HippoRemote Blog

After over a month sitting in Apple’s review queue, HippoRemote’s 1.1 update is finally available in the App Store!

Along with some connection fixes, 1.1 adds Wake-on-LAN support. It’s pretty annoying for us to finally make it to the couch, only to realize we have to get back up and turn on the TV computer. Wake-on-LAN solves that problem with the caveat that your TV computer must be networked via a wired connection. See the FAQ for more details on getting things working.

In the 1+ month since 1.1 was submitted, we’ve found (and fixed!) some more bugs. And we’ve been hard at work adding new features. For example, we’ve added Auto-Connect, for those of you who primarily control one computer; Macros, so you can create your own keyboard shortcuts and automate common tasks; and we’re currently wrapping up Custom App Profiles, so you can create profiles much better than ours for all your favorite programs. For the international crowd, we’re also dramatically improving support for non-English languages.

We’ve also been giving HippoRemote an extra layer of polish and refinement. We’re revisiting existing features like Drag Lock and Circular Scrolling and tuning them to be even more useful. And we continue to tweak the look of HippoRemote. It’s not our style to be super flashy. We prefer understated elegance and we’re working to get there.

So the question remains…When will this all be ready? I had wanted to release new features (and bug fixes) as they were finished — basically a release early and release often approach to development. Given how long the approval process is, even for updates, I think it makes more sense to make each update more substantial. This means more testing. 1.2 is getting close, but there’s still a little more to go.

Until then, enjoy 1.1 and Wake-on-LAN! And send us your thoughts, comments, and feedback either on this blog, via email, or on Twitter.

Your application, HippoRemote, is requiring unexpected additional time for review. We apologize for the delay, and will update you with further status as soon as we are able.

Sigh…

Most remote control application choose to implement their own communications protocol but we opted to build on VNC instead. Why? It’s true that building on a standard gives you instant compatibility with a bunch of platforms and devices. But for us, it was a no-brainer because Macs and Linux PCs have great built-in support for VNC.

As we well know, nobody hates software more than software developers. It’s very true that the best choice of software is often no software at all. Why force our users to install yet more potentially buggy software when that functionality already exists in their computers? And relying on built-in functionality makes setup a breeze. It’s literally a handful of clicks and typing in a password.

Unfortunately, life’s not so simple on Windows. Without built-in VNC support, our users must install a third-party server. And while there are plenty of excellent options, none of them are all that easy to setup and configure.

So we created our own solution. Actually, we took our preferred VNC server (UltraVNC) and modified it, via the power of open-source software. We’re calling it HippoVNC to avoid confusion, but we’re just standing on the shoulders of the UltraVNC team.

HippoVNC is a standalone executable. We’ve already pre-configured the settings. All you have to do is download, run, and enter a password. See the setup page for the details.

We’ve also added the ability to auto-detect HippoVNC. You’ll never have to manually enter a connection again. But you will need to have iTunes installed, which I’m guessing all you iPhone and iPod Touch users do.

So to all our Windows users, switch to HippoVNC and give us your feedback! We think it simplifies things quite a bit. We hope you do too.

Even though we had to wait a long time for Apple to let HippoRemote into the App Store, we weren’t sitting around twiddling our thumbs. Today we submitted the 1.1 update to the App Store.

We made a couple of UI tweaks, like making the Login Manager a little prettier and requiring confirmation before clearing keyboard history, but the feature that warrants the point update is wake-on-LAN support.

I don’t want to say anymore right now. We haven’t had the best of luck with the App Store process, so I’ll wait until things are a little more certain before going into more detail.

After over a month in ASRL (App Store Review Limbo), HippoRemote has finally been cleared for launch! Please help spread the word, or better yet, demo HippoRemote to all your friends and convince them to replace their cable box (and their expensive cable subscription) with an old or inexpensive computer.

Also, keep an eye on this space for HippoRemote news, tips & tricks, and general info on expanding and evolving world of media and home theater PCs.