event delete options, etc...

In my perfect world, iCam source would a combination of Vitamin D's features (www.vitamindinc.com) and your existing ones. If you haven't already, check out their demo video for some cool features. I especially like their implementation of "viewing motion clips" at :42 in the video. The most frustrating thing for me, right now, is clicking through each individual image captured by iCam source during motion instead of a simple video. (I'm sure there's a reason you did it that way, though)

Anyway, thanks again for a great product! I'm excited to see what you come up with for the iPad and would also love to beta-test any new updates for the iPhone!  

Thanks! - Aaron

[Stefan]

Sounds good! I'm sure from a business standpoint, it makes more sense to acquire new users (like with the iPad) before developing additional features. It's also good to hear that you're working on improving core performance before adding features.

That's actually something that we're going to have to discuss, since the existing user-base of iPhones and iPod touches is so much larger than any reasonable estimate of new iPad users. We've also had requests for other mobile platforms (such as Android) so we are exploring those as well.

However, as an existing user with everything working well, I look forward to any new features down the road! Especially things mentioned on the forums already: support for multiple cameras in one instance, motion-detection and recording scheduling, definable motion areas, video resolution and format options, proc-amp, event delete options, etc...

A lot of those features actually involve updates to the iCamSource, which isn't regulated by Apple's review process, so changes to the iCamSource are actually easier for us to do in some respects. For example, if a new version breaks things for someone's specific configuration we can always supply them with the previous version while we work on a fix. Doing this with an iPhone application is exceedingly difficult.

The most frustrating thing for me, right now, is clicking through each individual image captured by iCam source during motion instead of a simple video. (I'm sure there's a reason you did it that way, though)

You can play through an entire motion event without tapping through each individual image, as seen in our demo video at about 1:10 - http://skjm.com/icam/vid.php?id=3

Probably the easiest way to hear about the beta testing is to keep checking the forum or to just follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/skjm), as we'll post announcements in both places.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[x5800]

Oops! I meant that I had to click through each individual image when I'm viewing it on the computer, not my iPhone.

And that's great that it's easier to update iCamSource than the iPhone app! It makes sense!

Thanks again. Keep it up!

[Zarkov]

You can also convert a series of stills into a movie in iMovie, as I described in http://skjm.com/forum/index.php?topic=641.0.

Actually, I think people missed the original post, because it hasn't had any comments - but it works!  You can view the resullts on any computer or iPhone.  Try a 0.3 - 0.5 second frame rate.

[Icamuser]

I think that it is important that iPhone overhead not be increased with features.  Features that users can decide whether to activate and thus affect the amount of data passing to the iPhone or processed by the iPhone are more efficient.   To me I don't need "high-def" full motion on an iPhone. Let the PC handle motion recording and high overhead. Let me see enough frames during motion (or by choice all frames) to decide whether I need to do something. Sending commands back and forth are not continuous loads so features that add utility probably are low or no impact and do not eat battery time.  Just a thought.
-Doug