SDK Thoughts for the Phantom 3

Joined
Apr 13, 2015
Messages
1,043
Reaction score
388
Location
Tim in San Diego
When I saw the SDK being opened to the P3..... Drool started dripping out of my mouth.

Lets see.... The Number of P3's all ready sold impressive. Many more sales to come.
Lets see.... An SDK Programmer creates a Killer app for Android and IOS.
Lets see.... That Programmer sells that app lets say it's really a Must Have No Bugs! Conservatively he prices it at 5 bucks maybe more or less.
Lets see.... That programmer is going to be a very rich person and well off for a long long time. Even after he pay's the royalties to DJI.
Lets see..... China? Programmers? Yeah lots! USA Yep Lots!....
Lets see..... The Pilot app is already done and fairly stable. All you have to do is put some more wings "code" into it.

End Result lots of programmers are drooling at the amount of money that can be made.
Their will be lots and lots of app's coming out for this platform.

I Guarantee it.......

Remember this guy's app?
  1. No, Flappy Bird developer didn't give up on $50,000 a day. Although the hit game is no longer available, more than 50 million people who downloaded it are still generating millions, or billions, of ad impressions, and Dong Nguyen is still getting paid.
One More tidbit... These apps can be simple plugins to the pilot app, you could active it when you need that particular app for an outing... Think of the apps as filters are to Photoshop.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Advexure
So how would this work?
Say I want to enable faster decent, or the geo fencing or tour settings that are/might not be available on the default app.
I don't know first thing about app writing.
Do I post a request and hope that someone will do it?
Do I wait for others to write the apps and I then download this, that, or the other and hope it works?
 
The Devs are already making money on the P2's. The one im using was $10. A good app for the P3 is gonna make a NICE chunk of change.
 
The pilot app is due to be replaced. DJI has a team working on making a app that works with P3, Inspire1, and vPlus. Not all parts of the app will function for the vPlus. The areas will be greyed out. viewable, just not useable for that model.
 
It's obvious that DJI is leaving the development of many functions to outside developers. Personally I think will work out much better for everyone. Typically you don't see hardware manufactures doing much with their software.

But I'd not quit your day job. Most apps for the P2V are around $10.00. Take a look at the downloads... they are around 500 or perhaps 1000. So that is $5,000 to $10,000. Good part time job but not full time.
 
The pilot app is due to be replaced. DJI has a team working on making a app that works with P3, Inspire1, and vPlus. Not all parts of the app will function for the vPlus. The areas will be greyed out. viewable, just not useable for that model.
You've mentioned this a couple of times, but you've been the only one to do so, over three sites I visit. Please cite your sources.
 
Can they actually be plugins, I did not know the vendor app stores such as Apple allow for third party plugs to function in that way. It only allowed for the purchase on in app purchases from the same vendor?
No, unfortunately not. Any third-party app would need to recreate all the functions of the Vision app, which is why most of them only do a couple of extra things, instead of reinventing the entire wheel.
 
No, unfortunately not. Any third-party app would need to recreate all the functions of the Vision app, which is why most of them only do a couple of extra things, instead of reinventing the entire wheel.

I thought as much, hence why I am hoping DJI develop the basic functions comparable with the 3DR SOLO so that you can stay within their environment.
 
You've mentioned this a couple of times, but you've been the only one to do so, over three sites I visit. Please cite your sources.

How is that post any different then calling me a liar? If I was to mention something that meant to be in a joking manner, I would say so.
 
These are all very good thoughts, @envisionabove, but it's important to understand what an SDK is. It's a library of set, abstracted functions that hook into normal operation of the device. You're essentially using building blocks to piece together a feature.

For instance, you cannot write a program to tell your iPhone to activate the camera, but your program can ask iOS to activate the camera and pass that image along. It's a very important and distinct difference.

This difference is directly applicable when we talk about things like descent speed. You can tell the Phantom to descend, and you can tell it to go slow (there are joystick commands, so I'd imagine you could tell the 'joystick' to descend at half-stick), but you won't be able to exceed the Phantom's built-in maximums, because there's no SDK hook into the part of the controller that defines those speeds.

But by using those building blocks in conjunction with the building blocks of the device you're controlling it with (e.g. iOS / Android), you can do really cool things: one that's already done is using your device's GPS to direct the Phantom in your direction ('Follow Me' mode of the Autopilot app).

So think about it in those terms, and you can probably find quite a few interesting things a third-party app could accomplish.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: envisionabove
Thanks for this Morgon... I really see developers acting fast with all the options that have been opened to them.
I hope the "I wish it did what the Solo did" and the never gonna happen crew, understand the potential for this platform to excel with the Software Developers Kit.
 
Last edited:
No one called you a liar. Can you cite your source or not?
Never said anyone called me a liar. You can read it. It doesn't need explained. If a source name could have been mentioned, it would have been. I usually don't post these candy gram messages just for this very reason.

Also, due to the P3, it's obvious that members from different forums on this site are coming together for the 1st time. Each of us has a different personality. I'm not use to someone from site leaving me with a feeling that I'm fabricating a story. I have spent an enormous amount of hours in only the Vision+ forum on this site until all my P3 threads were redirected to this forum after it was created. About 80% of my time in the Vision+ forum was spent helping other members. That can at anytime be followed up on by searching my account screen name here on the site.

Now, please forgive me for hi-jacking this thread. I thought some of the members would like to know some cool stuff is already in process. Notice I originally mentioned it as DJI's Team. That means it is their own people that is involved in this.
 
If a source name could have been mentioned, it would have been.

That's all that was asked. It would be nice to separate actual facts from the rampant speculation that's all over this forum.
 
Last edited:
Does the SDK support writing the GPS variables (at least time, latitude, longitude and altitude every second or so) to an external memory, e.g., a USB stick connected to a port on the Phantom 3?

Same question on an addition to the DJI Pilot app to record these variables to the device the app is on?

Ron
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,355
Members
104,934
Latest member
jody.paugh@fullerandsons.