iOS apps changing/issues?
Hello, I'm noticing in the last couple days several issues with the iOS apps, primarily with the Multiplex view:
1) In the Multiplex tab, where you select the # of cameras, cycle time, etc, the UI is unresponsive to clicks on the "highlight activity" and "start multiplex" buttons. I have to touch the screen somewhere around the buttons, not directly on them, and try multiple times to get any response. On my iPad with trackpad/keyboard, I can never get a response via the trackpad click. I have to touch the screen many times in some place near but not on the buttons to get any response. On the iPhone, likewise, it is harder to get a response from the buttons, but not as difficult as on the iPad (presumably because the iPhone screen is smaller so I'm more likely to touch near the area where the button will respond).
2) If I can get the multiplex view to start, it seems to freeze up intermittently thereafter.
3) When the multiplex view is displayed, I cannot get the title card at the top ("x" Mutiplex Cycle") to go away by tapping somewhere on the screen, and likewise, sometimes I cannot get it to appear either. The longer multiplex tile view is displayed, the more unresponsive it seems to become.
4) The camera display in the multiplex view is not consistent about how it displays the images. I have a mix of 4:3 and 8:3 aspect ratio cameras. This is not new behavior, but something seems different now, at least on my iPad. At one point in the recent past, it seemed to be doing what I prefer, which was to scale each camera view to fit the tile layout, regardless of camera aspect ratio; therefore I could see 100% of each camera in the multiplex/tile view. Now it always appears to be cropping some of the image regardless of source aspect ratio.
5) Likewise, individual camera views appear to be cropped now. For example, iPad Pro 12.9" 5th gen, has a 1.33:1 aspect in landscape orientation (used with apple iPad keyboard/case). When I double tap a camera which has a 1.78 aspect, it fills the screen north/south, and is cropped east/west as well as being slightly squeezed east/west. It seems the app is trying to trade-off between fitting image width on screen vs distorting the aspect ratio too much vs cropping it, which is producing the least desirable outcome in either scenario.
I would prefer either:
A) Always maintain the original camera aspect ratio, scale the image on the longest axis to fit the screen (ie, wide cams would be letterboxed, tall cams would be pillarboxed) but all of the source image will always be visible, or,
B) Fit both width and height, which will distort aspect more or less depending on source aspect, but all of the source image will remain visible.
But in either case - all of the source image will remain fully visible.
If there's a lot of users offering varying feedback on this, then I'd vote for a preference, because the current choice of always cropping some of the image depending on source aspect + always squeezing to varying degrees seems like a committee compromise that has produced the least desirable result in all cases. I prefer to always see all of the source image.
The aspect ratio issues are not entirely new behavior - but it seems like in an iOS update from maybe a few weeks ago it was looking better than it had in the past, and now it's gone back to cropping behavior. I'm not certain about this though...
The most pressing issue is that the UI is unresponsive and multiplex is freezing.
Looking at app store, I appear to have v1.8.7 (updated 3 days ago) running on iPadOS and iOS 18.6.2.
Comments
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Copying this comment here - I just found the "balanced/stretch/crop" setting after the write up above.
So I was complaining above about "balanced". Crop I would never use. Stretch works for me, but the one setting that seems obviously missing is "Fit", ie, "Fit the source camera width into each tile (or full screen view) and maintain aspect ratio)" (ie, source image will be letterboxed or pillarboxed depending on source aspect vs multiplex tile or screen aspect).
I guess maybe in weeks prior, when things were looking good to me, the setting must have been on "stretch", and then it changed to "balanced" recently? I don't know...
In any case, I'd prefer the options "Stretch" or "Fit" (feature request).
All that said, the multiplex view is constantly freezing in this current version, so that outweighs everything else. I have to fall back to the web browser until this is resolved.
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Good to hear you found the setting that adjusts the display mode (Crop / Stretch / Balanced). A "Fit" mode with black bars just wouldn't look good in the app, especially with cameras of different aspect ratios displayed together, which is why we haven't included it - I hope the Stretch mode sufficiently achieves your desired result.
As for the responsiveness issues - I'm not sure what this could be. It seems that this is an unusual problem (maybe reported by only one other user), and we can't reproduce it. But your description does point to a potential problem with the app. We will investigate and get back to you.
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>>A "Fit" mode with black bars just wouldn't look good in the app, especially with cameras of different aspect ratios displayed together,
I understand why you say that wouldn't look "good" (letterboxing and pillarboxing might confuse some users), but the solution is simply: offer it but don't make it the default. By omitting a "fit" mode, you're making it impossible for users to monitor their cameras source rasters full frame at their original aspect ratio; which in the context of a security app...seems a bit heavy handed in terms of compromising camera source raster visibility for a layout that looks "nice"?
I would use "fit" mode on some layouts, and stretch on others. The wide aspect of some of my cameras (ie, the Reolink 8:3 aspect dual lens cams) capture doorways at those extreme edges of the view. I never want those images cropped.
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One addl note re the responsiveness issues:
This is 100% reproducible. Open the multiplex tile view on iOS/iPad OS. Highlight activity is on.
Switch to another application.
Switch back to SecSpy.
Result: Multiplex view is frozen.
Double click a tile to full screen it. View un-freezes. Go back to multiplex view. Now it's unfrozen.
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Hi @photonclock now I understand better what you mean. This is a known issue, whereby backgrounding/foregrounding the app while in Multiplex mode causes it to stall. This will be fixed in the next update, but for now you'll need to swipe-down to exit the multiplex presentation and restart it again in this situation.
We'll consider adding a fit mode, as you say it can just be there as an option should the user wants a no-crop no-distort layout, even if ugly!
