UPDATE...Open Rocket iPad App!!!

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Doug,

Never push down and discourage, not useful, rather take the same knowledge and build up and encourage.

Sounds like you got the brains for the job.

The app would admittedly have limited sales but strong demand by those who do want it. You could easily sell this app for $20 a pop, and sell at least a 100 copies, that's $2,000, or $20,000 if you sell a 1000 copies.

Go for it, you'll make a lot of people happy!
 
Lowpuller -

Re-read my post. There's absolutely nothing negative about it. Don't blame me just because I gave some fairly objective analysis that you didn't want to hear.

Doug
 
Doug,

There was nothing I didn't want to hear. I want discussion, any discussion that helps move forward the production of this much needed App.

I missed the part of blaming you for anything, but again please help me make this a positive thing.

Oh and we are one day closer to final production of the App!
 
I find your bubbly optimism and the sense of entitlement emanating from your posts to be, quite frankly, more demotivating than motivating. If a given person doesn't want to do it, no amount of wheedling is going to get them to change their mind. Unless someone with duckhead's skillset and a great deal more motivation comes along, you'd be better served by approaching a software developer one-on-one and negotiating terms that will satisfy both you and the developer, rather than continuing to ask on the forum.
 
Hi,

Like other have said, non-commercial open source development is most often driven by personal interest. If someone is interested, they'll do it. If not, reasoning might help, pleading probably won't. Unless you're willing to pay, it's our free time you're talking about.

That's why I've handed maintainership of OR to Kevin. My interests have shifted, I'm coding a lot at my new job at a startup, and I'm less inclined to spend my free time coding. Rather than impeding the development, I wanted to hand maintainership to someone with more drive.

I've been considering if some kind of "bounty" system could be used to motivate larger development tasks. Say, a crowdfunded $500-1000 reward for bigger features, such as an iPad version. There are some sites made for this purpose, e.g. https://www.bountysource.com/ and https://bountyoss.com/ (I haven't looked into them)

Another option would be to apply for Google Summer of Code or ESA's Summer of Code in Space. I've been considering this for a while, and I'd say we have enough of a developer community that it would be feasible. Here, again, there would be a set of features available, and it depends on finding interested students to take on the task.


Cheers,
Sampo N.
 
That is your best method. You will not get it posting to the forum.
 
Although the forum would be a perfectly good way to get the word out about such a crowdfunding drive.
 
I find your bubbly optimism and the sense of entitlement emanating from your posts to be, quite frankly, more demotivating than motivating. If a given person doesn't want to do it, no amount of wheedling is going to get them to change their mind. Unless someone with duckhead's skillset and a great deal more motivation comes along, you'd be better served by approaching a software developer one-on-one and negotiating terms that will satisfy both you and the developer, rather than continuing to ask on the forum.

Agreed. I just love lowpuller's pestering: "I want more free stuff, don't bother me with details, you smart guys just figure it out and be positive about it."

You are not getting much traction in this forum. Did you pitch your business case to Apogee?
 
Agreed. I just love lowpuller's pestering: "I want more free stuff, don't bother me with details, you smart guys just figure it out and be positive about it."

You are not getting much traction in this forum. Did you pitch your business case to Apogee?

Admittedly, he did say that he was willing to pay a hefty amount (greater than the cost of an Android tablet) to whoever does it.
 
I would love to see it, but I am not willing to invest in another tablet to get it. I use rocksim on my mac. That is good enough.
 
Admittedly, he did say that he was willing to pay a hefty amount (greater than the cost of an Android tablet) to whoever does it.

I must have missed that. He mentioned paying for a potential RockSim version (likely retail price ~$125), or a $20 ipad OR app. He is pleading for the latter, which, all things considered, is a mere pittance in the model rocketry hobby.
 
The funny thing is, I wrote the android application simply for my own education. Now that it's time to refresh it, I'm seriously considering just buying a Window's table to take to the field. Android is not that interesting to me any more and having a fully functioning java environment and focusing my efforts on the full Java version, seems more cost effective.

As a data point, my free time has value. I can measure this in a number of ways:

How much could I bill doing software development as an independent?
Or, How much am I willing to pay to have my dining room painted so I don't need to dork around with it?

Given this valuation to my free time a new tablet or laptop is pretty cheap (around the order of a nice weekend launching rockets).

It should be noted that in the phrase "Free Open Source Software", the "Free" does not mean "Free as in beer", it means "Free as in Freedom". That is, it is not that the software should be given away for nothing, but rather that the end user of the software has the code from which to make the software do something different. Sampo chose originally to offer the software for no money with the expectation that people would donate according to their means and value system.

When I first started using OpenRocket, I chose to "pay" for it by donating time and expertise to the software. I have since put a lot of time and effort into features in the application. In general, I do this according to my own desires: I was frustrated having to measure a BT-80 every time I created a model - so I added the preset component feature. I wanted to explore HPR staging and airstarts so I added the "flight configuration" feature. I wanted to learn Android, so I ported to Android.

There are lots of ways to contribute to OpenRocket without paying real money. You can produce tutorial videos or documents. You can answer questions on the forum. You can build a bunch of models of weird nose cones and post the ork files. Etc. However, complaining about the interface being crappy and needing to be redone (without producing an alternative in wireframes or other specific manner) does not really help the cause.

Kevin
 
Kevin,

I'm not complaining, in fact I never complained, I love Open Rocket.

I would prefer to be thought of as dreaming versus pestering.

I did just discover Smart Launch, very cool app, no where near as complex as Open a Rocket, but still useful. I would love to see it be updated with more kits.
 
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The funny thing is, I wrote the android application simply for my own education. Now that it's time to refresh it, I'm seriously considering just buying a Window's table to take to the field. Android is not that interesting to me any more and having a fully functioning java environment and focusing my efforts on the full Java version, seems more cost effective.
Does Open Rocket run out of the box on a Windows tablet? Any UI issues?

Not that I have or plan to have a Windows tablet, but maybe perhaps I'd consider booting my Nexus into Ubuntu, which in principle can run Java apps, I think. Of course I'd rather continue to have an up to date Android version, but I understand your position.
 
Does Open Rocket run out of the box on a Windows tablet? Any UI issues?

Not that I have or plan to have a Windows tablet, but maybe perhaps I'd consider booting my Nexus into Ubuntu, which in principle can run Java apps, I think. Of course I'd rather continue to have an up to date Android version, but I understand your position.

I haven't tried it on a Windows tablet. Would love to hear if anyone has any experience with it. Personally, I find the Tiles thing deplorable..

I didn't know you could boot nexus' into Ubuntu. If I had a spare one, I'd like to give it a shot.

On the flip side, I've hacked on the Android version a little of the the last couple of days. I'm able to get it to read files and run simulations using the new core code base - but the old android UI is still there - complete with all its bugs. I'm thinking about getting rid of the "motor download" bit and instead using the motors which come with the swing application.


Kevin
 
It won't work on a Windows RT machine such as the Surface or Surface 2.

It will work fine on the Surface Pro or Pro 2, or any of the newer tablets that run full Windows 8 or 8.1 on either Core or Atom chips. The main UI issue is with tiny, dense text, the up/down controls and, to some extent, the slider controls, actually any controls meant for mousing on a desktop. They are hard to target with your fingers, especially on a high resolution (1920x1080) tablet.

The Add Components panel is where Open Rocket has an advantage over RockSim on tablets!
 
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It won't work on a Windows RT machine such as the Surface or Surface 2.

It will work fine on the Surface Pro or Pro 2, or any of the newer tablets that run full Windows 8 or 8.1 on either Core or Atom chips. The main UI issue is with tiny, dense text, the up/down controls and, to some extent, the slider controls, actually any controls meant for mousing on a desktop. They are hard to target with your fingers, especially on a high resolution (1920x1080) tablet.

The Add Components panel is where Open Rocket has an advantage over RockSim on tablets!

Some of those issues could be alleviated by having a ui scaling option. It would also help with the advent of ultra high resolution desktop screens: I probably will not get a monitor with less than 4k in the future.
 
I have a windows tablet with fully functioning Windows Office and OR on it, works great. I don't like the tiles yet either, but they're growing on me.
 
Great discussion! Thanks for all the comments, keep um coming and help keep this thread alive!:kill:
 
Is anyone using the Smart Launch App? If so is there a way to add additional models to the database?
 
Please list any rocket Apps you know of for iPad or iPhone.

So far I have two Estes Apps, although they look and operate almost the same and Smart Launch.

Estes Rockets
Smart Launch
 
I recently purchased the 'Rocket Calculator' app and it's on both my iPhone and iPad. Haven't used it in the field yet, but have played around with it and I like the tools it has. I also have a very basic launch simulator app from Madcow Rocketry that I got last year, but I can't find it in the App Store now. It's either not available anymore, or I'm not using the correct title to search for it.
 
Search for: rocket sim
It's still there...

I recently purchased the 'Rocket Calculator' app and it's on both my iPhone and iPad. Haven't used it in the field yet, but have played around with it and I like the tools it has. I also have a very basic launch simulator app from Madcow Rocketry that I got last year, but I can't find it in the App Store now. It's either not available anymore, or I'm not using the correct title to search for it.
 
Found it as Rocket SIm. Note capital I. Moving to my other thread.
 
Ideally the rocket is designed at home then loaded into the app and sim in the field as conditions change. Tim at Apogee would have kittens if Rocksim could do that.
 
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