I haven’t been as enthused about an app as I am with Air Mouse Pro, from R.P.A. Tech, in a long time. Air Mouse Pro transforms your iPhone or iPod touch into a wireless air mouse, trackpad and remote control for iTunes and other apps.
You can use your iPhone or iPod touch just as you would any mouse, with left and right button clicks and anything else you ought to be able to do.
Air Mouse Pro, as it name suggests, is also an air mouse. Thanks to your device’s accelerometer, you can move the cursor with a wave of the hand in the air like you just don’t care.
Air Mouse Pro also functions as a trackpad, again, enabling you to control the mouse with finger swipes. Not long ago, I reviewed Snatch, a wireless trackpad, which I thought was pretty cool. Air Mouse Pro costs the same ($5.99) and is far more capable.
Air Mouse Pro recognizes the apps running on your desktop. When you’re running iTunes, tap the music icon and you’ll be able to control volume, skip through tunes, scroll and so on. If you have a browser open, tap the globe icon and you can search, go home, open favorites and more. Air Mouse Pro also has a keyboard and function keys as well.
When you tap icons to move left right and left, or page up and down, access iTunes and other functions, a label pops up momentarily to let you know what’s happening. The sound effects for mouse clicks sound even better than the real thing.
Unfortunately, although Air Mouse Pro is long on features, it’s short on how to use the app. It has no help functionality to speak of. Admittedly, it’s not hard to figure out — the interface is streamlined and the icons are evident as to their functions.
However, unless they read the App Store description closely, some downloaders of Air Mouse Pro may not understand they also need to download a server for their desktop (free Mac and PC versions are available). I’ve seen many apps with desktop remote control features, so I knew that was the thing to do after downloading the app from the App Store.
Once I installed the server, I launched the app and it immediately synched and worked. No configuration or twiddling required. It just popped.
All in all, Air Mouse Pro is an impressive app. It works right out the box and features considerable functionality all within easy reach. It offers excellent bang for the buck too.
I encountered a couple of minor problems. While playing music, iTunes stopped and I wasn’t able to restart the music using my handheld. A mouse click (with my real mouse) got me back on track. Another time, I crashed Firefox, but that could have been caused by my shennigans. In any case, neither was a deal breaker.
Get Air Mouse Pro.
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app category: Utilities
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April 20th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Does it connect to the Mac via a wireless network or bluetooth? Did you track battery usage while you were testing?
April 20th, 2009 at 10:36 am
It connects via Wi-Fi (Apple doesn’t permit devs to access Bluetooth). I didn’t track battery usage.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Awesome app indeed, longtime fan here! Just a correction to the article, there is an extensive help section on the website, a complete demo video and great tech support. Not that you really need it, considering the application is as dummy proof as I’ve seen, but it’s there.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Fred, after your comment, I re-read what I wrote and I see I should have been more clear about what I was referring to. Help is available on the Web site as you point out and I should have mentioned that. Thanks for the reminder.
July 4th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
I done everything but I didn’t get it to work. Also the techsupport could not help me. A lot of other users heve the same problem “UNABLE TO CONNECT”.
It cost a lot of time and disappoinment
Maybe it works better on a MAC
July 7th, 2009 at 8:43 am
I set up this app on my Vista laptop this morning and it worked right out of the box. I installed the Air Mouse server (free from their site) and it worked immediately.
September 26th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Just a note for some people reading this, Apps such as this that require a server do not work if you have both an internet Modem and Wireless Router (As 2 separate devices). By connecting a modem to a wireless router, often times it will create a secondary IP address and cause the program to be unable to reach the computer. This applies not only to Air Mouse but also to Apple Remote and Airphones and other similar apps.
The remedy for this is to create your own network with your computer’s wireless (easy to do on a mac. Windows desktop users may need to buy a wireless transmitter.), or change your router and modem to a wireless modem. However the prior option means no internet on your computer unless you have a Ethernet cable in.
Hope it helps some people