You've probably heard of Mobile Air Mouse, the clever app that turns your iPhone into, well, an air mouse. (It's currently on sale for $1.99, by the way.)
JumiMouse is a bit different: It turns your iPhone (or iPod Touch) into an oversize touch pad, complete with left and right mouse buttons, tap-and-drag support, and so on.
The free JumiMouse app turns your iPhone into a roomy touch pad controller.
Why would you want such a thing? For starters, JumiMouse could take the place of a laptop touch pad that's worn and no longer working properly.
It could also solve the common problem of accidentally grazing the laptop touch pad with your thumb, causing the cursor to jump and your document to get messed up. Just deactivate the touch pad and use JumiMouse instead.
Finally, JumiMouse is an ideal replacement for netbook touch pads, which are notoriously tiny. The iPhone screen is ginormous in comparison.
JumiMouse communicates with your PC via local or ad-hoc Wi-Fi. To use the app, you must first install the free Jumi Controller utility. It's currently compatible with Windows XP and Vista (32-bit). I tried it with Windows 7: no go.
(Mac users should check out SnatchTest, a similar utility that duplicates the Mac touch pad. It's free.)
On a Vista system, JumiMouse was a snap to set up. My iPhone immediately detected the server, and a tap later I was controlling the cursor from my screen. Everything worked perfectly, and I detected no lag between my finger movements and the cursor.
At first I was disappointed by the lack of options for things like pointer speed and size. But it turns out that Windows recognizes JumiMouse as hardware, so all you do is hop into the Control Panel and tweak the standard Mouse settings to your liking.
This is a fabulous little app for anyone looking to control a PC--for any reason--with an iPhone or iPod Touch. Amazingly, JumiMouse is free.
Infinitely cooler and more practical than the still-respected iTunes Remote is Air Mouse for iPhone 1.5 ($6). Why? You can play music and videos from any media player, for starters, not just from Apple's pet player.
In fact, Air Mouse gives you the reins to the keyboard and mouse, with new screens in this version that are tailored to commanding the Web browser, media players, and function keys. Then there are the two methods for wielding your iPhone's remote mouse, and new support for landscape mode.
In a word, it's awesome, and it works (with the free Air Mouse Server) for Windows and Mac. Check out our video review to see how it works.
Forget the iTunes Remote. The newly released Air Mouse 1.5 ($5.99) makes a mean universal remote out of the iPhone and iPod Touch. With it, you'll be able to control almost any program on your Mac or Windows computer.
I was always a big fan of this app, which works with the help of a Windows and Mac servers to establish a local network between the computer and the iPhone. It then gives you two modes for controlling the keyboard and mouse: a touch pad, and a slightly less effective (read: higher learning curve) and more traditional air mouse that you activate by pressing a button and arcing your arm. Version 1.5 completely blows away every competitor we've seen by adding an incredible array of new features without bumping up the price.
... Read moregMote is one of the easiest to use mouse gesture tools around. gMote's dual-pane configuration interface makes it a snap to create and program mouse gestures, and takes extra steps to teach new users how it works via a prompt on first run to check out the built-in tutorial.
Press the create button, make your mouse gesture in the test window, and then use a pull-down to assign one of the 30-plus actions. The actions center on browser, media player, and word-processing commands. However, program execution, Web site selection, and hot-key combinations are also easily added actions.
To make sure normal mouse movements don't invoke gesture actions, you can chose a key combination, the center mouse button, or the right mouse button to hold as you make the gesture. The gesture draws a temporary line on the screen to help users make the correct movement. The app then helpfully displays the gesture in a pop-up box before invoking the action. Gestures are easily saved in sets and are as easily deleted when no longer needed. gMote warns users when new gestures are too similar to older ones, a sharp feature that's a must in this kind of program.
It adds new functionality to your mouse, there's little to learn, and it's free. AltMove Manager is a mouse and desktop enhancement manager that can move and resize windows that are locked, grab a screenshot, and magnify a window under the mouse. You can easily add a few others through the Actions menu.
As an executable, the app doesn't need to be installed--just run the executable for the shortcuts to be in place. The regular settings include some standard program options for running the executable at start-up and keeping it on top. Advanced settings let you move back and forth with a combination of left and right mouse buttons, limiting shortcuts to within a certain range or certain time interval. Tooltips will help you stay on top of what this powerful little app can do.
Some people have reported shortcuts not working, but I encountered no problems when I used it.
Heat map of dirt underneath a keyboard.
(Credit: Tony Targonski)Inspired by Tony Targonski's wonderful heat map of the dirt distribution in his keyboard, I decided to take all my keys off and give my own keyboard a good cleaning yesterday. (Honestly, everyone should do it once a year, unless you've got some crazy, futuristic, self-cleaning device.)
As I painstakingly scraped off all of the gunk, I learned two things. No. 1: I'm a proud PC gamer. Most of the dirt was concentrated under W, A, S, and D. No. 2: I love my keyboard and I hate my mouse. My keyboard provides endless creative potential, while my mouse helps me click on stupid links. I never clean my mouse.
In order for we keyboard lovers to make the most of our wonderful input devices, we need good launchers, i.e. apps that let us run programs or load Web sites without clicking that silly mouse. ... Read more
- prev
- 1
- next
