Do you remember when the iPhone first came out? There was a lot of concern that these handheld touchpanels would completely change AV control. But it turns out the learning curve for app programming was just too big back then.
Unable to ignore the iPhone's popularity, control manufacturers made apps that worked with their existing development tools. A few new companies popped up with their own apps and special tools. But systems integrators never embraced developing custom mobile apps with their own branding.
In the past few years, app development has become easier to learn while the number of mobile features end-users have come to expect has grown. The number of docking stations and mounting options for mobile devices has exploded as well.
Voice control is another technology that has comes leaps and bounds in the past few years. With every utterance, platforms like Siri and Alexa become better at interpreting what the user is saying.
I witness this in real-time when my children use our Amazon Echo. They speak to the device as if it is a real human, trying different ways of saying the same thing over and over, and unwittingly teach Alexa how people communicate. Voice control will be a big part of their lives and ours too.
It may be time to revisit the idea of creating custom user interfaces with Alternative UI's. At LearnAvProgramming.com, Patrick Murray takes these things apart, looks at how they work and shows you how you to get started.
Click here to sign up for the next How To Write An AV Control App webinar.
