Very nice! Logged in with it, and my Rokus popped right up.

Can't wait to try it out when I get home!

Works great easy to use and gives you a keyboard when needed. Thanks Roku.

yeah very nice, useful app. I kinda feel bad for the developers who have paid Roku remote apps in the app store

***IF THE IPHONE APP IS NOT FINDING YOUR ROKU PLAYER, READ THIS***

Hi everyone,

A small number of users are having issues getting past the Select a Player screen. The app isn't displaying their Roku player at this screen so they are unable to select it and proceed to the app.

We are in the process of writing up some tips that we'll post as FAQs to support.roku.com this weekend. There are a few potential causes. Your Roku player may no longer be broadcasting itself over your network. So, you may need to wake it out of screensaver mode or go through network setup again. Or, your Roku player might not really be on the same network as your iPhone. That is, the IP addresses are different between the devices due to your unique home network setup.

Regards,
Tom M.
Roku

I like the idea, but I can't get past the login screen. I enter the same credentials I use to login to the Roku.com website and the login fails. Even tried resetting my password, but still no luck.

johnmann wrote:

I like the idea, but I can't get past the login screen. I enter the same credentials I use to login to the Roku.com website and the login fails. Even tried resetting my password, but still no luck.

I had the same problem. I don't know if it's the same problem you're having, but for some reason, the app will only accept your email address if you enter it in all lowercase, otherwise it claims it's invalid. So, if you're entering a mixed case email address, try entering it as all lowercase instead.

Downloaded the app, linked to my account and it recognized my Roku players immediately. It seems to work well and no issues so far. Hope to see the app updated for the iPad to take advantage of the increased real estate.

TheEndless wrote:

johnmann wrote:

I like the idea, but I can't get past the login screen. I enter the same credentials I use to login to the Roku.com website and the login fails. Even tried resetting my password, but still no luck.

I had the same problem. I don't know if it's the same problem you're having, but for some reason, the app will only accept your email address if you enter it in all lowercase, otherwise it claims it's invalid. So, if you're entering a mixed case email address, try entering it as all lowercase instead.

I also heard (read in app review) another possible reason is having too long password - over 12 characters or some such, so consider that too.

Man, their app is getting slammed with bad reviews. Huge number of downloads though - on Friday it reached #60 overall in US! I speculate that's between 5000 and 10000 downloads on that day alone.

RokuTom wrote:

***IF THE IPHONE APP IS NOT FINDING YOUR ROKU PLAYER, READ THIS***
Hi everyone,
A small number of users are having issues getting past the Select a Player screen. The app isn't displaying their Roku player at this screen so they are unable to select it and proceed to the app.

We are in the process of writing up some tips that we'll post as FAQs to support.roku.com this weekend.

Well, the number of users having one of the three problems below is not that small - I estimate it to be about 1000 people per day (or 20% +/-5% of all downloads). In the mean time, here are some troubleshooting recommendations:

*** If the app does not accept your login info - make sure you type the email address in lowercase and the password is shorter than 12 characters. The following characters should not be in the password: <, >, ', ", and &. Change the password if you have to.

*** If the app does not discover the Roku player:
(1) Restart your wireless router - unplug its power for five seconds, then plug back and wait a minute for it to finish starting
(2) Restart your Roku player in the same way. Wait for the home screen to show up, then using the physical remote check it can play content of some of the network channels (say Pandora or Netflix)
(3) On your iPhone, make sure you are connected to the same WiFi network where Roku is. The Roku box can be connected either wirelessly or wired, does not matter - but check if the first 3 numbers of the IP address are the same, so they can "see" each other.
(4) Now try the "Roku" app again, fingers crossed
(5) If none of this helped, try one of the paid apps in AppStore that allows to manually add player by IP. I dare recommend my own "Remote for Roku" (it's the top paid remote for now anyway)

*** If the app discovers Roku but cannot control it (or it did control it but stopped):
(1) Restart Roku by unplugging power for five seconds and plugging again or repeat the network setup with the physical remote
(2) If/when you get tired of doing that, may I recommend again trying a paid app that avoids the issue

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the comments. I thought I'd give an update on sign-in/device pairing.

The two biggest issues users have had with the iPhone app are:

1. Can't sign in
2. No Roku player found

For issue number 1, it is true that the app was not accepting passwords > 12 characters. This was fixed server-side with no app update needed. Also, the app does not accept passwords with the following 5 characters: < > ' " and &. If your password contains these characters, you'll need to change it for now. We will issue an app update. The good people who review apps at Apple are on vacation through the end of the year so you won't see this update until January.

For issue number 2, the biggest cause is the Roku player isn't visible on the network despite being turned on. One solution that works for many people is to go through network setup in Settings again. To fix this, we'll ultimately have to look the way Roku players show themselves on a network. It really isn't an app bug.

Also, for issue number 2, there are some users who aren't on the same network (first 3 numbers of IP address of iPhone and Roku player must be the same) for whatever reason: accidentally linked to neighbor's network, are using multiple routers, have a combined modem/router.

We posted some tips at support.roku.com for both issue 1 and 2.

If you are having trouble with issue 2 no matter how many times you go through network setup, write us at feedback@roku.com and let us know what networking equipment (router make/model, modem make/model, ISP) you are using.

Tom

RokuTom wrote:

...
1. Can't sign in
...
For issue number 1, it is true that the app was not accepting passwords > 12 characters. This was fixed server-side with no app update needed. Also, the app does not accept passwords with the following 5 characters: < > ' " and &. If your password contains these characters, you'll need to change it for now. We will issue an app update. The good people who review apps at Apple are on vacation through the end of the year so you won't see this update until January.

Tom, what about mixed case email addresses? If I enter my email address as "TheEndless@..." the app immediately tells me that it's an "Invalid email." without even attempting to submit it. If I enter it as "theendless@..." it accepts it and logs in. It sounds like the email address validation in the app is a bit too strict.

TheEndless wrote:

Tom, what about mixed case email addresses? If I enter my email address as "TheEndless@..." the app immediately tells me that it's an "Invalid email." without even attempting to submit it. If I enter it as "theendless@..." it accepts it and logs in. It sounds like the email address validation in the app is a bit too strict.

And if i remember correctly, the meaning of the addressee is left to the local mail server - that is, anything to the left of "@" may or may not be case-sensitive, depending on the MX (to the right of @ it should be case-insensitive by DNS mandate). So no, Roku does not get to tell people how to capitalize their emais

The box still often fails to respond to remote commands even through the iOS app.

Running the app on an iPad2, and followed the instructions on support.roku.com to get it to find my LT. It seems to work, but since the screens are designed for iPhone sized displays it's pretty ugly on the iPad.

In addition, I found that there are human factors issues related to swipe gestures (left to right, etc) that are not intuitive because they work opposite to how they work on iPad native apps. For example, when displaying the Home screen on the roku, a swipe from right to left should scroll the home screen right to left, but instead it scrolls the screen left to right. That is backwards to the iOS paradigm. Maybe this behavior could be configured in the app.

While I appreciate Roku releasing this free app, I will probably continue to use one of the third party apps until an iPad version is available, and the human factors issues are cleaned up.