iPhone App: Air Mouse

June 22nd, 2009

= 5 stars

Turn your iPhone into the coolest track pad mouse ever.

The Good

• Much more than just a mouse. The variety of mice and layout options demonstrate a lot of thought. Default is a trackpad with a scroll wheel and left and right buttons. Turn the iPhone into landscape mode to get a larger surface. But Air Mouse goes much further: Tap the icon in the upper right corner to turn your mouse into a controller using the iPhone tilt controls. The button layout changes, removing the trackpad and making the right, left buttons and scroll area bigger.
• But there’s more: in addition to the mouse options, you get the iPhone’s standard keyboard, and a black keyboard with several modes (function keys and arrow keys, multimedia for controlling iTunes, and a browser control interface). So in addition to the mouse you also have a surprisingly capable keyboard replacement.
• Requires installation of Air Server software on the computer you want to control. The software adds an icon to your menu bar and is very straightforward to set up and use.

The Bad

• Has a very specific use, since all computers come with mice and keyboards these days. I personally have plans for it as a remote control of a MacMini hooked up to a home entertainment system, but that’s a pretty niche activity.

Conclusion

Air Mouse blew my mind when I first used it. It’s more than just a mouse replacement for one key reason: the developers really leveraged the iPhone’s ability to provide a changing UI to make it better than a mouse, and turning it into a fully featured computer remote control. It actually makes a decent demo for a future MacBook where the entire keyboard area is another display. Highly recommended.

iPhone App Store Link: