Glowforge iPhone / android app?

I’m surprised that this isn’t an app yet. How cool would it be to see that little “G” icon on your home page. Takes you straight to the forum page, possibly to the catalog to order designs and materials, news and updates, notifications when new posts are ready to read. Maybe this has been talked about already but would awesome to see that little “G” icon with a notification on it waiting for you to see whats new.

15 Likes

Maybe not the safest thing but would be cool to be able to stream the onboard camera to the phone as well.

5 Likes

True, but someone should always be watching the cut in person for the safety reasons… (Of course you could always watch what someone else is cutting on your GF…)

Agreed. As I mentioned that it isn’t the safest thing. However, it could be pretty useful if sitting at a workstation right next the unit.

Either way, I’m pretty sure they had a job opening at some point for Mobile developers.

Speaking of job openings - it’s good to see the list changing over time. And also nice to see, for example, they are looking for a tech support lead, among other things indicating forward progress.

2 Likes

It’s a web app that will be available on your mobile devices. I would think creating a istore or google play app is a bit redundant

I would think creating a istore or google play app is a bit redundant

Not necessarily. There are a couple features that would benefit from a native app vs. a web app.
i.e. using your mobile devices local camera to scan/vector instead of the on-board camera.
That would be great for source artwork that is larger than the Glowforge’s working area. Or maybe using your phone as a ‘borescope’ to fine tune adjust the gantry position. Or Job queue / maintenance with push notifications. Then obviously the performance advantage.

They have an iOS developer on staff. So the stuff I described above may already be in the ‘hopper’.

5 Likes

If they could do that you could cast it to the big screen on the wall :grinning:

1 Like

There’s a nice work around, at least on iDevices. When on the forum page, just tap the little square with the arrow pointing up. Then select the grey box with the plus sign to “Add to Home Screen”. It even picks up the Glowforge logo as an icon. You can position it on any page of your device and click to go directly to the forum.

Since the catalog and interface will also be web based, tt should work for those when they are available.

7 Likes

I was talking to one of the new Glowfolk at Maker Faire. I believe his name was TJ, but I could be wrong, I met a lot of people that day. He said he was working on app development for iOS and Android. I think, it was a crazy day.

2 Likes

Beat me to it.

1 Like

Native apps are cool, but time consuming. The benefits of native apps generally are that they can take advantage of device specific functionality that a web app doesnt have access to, and with better performance.

This would be kind of moot for an external device like the glowforge. Everything that could be done in a native app could more than likely be done on a web based app that would also work on every platform. That does bring up an interesting point. Unless you actually have an app, its hard to get push notifications on a mobile device related to your product or interest.

This could be an interesting idea for an aggregator type of app that would provide notifications for things that dont necessitate their own native app.

2 Likes

Or stream your camera to the web so others could watch your project cut !! Okay maybe that doesn’t sound overly exciting, but could be kewl to see other peoples creativity and ideas in the making.

1 Like

neither does watching other people play video games, but… https://www.twitch.tv/

2 Likes

Yes, I might as well do that since I don’t view nearly as many web sites as I used to because of all the time I spend keeping up with the forum. It’s my home page on every browser on every device now.

1 Like

I know, most of my web surfing now starts in the forum and the links sometime get me started on a path for a couple of hours of browsing inspiration, materials, etc. Reminds me, I’ve got to get back to organizing my favorite bookmarks again.

2 Likes

Great hopper suggestions! cc @tony.

Thanks so much! You have simplified my life by a couple taps a day.

1 Like

Yes, but it almost makes it too easy to check in “just for a minute” and get caught up for an hour. :scream:

2 Likes