Announcing EniRemote for iPad, a remote for any DreamBox set-top box with Gemini Image (Enigma2) …and a hint for Delphi programmers

Finally, I am able to announce my first iPad project written in Objective-C and Xcode, written in association with DeveloperExperts, LLC. One can hardly believe how hard-felt the “finally” is. I have been programming since 1988 and Objective-C has been the toughest programming language yet. My biggest issue was getting used to the strange way how memory allocation and deallocation is handled. It might be me, but it took quite some getting used to. Actually, I undertook my first steps in Objective-C in 2008. However, I really got into it after the seminar I attended in April 2010. Evan Doll, Daniel Magin and Olaf Monien held a workshop with the basics about iPhone-App Development (Making Apps).

Thus, before I introduce you all to my latest app, let me highly recommend their workshop that will take place in September in Berlin, Germany. Why did I blog about it here? It is a special workshop for people who have programming skills in Delphi already and want to start with the iPhone/iPad as well. Again, I can only underline how good this workshop is to get started building mobile applications on Apple’s mobile iOS platform. Furthermore, there is a whole day dedicated to Delphi and the German Delphi days two days later. If that is not a reason for booking a trip… so, hurry, before all places are taken!

Now back to EniRemote. The application is still being reviewed by Apple while I am writing this. However, I have a team of about 10 beta testers that already had access to the application and judged that it was ready for general distribution. Thanks guys! Sadly, the application that will be published in the App Store is already one week old and is lacking some feature improvements that I already made this week.

As I already said, EniRemote allows you to control your DreamBox from anywhere as long as you connect to it via HTTP. It currently does not support SSL in order to circumvent any encryption/export restrictions that might exist. The phrase ‘control your DreamBox’ has many interpretations. Firstly, you have a huge remote control-like view that allows you to mimic any of the keys you can press on your physical remote control. This alone is a huge improvement for me as the DreamBox 800 PVR HD has a very picky remote sensor …

Furthermore, the app allows easy zapping and browsing of service EPGs. Even the picons of the channels in different bouquets are downloaded from the box and cached on the iPad device. We do not ship any of the channel icons with the application. Please not that all logos displayed in the screenshots belong to their copyrightholders and these images are shown as an example to illustrate the functionality of the application. I use the Picon Icon Set by LicherPils which is being published on the I-Have-A-DreamBox boards. Right now the bouquets are fully controlled by the box settings. We are planning however to offer a favorite list of channels that can be assembled on the iPad and needs no change of any settings on the box.

Recordings are also being displayed and you can take a screenshot if the grab plugin is installed on your box.

We do not support timers as of yet, but work has started to offer that feature. Furthermore, the next release will offer support to connect to more than one box. You will be able to create box settings profiles.

Maybe you own a DreamBox and will give the app a shot as soon as it will be released in the AppStore.