Philips Releases Universal Remote Control App

Stop yer whinin'. Ed does a great job with the site and there has been a ton of unique editorial content, scoops and rumours lately. I had no idea of the Philips software and it's nice to know that there is an alternative to Omniremote out there. Furthermore, I had no idea the m500 and 505 had such powerful IR signals!

Look at Palmstation. I'd prefer "ad-related" news stories anyday over no fresh content at all. Also, ever read any video gaming or "Men's interest (maxim, stuff, esquire,etc)" magazines lately? Those are nothing more than gigantic catalogs hiding under the pretense of being a real periodical by offering a few lame stories and opinionated editorials. We live in a world where we're always getting bombared by branding and marketing. Get used to it. For example, when you drive home this afternoon, look around your car's dash and see how often the manufacturer has tacked on their name. proably on the radio, the dash, the airbag cover, the front grille and the trunklid....at the very minimum. You get hit with subtle advertising every time you get behind the wheel of any vehicle.

I think Philips' motivation in releasing this app has more to do with Sony stealing a lot of their thunder with their recent remote control apps (as well as their nice new home theatre touchscreen units) than anything else. Also, they are really trying to build up name recognition for their Pronto line.
If nothing else, this makes for a good use of the new low-end Palm device coming out!

Erm... so mentioning any new software product released is advertising...? So Ed can't mention ANY new software? Get real...

Plus in this case, we're talking about a serious software release. Phillip's are one of few EU companies with serious interaction design / usability research groups, and this really paid off with the Pronto Universal Remote Control, which is much more than just a multi-remote-control. They've designed the Pronto in a task-oreinted way, and use macros to allow multiple technical commands for a single user action. For example, when I get home I 'turn on the telly'. What I actually do is turn on the amp, turn on the TV, turn on TiVo, set the amp to TV (if needed), set the TV to TiVo (if needed) and then go to 'now playing' on TiVo. If I had a pronto I would just hit the 'standard on' button, and it would do all this for me. And at the click of one button I could change the whole system over to start playing a DVD (change TV.. change amp... etc etc). I would no longer need 6 remote controls on the sofa with a Pronto.

So why don't I have a Pronto...? It costs the same as a PDA - we're talking like 400 euros for one of these things! I've been ranting over the cost of these on the TiVo newsgroups for some time. People who have them rave over them - but 400 euros!!! Get real...

However... now you can get Pronto on your Palm for $20 - I'm seriously pissed off that I have a Sony N770C that doesn't have the stronger IR so it can't function as a remote control!!!

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russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

J/K = Just Kidding = Not Serious. C'mon people.

I think the original poster was joking...

Seems that forums these days are like walking on a concrete floor covered in gasoline while wearing golf shoes.

Yes this was another pointless analogy brought to you by the letter 'M' and the number '9'.

Just to set the record straight... ummm... yes I WAS joking. I WANT to see product announcements.

Thanks rldunn and Mojo Jojo for defending me!
Again,
:-) (<--- little smiley face)

-Biff K

gee whiz, what a big baby

i agree. it's crap. then when you do register, they give you a 15 day unique trial number. i wanted to try it on POSE, but couldn't unless i re-register and give them another user name (for the emulator)--and i would have to use another email address. it's just not worth it.

current version of POSE lets you change the user name:
right click -> settings -> properties

hey, thanks for the tip on POSE--i'll give it a shot, and if it works, stop whining ;)

I may be missing something fundamental... but what's the point of running a remote control app on POSE?

Of course, you could be testing to see whether it'll crash. In which case, just this once... live dangerously.

i knew somebody would ask that...
basically, i just want to get an idea of the user interface, and how it feels and looks. i figured i probably won't actually end up using it on my palm, but i wanted to try it out anyway--and it's less of a pain to use the emulator than it is loading it on my palm then deleting it.

...actually, i was really pissed off when i found out it wouldn't let me use my desktop computer as a remote control... :)

No HiRes, basically grey with some blue, crashed on IR-detection setup -- crap!

