Keymote, a brand new iPhone application from Iced Cocoa, is much more than just a remote for you Mac. The application is an extended keyboard and a shortcut aide. It's a must-have utility for anyone who has a Mac hooked up to a TV, uses complicated keyboard shortcuts, or needs to control a Mac from another room. It isn't the first application of its class to grace the App Store, but it may be the most polished, most useful, and most attractive.
The beauty of Keymote is the flexibility of the application, even though all the application does is send keystrokes to your computer. These can be as simple as a single character or as complicated as a long series of keystrokes. Since Keymote isn't tied to a single application, but instead the current active application, it works in conjunction with all applications with keyboard shortcuts—including those that are X11-dependent.
To use Keymote, you must first download and install the Keymote Receiver which works as server waiting for connections from the client. The application has to be paired with the iPhone app, so security isn't an issue unless someone has access to both your iPhone and your computer. The pair of applications communicate over a WiFi network and keystrokes are met with an action almost instantly, but they only work if the two devices are on the same network.
The default sets are useful—the Front Row and DVD player key sets give you all the keystrokes you need to navigate the applications and are perfect if you use a Mac as a home theater device. The display looks like an iPhone-sized keyboard with each keystroke mapped to a separate button. This works well and looks beautiful, but I would like the ability to switch the keystroke and label sizes/locations or add a small icon from a developer-provided library.
You can choose between white keys and black keys, and, while I find the white keys more visually pleasing, the black keys provide more visual feedback upon keypress. Fifteen keys in total fit on the screen, but you can have more and scroll up and down to display them. If you don't want to use all 15 spots, you can add key spacers to come up with a layout that suits your needs.
The true power of Keymote is the ability to create your own custom keysets for the applications you use most. For me, it is quite useful to have my iPod touch sitting next to my keyboard and, instead of mousing across the screen in the middle of a drawing, I can leave my cursor where I want it and enter a complex key combination with a single finger. Also, if I'm making a recording in GarageBand and want to benefit from the acoustics of my bathroom, I can easily punch in and out since the application doesn't rely on line of sight.
The creation and editing process is straightforward, but sometimes rearranging the keys can be a bit frustrating. If you don't want to take the time to create your own, the application has a "Store" section that allows you to download other user submitted key sets at no cost. The store is laid out well and lets you find what you are looking for easily. The only problem is that there are a lot of them, including many duplicates, making the experience akin to finding a good application in the App store.
Ideally the iPhone application would switch between sets when you switch between applications on your computer, but that might cause a significant loss in battery life due to constant polling and elevated CPU use on the server. As it is, though, the application is outstanding.
Name: Keymote (iTunes Link)
Publisher: Iced Cocoa
Price: $3.99
Platform: iPhone and iPod touch
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