Player Next Gen has launched!

After 2+ years of rigorous development and beta testing, we are thrilled to announce the general availability of Player Next Gen. This milestone represents a significant achievement in our journey towards providing you with the most innovative and cutting-edge digital experience creation tools.

What is Player Next Gen?

Let's start with a step back to talk about Player without the 'next gen' part so you have everything in context. Player is the software that runs the experiences created using Intuiface Composer. Its job is to hide the unique differences of each supported deployment platform, enabling our customers to choose the platform that makes the most sense for their objective, target audience, and budget. Build it in Composer, run it anywhere Player runs. It's magic!

There is no Intuiface without Player, so our original Player technology has been around for years. In fact, there are two Player technologies: one for Windows, and one for all other supported platforms: Android, BrightSign, iPad, Samsung Tizen, and Chrome. The Windows technology is super adaptable so it's been easy to extend it with all new releases of Windows and of Windows hardware. The other Player technology, on the other hand, had sort of reached its limits. It was time to rewrite the whole thing.

Here's a demo that shows you how to go from an experience in Composer to deploying that experience on the web:

Advantages of Player Next Gen

Player Next Gen - the next generation of Intuiface Player - is constructed entirely out of modern web technologies. This approach has enabled us to attain significant platform flexibility since HTML5 is meant to run everywhere a website can run. There are a shocking number of benefits by taking this approach.

• Support for web deployment
  Intuiface experiences can now be published to the web. Assign one or more unique URLs to each experience, and load them either directly in a browser or while embedded on another webpage in an iFrame. Use any Chromium-based browser - e.g. Chrome, Edge, and Safari - on Windows, Android, MacOS, iPadOS, ChromeOS, and Linux.
• Install experiences as a Progressive Web App
  Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are web-hosted applications that can look and act like a native app. They have a customizable shortcut on your desktop or home screen, can be run offline, and are full screen without need to run a web browser. They will also self-update if you publish a new version of the underlying experience. By installing an Intuiface experience as a PWA, your target audience can treat it like any other app on all of the platforms supported for web deployment.
• Global CDN Architecture
  All experiences published to the web - whether or not treated as a Progressive Web App - are hosted in the cloud on Amazon's Content Delivery Network. This global network ensures maximal download speeds regardless of where in the world an experience is being used.
• Dual licensing options for web-deployed experiences
  Choose from a views-license, best for web deployments to an unknown number of devices, and a Player license, best for web deployments on a known number of devices. Views licensing enables high scalability but requires always-on network connectivity. Player licensing is best for those requiring the offline ability of Progressive Web Apps on a set of known devices.
• Better In-Venue Performance
  Running Player "in-venue" means installing Player as a native app on Android, BrightSign OS, iPadOS, Samsung Tizen, and Chrome OS. By using Player in this way, you can remotely deploy experiences without needing someone onsite. Experiences running in-venue on Player Next Gen can squeeze more performance out of a given device. In fact, this has enabled us to add....
• Raspberry Pi Support
  Now experiences can be run in-venue on proudly low-powered Raspberry Pi devices. As always, your experience in Composer is identical, regardless of the deployment destination.

You can keep working with Headless CMS and Analytics, you can keep working with your Nexmosphere sensors, you still benefit from our ISO 27001 (information security) certification, etc. It's all plus, no minus!

What about Windows PCs?

Unchanged, does not use Player Next Gen technology. At least, not yet. The main difference is that with Player on Windows, custom interface assets can be written using .NET or JavaScript, while with Player Next Gen, you'd write them using TypeScript (a JavaScript variant). (Both technologies work with Web APIs.) Otherwise, you probably won't notice the difference. Certainly, don't even think about your Windows deployments. Nothing has changed for Windows.

Why isn't Player Next Gen mentioned on the pricing page?

The technology underlying Player Next Gen is replacing the Player technology on all platforms but Windows. That means this technology has become Player Current Gen - which isn't a great name, so we're sticking with Player. Just know that if you install Player on any platform but Windows, you're using the next-gen technology.

How does licensing work for web deployments?

Two licensing models accompany web deployment.

• The new Views model - now available on our Pricing page - is intended for web deployments that will be viewed by an unknown number of people on an unknown number of devices that have network access at all times.
• The Player model - identical to the model you've used for in-venue deployments - is for web deployments on a known set of devices that may need to run offline.

So when can I try it?

Now! It's available to everyone! If you're on trial, you can try everything, including web deployment. Paid customers at any Platform tier can use it in-venue on all supported platforms. Platform Enterprise customers can deploy to the web - assuming you have Player licenses or a Views license.

Get your hands on it and let us know what you think!