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Making Android Mobile App Compatible With Multi-Screen Viewing On Android Phones

Hello DJ,

I mentioned in a previous thread about having An IP Cam and EZ-Robot Cam mounted on IRobot Create for security uses. I also mentioned that I could switch between apps to view different camera views. Then today I found out that on the Samsung Galaxy S4 and other phones you can display two apps on the screen at the same time. This would be great as I could have both apps in a split screen and wouldn't need to switch between them. With multiple (two apps) open at same time I wouldn't manually have to switch between them.

My question is not all mobile apps are compatible with split screen viewing on the phones. EZ-Robot Mobile seems to be one of them. Do you know about multiscreen mobile apps and what it takes and would you be able to enable the mobile app support split screen viewing on the Android phones. I'm thinking apple also has this type of feature.

Split screen viewing is really awesome and works quite well once the app is compatible with split screen viewing. My Tiny Cam Pro mobile app is compatible with split screen viewing just not EZ-Robot Mobile App. Would be so cool if you could enable it for split screen viewing? Rick B.

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#1  
Apparently Android "N" is going to make this a native Android feature rather than just Samsung devices. I don't know ifbthe app deovlopor will still need to enable it or if it will automatically support all apps. Unfortunately my Nexus 7 2013 is not one of the supported devives for the developer preview.

Alan
#2  
Hello thetechguru,

Is android N released yet? I was under the impression that the app has to be written for split screen window viewing but I also saw a thread that shows a way to view any app on your phone in split screen mode. However you have to root your phone. This tends to indicate that the app doesn't have to be written with split screen viewing in mind. Is Android N going to allow all apps to be viewed in split screen mode without rooting your phone and installing special third party software or app on your cell phone? Thanks much...Rick B.
PRO
Synthiam
#3  
The app has to support the split screen but there's very little information about it. So few people have or use that feature, that it's tough to allocate the numerous development hours for it - specifically with N's multitasking feature being implemented natively in the OS. While I can see the feature being relative to your foscam view desire, it unfortunately is not something that more than 50% of ezrobot users will use. There's hundreds of other priority feature development items that are being worked on daily:) do not fear that we're not always creating new things.
#4  
Android N is out as a developer preview. Only for recent Nexus models, and quite buggy still, so what will be in the final release and how it will ultimately work isn't known, but multiscreen, at least on tablets, seems to be a priority.

Alan
PRO
Synthiam
#5  
I think what they will find is performance issues. First there's a HUGE confusion of what MHz means with CPUs. And I mean huge confusion. It's like horse power vs torque. You can have a bunch of horse power, but without torque you're not moving anywhere.

Mobile CPUs are arm processors - actually microcontrollers mostly, and follow the same architecture and reduce instruction set. This is a significant difference between the "torque" available to a PC processor.

To be clear, the two MHz ratings are NOT the same. If you think that you're 2.4 ghz mobile device is equilevant to your 2.4ghz PC... You're mistaken... And not even by a little bit.

Running two applications on the screen at once on mobile processors will introduce significant performance issues.

Oh, but you might argue that mobile apps are "multi tasking"....

False: mobile operating systems are multitasking, but not in the way you think. It's not the OS that limits the multi tasking capabilities - it's the layer that supports the mobile platform. In this case Android (which is surprisingly similar to iOS). The platform lets one application occupy the UI at a time.

So where's the multi tasking come in? Well, if you've ever ventured into mobile app development, you'd know. Multi tasking (i.e. Background service) in an app is actually a separate app. You have to create a separate executable within your apps namespace. Using one of many methods to allow the two apps to communicate and exchange data. These are called background services - which is probably clicking in your mind right now and it's all making sense... Because you've seen the option of configuring background services in the settings menu before.

Running two apps at once on your mobile device? I guess there's ways to do it - but I sure don't want to take part in it if it will introduce significant performance issues with our customers.

What you may not realize is how cpu intensive and effecient ARC mobile is. Think about it for a second... Every single button and behavior that you add to your app is a script. And a script is a program. So on one app, you may have 20 programs running! That's not even including the threads that handle streaming audio, video, Auto Position and more...

Be happy with what you got:) it's still years ahead of what anyone else on planet earth is doing - and we have more tricks up our sleeve!

Just have to wait for mobile processors to catch up.
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