Lightbox: Our app is available only for iPad, so no iPhone app.

/Jakob

dclegg:

SheriffNZ: Plus one to rolling the iOS app out to other devices!

I'd hope that would be relatively low hanging fruit, as they already have code for the iPad version that they could hopefully utilise & share.

markl:
Sadly in NZ there seems to be little appetite for developers to use cross platform coding techniques. Thus, whilst they have an iPad app, the only real "low hanging fruit" is going to be the iPhone. You can't take a native app from one platform and just reuse the code on another which requires you to recode for that platform's APIs, in a different language, etc, etc. 

BigMal: What do we think are the priority apps/platforms?

iPad - done
Android
Pplaystation
Xbox
Chromecast
Roku

Roku would be best for me but I think I'm in the minority so not holding my breath.

markl:

dclegg:

SheriffNZ: Plus one to rolling the iOS app out to other devices!

I'd hope that would be relatively low hanging fruit, as they already have code for the iPad version that they could hopefully utilise & share.

Sadly in NZ there seems to be little appetite for developers to use cross platform coding techniques. Thus, whilst they have an iPad app, the only real "low hanging fruit" is going to be the iPhone. You can't take a native app from one platform and just reuse the code on another which requires you to recode for that platform's APIs, in a different language, etc, etc. 

I'd LOVE for them to surprise me and say something like "well actually Mark, we wrote the iOS app using Xamarin for iOS so its going to be a super easy port to Android" but I really doubt it will happen. Consider that if they DID have a large amount of reusable/cross platform code, they'd surely have launched with an app for more than one platform?

DarkShadow:

nigelj:

PhantomNVD:

loceff13:

NonprayingMantis:

loceff13: Any idea if prezzy cards will work on the service? I'm guessing not as there's little to stop you using a card with no credit just to use the trial..

pretty sure prezzie cards just look like normal credit cards to payment gateways.  So, I would assume it would work.

I'm guessing they plan to have something in place to prevent people just making new accounts and starting new 30 day trials rather than signing up for $15 a month.

What do Netflix do to stop you doing this?

TBH for $15/month not many adults would bother going to that extent of trouble surely?

*edit* and maybe they could just track your device(s) MAC addresses? That would solve their issue with one laptop using 3 slots due to browser changes too, and few people would bother or know how to MAC spoof either :D

Well the #1 method is one trial per CC number, with Prezzie cards costing ~$7 + initial top up + Whatever is left after your purchases () + timespent at Postshop/Queues you are better off just paying Lightbox.

I'd imagine they'd also have some way of tracking down 'odd' patterns, plus I seem to recall someone (Quickflix???) had a thing where if you unlinked a device from your account, it couldn't be linked to a different account for X days (a month or two), so that is another 2 potential 'anti-fraud' options.

Not really worth it to tell the truth.

You can only delete one device every 30 days. So yeah.

PhantomNVD:

Back to the question, what can they do to prevent a new account every month?

dclegg:

markl:
Sadly in NZ there seems to be little appetite for developers to use cross platform coding techniques. Thus, whilst they have an iPad app, the only real "low hanging fruit" is going to be the iPhone. You can't take a native app from one platform and just reuse the code on another which requires you to recode for that platform's APIs, in a different language, etc, etc. 

Well, you can if you use the right tools :-)

In addition to Xamarin which you've already mentioned, there's RAD Studio from Embarcadero (or AppMethod if you want their rebranded, mobile focused version). It allows you to target Windows, OSX, iOS and Android from the same code base, with a cross-platform UI library to assist with that.

Although in the case of Lightbox, I'd hazard a guess that they've probably used Xcode. While it won't be much help in creating an Android version, it may allow them to create an iPhone version which utilises the same model and controller classes, if they've followed the MVC programming paradigm that Apple strongly encourages.

Lightbox: Our app is available only for iPad, so no iPhone app.

/Jakob

Lightbox: 

My experience is that there really aren't any short cuts here - if you want a robust, tight and zippy app on a device, you're going to have to work native. This goes double with video streaming, as you're going to have to wire in specialised players on every device. Content providers generally don't like non native frameworks either, as they're considered less secure. 

If things were really easy, that's how we (and everyone else) would be doing them. 

CraigY: Signed up early this morning (4am) and it worked great.  Good Job to Spark.  Watched a full episode of X Files with no interruption, and quality was good.  I then tried to add my IPad and got an error saying all devices were assigned and I would have to remove one.  It showed for the devices:
PC Computer
PC Computer
PC Computer
PC Computer
PC Computer

So when I created the account on the PC it somehow registered all 5 devices to the PC.  Or, maybe each time I watched an episode it added a new device.

I then tried to use the computer again and got this message:

Playback Error
and something about all 5 devices registered, so cannot use the service.  Can log in though with no problems.

I have sent an error message to Lightbox help, hope to get something back in 24 hours.
I am using Wireless Nation satellite service and maybe they somehow keep changing the IP address or whatever it is that Lightbox uses to identify the devices.  Anyway, I am down and will update the forum if we find a solution.

Lightbox:

markl:

dclegg:

SheriffNZ: Plus one to rolling the iOS app out to other devices!

I'd hope that would be relatively low hanging fruit, as they already have code for the iPad version that they could hopefully utilise & share.

Sadly in NZ there seems to be little appetite for developers to use cross platform coding techniques. Thus, whilst they have an iPad app, the only real "low hanging fruit" is going to be the iPhone. You can't take a native app from one platform and just reuse the code on another which requires you to recode for that platform's APIs, in a different language, etc, etc. 

I'd LOVE for them to surprise me and say something like "well actually Mark, we wrote the iOS app using Xamarin for iOS so its going to be a super easy port to Android" but I really doubt it will happen. Consider that if they DID have a large amount of reusable/cross platform code, they'd surely have launched with an app for more than one platform?

My experience is that there really aren't any short cuts here - if you want a robust, tight and zippy app on a device, you're going to have to work native. This goes double with video streaming, as you're going to have to wire in specialised players on every device. Content providers generally don't like non native frameworks either, as they're considered less secure. 

If things were really easy, that's how we (and everyone else) would be doing them.