Anyone know if Protolite supports the Clie as OmniRemote does? (I am assuming that all Clies packaged with the remote software have comparable hardware) In other words does Protolite use the Clies normal IRDA transceiver (very limited range on my 615) or the high power consumer IR emitter that Sony's own remote software and OmniRemote uses. The difference, use your Clie at arms length of the TV or use it from your couch. I found no such information on the Protolite site. The interface looks nice but is it a horse or a donkey for Clie users? Personally am not going to bother.

As Ed said, "...slow news day". Had to post something after cnet touted this as "news"; was it a shameless advertisement *ponder*, or did the author not do his homework. My rant for the day.

Yeah someday I might get a life, but I still think killing is wrong.

I'm not sure I understand your comment about bogus screenshots...?

None of the screenshots that I could see show a hires display. Heck, all the screenshots are less than 120 pixels wide, none of them even being over 160.

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Wooo!

1) it only supports 160x160 pixels. sorry. But, on the bright side, they are dithered pretty... but jaggy, on a Sony nonetheless.

2) I'd rather have BOTH: built in library to save me the time of learning hundreds of buttons, AND Learning capability. That's why I love my Radio Shack remote...

still, i'll try it out...

Omniremote can learn from remotes. point the remote at the palm and "record" the signal.

"I'm not sure I understand your comment about bogus screenshots...?

None of the screenshots that I could see show a hires display. Heck, all the screenshots are less than 120 pixels wide, none of them even being over 160."

Hey, you're right. My bad. Kudos to them for making 160x160 look better than, well, 160x160. I downloaded the app and like what I see. Though, as others have pointed out, there's no support for macros and no customization. Still, for $20, I think this is a pretty good deal and has a much cleaner interface than omniremote.

That said, I went back and looked at Pacific Neo-Tek's site and, what do you know, they now support 320x320 and fully customizable buttons. That, combined with macro support would seem to make this the better product. The standard buttons it comes with are ugly and poorly designed from a UI-perspective (e.g. - numbers are too small for thumb-pressing), but hey, just make your own.

I prefer having real buttons for the feedback it provides. But once I get around to upgrading to a high-res Palm OS device, it would be nice to have one of these things for running my living room movie setup.

Scott

I would expect that this will not affect Philips Pronto sales at all....not

Who is going to pay the price of a reasonable handheld for a remote when you can pay the price of a reasonable handheld for a reasonable handheld AND 20 bucks turns it into a Philips Pronto.

Oh wait - I answered my question - which begs another -how do Philips justify the cost of the Pronto?

Maybe showing us what a Pronto will do might lure us away......

mrscarey

palmist and visionary

20 buck won't even get your palm close to what a real pronto can do. You can do so much more with a pronto that you can't do with ProntoLite. ProntoLite has all kinds of limitations while a real Pronto is basically limitless as long as you can fit everything in memory. On a real pronto you have unlimited devices, screens, macros, macro length... You can use ProntoEdit on your PC to create any type of UI you can dream up. And the IR strenght on a pronto is amazing. I can use all of the AV equipment from 30 feet away around a corner if I need to. For an indepth review of all pronto models try the following links:

www.remotecentral.com/pronto/index.html
www.remotecentral.com/tsu2000/index.html
www.remotecentral.com/prontopro/index.html

a) Rhinoskin makes very good cases

b) If you don't like the way Ed runs the site, don't ever come back. There are olther PalmOS sites that might welcome a ******* like you.

I'm sorry for being misunderstood. I love this site. I just can't understand - really - the hype around cases. Looking at the site, I get the feeling that 10-20% of all palm news are actually new cases.

REL

The pronto does not run on WinCE. I'm not sure what OS the pronto runs but pronto has a dragonball processor just like a palm. Microsoft/Harmon Kardon used to sell a touchscreen remote that ran on winCE. It had all kinds of problems and never did well so they discontinued it.

Thanks Bmann -- I was hoping a fellow Pronto user would do a comparison, and see how ProntoLite stood up to a real Pronto.

You clarified the situation very well, and saved me some time -- it is appreciated.

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Jeff Meyer