September 2023

State of the Union

It’s a very different App Store than the one we started on in 2010. We’ve seen so many competitors large and small appear and disappear over time. In the last few years, the App Store has transitioned from one based on app quality and engineering to one largely based on marketing. This was an inevitable transition in my view. In our own category, there are now so many apps that many are broadly distinguishing themselves only by punctation marks in their app title. Since the name of the game is getting found via keyword search, the only thing many of these apps care about is the right keywords in their titles. The engineering and features of most of the competition these days is largely non-existent as their objective is simply to be the first app downloaded by unsuspecting users. Any combination of the words “tv control smart universal remote” is another app, sometimes with an extra semicolon or diamond character to trick App Review into letting them through on the same name, and without exception these apps are like brochures for a real app that they will never be.

For some time, and as mentioned in last year’s State of the Union, I assumed these apps would all disappear as they were virtually feature free and don’t even have real app names so how can anyone remember them. Yet, some have lasted, and a few spend well over half a million dollars each per month ensuring they own those keywords, buy ratings, and buy fake reviews. They buy ratings to boost their perceived popularity – you can tell this happens because among other reasons at random times they will suddenly lose 15,000+ ratings in a single day. Apple’s systems do some kind of automated maintenance to detect such things and auto-remove them, but it’s quite rare and incomplete, so those apps just keep doing it.

I thought for a bit, “hey we should make a video exposing these fake apps paying for their popularity and polluting the App Store!” I collected all the evidence in great detail and wrote a script that was damning. Before filming, I realized the target users would never see it, so there’s no point. Only Apple can put a stop to the surge of marketing trash apps cluttering the App Store.

What we did do instead is the old adage “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” We created an app in this “TV Control” sub-category, and we even were able to re-use our old “Simple Control” name for it – an advanced concept wherein apps have memorable names, though perhaps not to our benefit as using real names just wastes keyword space! But we simply can’t buy ratings like the leading apps in the category, and can’t engage in nonsense like apps without real names. The new app won’t do as well as the fake marketing apps, but for those many users that actually need a simple app just to control TVs, we now provide that. Within that category, it provides an impressive amount of real functionality unique in the space. The new app if you have friends that just need to control a TV (or many TVs) can be downloaded here. It is inexpensive, and Roomie is the perfect upgrade for such users as they expand their systems one day.

Meanwhile, it’s been a productive year. We released another new app called Now Showing – Movie Poster TV. Designed to show live posters associated with home theaters taking advantage of Roomie integration to display current status while watching movies, it’s a very fun app to use and build. Check out the full walkthrough and demo video here. And you can download the app for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS here.

Roomie Remote Version 8.6 is focused on optimization and incremental enhancements across the app. For the first time, we’re introducing full localization initially to Spanish and French. It’s a harder app to localize than one might imagine due to the many other systems we work with.

The new Apple TV Media Guide is one of the headline new features. All Apple TV devices, assuming you have both the Companion and Airplay device types added, will now display an App Launch Media Guide for Apple TV. Launching apps is also available now via Activity Commands, and that even supports Deep Links so that specific content can be opened for apps that support it. Our extensive Apple TV support was already one of our brightest spots, and this really takes it to the next level.

Google TV does not offer the level of dynamic app launching that Apple TV does under the hood, but we have also added an App Launch Media Guide there for popular apps.

SmartThings changed pretty much everything in the last year. We started almost from square one re-engineering our integration. The old SmartApps can be removed if you still have access to the Graph API. I’m sure more features can be added here over time now that everything is updated, just let us know what you need. You will need to delete your old SmartThings Cloud Service and add it as a fresh device if you have used it before as the in-app warning will tell you.

The ISY/eISY family of devices is something we’ve supported almost longer than any other device. People are still using them, and those people made clear they’d like to see some optimizations – some of those users apparently have an awful lot of devices! Make sure your ISY is up to date, and we automatically switch to a method of reading status that is far less taxing on both sides.

For subscriptions, the big news is that almost all features have been normalized across all modern subscriptions. For instance, Voice Control, Guest Sharing, and Custom Devices are now available from all subscriptions. Subscriptions are now differentiated by the number of Homes, Rooms, Activities, and Devices – or the lack of any such limits in the case of Unlimited. Device limits for modern subscriptions are currently not enforced during the transition period for existing subscribers – enforcement of those limits will resume September 2024 after everyone has had a chance to renew knowing this. Since these limits also existed until September 2022, it won’t be much of a change for anyone. Also, remember that device limits never count HomeKit Accessories. Device limits continue to act as usual for all V6 subscriptions that always worked as such. It was just too confusing even for us to consult the table of which feature was in which level, so this normalization makes things much simpler. A new monthly option for Unlimited has been introduced while Unlimited Perpetual has been removed from sale. We do plan to offer Perpetual from time to time in the future, as we did for the week between Christmas and New Year’s 2023, but it will not be generally available at all times to all users. Those with an active Unlimited subscription will get access to it in the future from time to time.

Note that none of this applies to V4 and V5 subscriptions. If you are still on one of those from an old app, please stop renewal and subscribe from the modern app. As announced a year ago, we will hard stop renewals for V4/V5 subs at the end of 2024.

As we do every year, System Requirements have increased by one major release to iOS/iPadOS 16.1, tvOS 16.1, and macOS 13.1. Make sure all Roomie Remote clients on all platforms are using the same Roomie version. Today we are releasing all platforms simultaneously to ensure that is enabled for everyone.

It’s been a fun year. Now we have 3 apps creating a family that complements each other. Simple Control for TVs, a basic starter app that is very inexpensive, Now Showing for Live Movie Posters, a totally unique app that really classes up home theaters, and Roomie Remote, a full-fledged AV and Home Control system providing universal compatibility, an enjoyable and refined user interface, and high reliability with 12 years of maturity on the App Store.

Will – September 14, 2023 (updated February 17, 2024 for Version 8.6.2)