This weekend I decided to practice my iOS skills with a simple utility app. The TV satellite receiver box in our home Vu+ Duo runs on Linux and it has an API to simulate remote control, change channels, set volume, list channels etc.

After connecting to the device over WiFi local area network, it can be used to “zap” channels instantly or controlling device with a virtual remote. So I put these down in an app and submitted to App Store today for free. (It should be available sometime next week.) Here’s a quick demo of what I have done:

[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNVReiyWpgc[/embed]

Its streaming API has a different codec than the ones iOS natively supports, so I couldn’t get streaming feature implemented. I am waiting for VLCKit project to be released to add streaming feature. Hopefully this library gets better soon and people can watch any channel on their iPhones or iPads in their beds (exactly what I want).