Finally got the macbook running on VNC, XCode to add some widgets to a screen, keychain access to manage all the passwords Apple requires, & then ran into the dreaded "Access denied" when trying to create a provisioning profile to run the program.
So developing anything for the 'pad requires either paying $100 every year to belong to the iOS developer program or getting someone you know who's already paying up to give you a provisioning profile for every device & app you develop. It's unfathomable to have to pay $100 every year to run your own code, so that just about finishes off having an aircraft that belongs to M.M.'s Apple universe. It needs to run on Android.
There are ways of rooting it, but now we're back to writing software that no-one else can run without rooting their own device with a program that requires someone somewhere to root every new version of iOS. There's no guarantee Apple devices are going to be rooted forever.
Don't know what the future of this macbook & iPad is. They're basically worthless except for writing software for a paying customer that won't be runnable after a year. Have found the pad interface more tedious to navigate than Android, even though it's faster. The pad is also heavier than the Android.
After deciding on continuing with just Android development, started the 4th incarnation of the ground station interface. It has now been done once in Java with a HUD, once in Java without a HUD, once in C++ without a HUD, & once in Android. The ground station is a significant amount of development, every time it's redone on a new, incompatible platform. Even graphics in Android are incompatible with the AWT libraries.
At least the Android rendering is real fast. It's much faster than those 1st 2 Java implementations. There's no lack of connection to the state of the aircraft. The ground station may actually be more complicated than the flight control software.
This phase was originally intended to be just enough to fly Marcy 1 manually. 1 day of programming ended up producing just enough to engage the autopilot or fly manually. Flying manually with the tablet is real hard.
Getting enough telemetry displayed to debug problems takes many days of work. There are graphical & text representations of many pieces of data for even something as simple as a monocopter.
When it came time to show the video preview, Java fell over. It can't get nearly the framerate of the C ground station.
Comments
I once again find myself envious of your skills and persistence Jack. I will be among the first to purchase a marcy when these things start selling in mass. My only complaint with you is that you don't post enough.
Tablets only fly when someone else pays for the crash damage. They have the same problem as flying phones, a bit too expensive to crash.
Why not just make a motor mounts for four corners of the tablet and a battery holder, you have a camera or two for optical position tracking, GPS, IMUs etc. The only thing you are missing is a couple of ESC.
@Gary:Jack probably could get a tablet to fly. A tablet is not much different from from the maple leaf design he's already flying!
Blast I thought you made the tablet fly. As ever top notch Jack.
this is fantastic!. I did the same and ditched crapingtosh products and bought a Samsung so I can run my ZeroUav YS-X6 and it works a dream. Apple are protecting themselves out of the market so they can go to hell as far as I am concerned. So what are the specification of that little aircraft?
Nice ! How RC community can test it ?