Show HN: Use your phone to present slides on any screen
uslide.net
uslide.net
They're just so very very wrong in this context, mainly because they're deliberately distracting. For someone trying to focus on delivering a presentation, this is 100% unacceptable. It would be tolerable (barely) if the ad never changed, but when the damn thing changes every few seconds, it's more than enough to break one's concentration. And that is LETHAL for public speaking.
I know HN guidelines discourage the use of caps for emphasis, and I almost never use them for this reason. But my negative reaction was SO strong that it's worth breaking protocol just to emphasize how awful those intrusions really are.
Aside from that one hideous, terrible, awful, repulsive, glaring deal-killer of a flaw, this app is brilliant. Bottom line: I'd pay $5 for a version without ads. I'd refuse to use it with ads.
Turns out that the app's "More" menu contains a upgrade option that will remove the ads for $0.99. Problem solved.
(I'll eventually have to change my BlackBerry won't I?)
Mine (RL Classic) asked me if I wanted to open the webpage and launched Safari.
After some time I started to wonder why I would need a QR... well... QR must be pairing a unique computer/ip/browser (?) with the phone, right? Nice.
I would not bother to add too much explanations on the main page - now its a little mistery and I like that demo is 'hidden' (see above). Also, dont add that both presentation machine and phone must be connected to the internet - it is evident and even if it is not, well, people will figure it out.
Edit: As others mentioned, need for network connection introduces some serious uncertainty. I just get it and would never take a plane (slide 5?) without a copy of my presentation on me.
Have not been presenting for quite a long time, but will surely give it a go when I do.
We recommend Scan for (iPhone) or Google Goggles for (Android). You might want to fix ()'s: (for iPhone) (for Android)
Thumbnails for slides on the phone must be your next feature, am I right?
I don't. I opened the page, stared at the massive QR code, tried to get an idea about the product based on the right-hand side list, and closed the page still unsure how the product works exactly.
Side note: If any mobile devs would like to join the team, shoot me an email - anton at Uslide.net
For me, it replaces:
0) Having to carry my MBP around if the only use is the presentation,
1) Plugging my Macbook Pro in, always carrying a Thunderbolt/vga and Thunderbolt/dvi adapter,
2) Trying to fiddle with almost always flaky cables to get projector working,
3) Setting up a ad-hoc wifi network, connecting my iPhone to that network,
4) But before that, removing the other saved Wifis because somehow both MBP and iPhone tends to ditch that Wifi and connect to the other ones available that has internet access, by default,
5) Open BetterTouchTool Remote on my iPhone,
6) Connect to the MBP from the app,
7) And finally start presenting.
I end up doing a presentation every week, at least. Job well done. I'm your first customer if you sell it.
I would need at least:
- offline mode, even if everything goes down it should work using the remote + I would like to know that we lost connection. Not sure if it's already working.
- authorization using QR
E.g. my best use case for this site: lightening talk session. Able to have multiple presentations linked to each other and be able to rearrange them from different computer.
- I just download this onto my phone?
- Where would the presentation be stored?
- What do I have to do on the presenting machine?
- What does the remote look like?
- Is the remote going to force my screen not to lock?
- Will my screen be bright and distracting to my audience?
- Why is there no information? Is this malware?
- How do I get rid of the Tip box which is covering text, because I'm using 200% zoom on Retina?
- Why is there a log in? There's no accompanying register.
- What software does this work for?
Also, your logo is really fuzzy, and your HRs don't match up... but that's just me being picky!
-I just download this onto my phone?
"Scan the QR code with your phone. Once you're connected, you can use your phone to present slides on this screen."
-Will my screen be bright and distracting to my audience?
Seriously?
Alakin, ignore most of these questions. I couldn't get the back button to work but apart from that, fine job!
Why should I scan a QR code on his page with no expectation of the results?
Almost all of the presentations I have seen at work have been shared with people on the phone as well (using terrible sharing tech, I might add). I agree with other posters that having an offline backup solution is important, but given how losing network connectivity already breaks meetings for us, I think having to load up from a USB drive would be an acceptable delay.
A portion of our meetings have demo sections. Either showing off features of some web app from their computer, or VNCing into a server and demo'ing functionality from terminals.
We have to hook up a computer to the projector in a room regardless - there isn't one already there. Having multiple presenters in one meeting would definitely go smoother, though it doesn't happen that often. Startup time would definitely be faster though, as noted our web conference software sucks.
I also like the idea (posted elsewhere) to be able to draw on the slides / point things out.
I loved the demo :)
The problem I see is that by requiring a working internet connection on your smartphone and the computer you use to present, this add a number of points of failure. I'd feel safer with just a USB key (+ publicly accessible copy on the web) and a PDF.
It would be cool if you'd show the presentation on the phone too and let the presenter use the phone (or tablet) to draw/highlight stuff live.
In both Firefox and Chrome the QR code on the homepage only appears after a refresh or two.
Overall really nicely done, though the two reasons I wouldn't use it personally are 1.) Confidentiality (most decks I would ever want to present I can't upload to some random MVP site) 2.) Branding (I'd want to be able to white label, or self-host).
You might want to give a better walkthrough and explanation. :) Really cool though if it is solid. You have to be careful with slide control because this is LIVE and people want things that are absolutely solid and going to work 99.99% of the time. One mishap and you've probably lost that customer if it was in a live setting.
It's a bit unfortunate that uploading a keynote-presentation threw an error ( didn't say what the problem was, just that the presentation couldn't be converted ) and uploading a ppt messed up the charts. So, maybe it would be wiser to simply just accept pdf-documents and rely on users to do the conversion – it's a complicated task, versions change all the time and mastering pdf alone is maybe enough work for a mvp. just my two cents.
but you definitely got a user.
You can then add the ability to do live annotations to presentations from the phone/tablet and keep that exclusive to the app.
This whole app is brilliant, I hope it really takes off for you and you make a metric fuck-ton of money out of it. Superb idea.
Unfortunately the site doesn't work with IE on Windows Phone 8. Can't click either of the green buttons seen in this screen shot- http://sdrv.ms/X4gN6 (possible a bootstrap issue).
Hopefully I can snag my wife's droid tomorrow and give it a whirl!
IronMan Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...
Is there already a name to shorthand this whole process/idea? "screen pairing"?
Still it was pretty fun to see the slides move when we moved a finger across the phone's screen.
I will give it a spin and see how it differs from http://presefy.com - which I'm currently using.
Why can't you embed a token in the QR code? I use huge pads for passwords and typing them in on my phone is traumatic and awful.
Feel free to contact me - my twitter is in the profile.
I am using Firefox 22 on PC, Firefox browser on phone.
If you dont mind, could you please send me your email address? anton at uslide net