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iPhone as a touchpad

I love this. Reader Jahanzeb sent us a little mini-app he cooked up out of vnsea that turns your Installer.app-enabled iPhone into a touchpad for your PC (and Mac, I assume, though the video above shows Windows). Once you've got the two talking to each other, you can click, double-click, and even drag windows around. Jahanzeb says scrolling is possible, "although it's a little rusty."

Telekinesis is still awesome, but this app basically turns your iPhone into a remote for your whole computer. Anything you can do by moving and clicking a mouse around, you can do with this. Very neat. It is too bad that it requires Installer.app, and that it has to be done unofficially, but the official SDK is still (hopefully) just around the corner. I remain amazed at how much programmers like Jahanzeb and the vnsea guys (and anyone else working on the iPhone) are able to do unofficially.

I love this. Reader Jahanzeb sent us a little mini-app he cooked up out of vnsea that turns your Installer.app-enabled iPhone into a...
 

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Peppaz

This works incredibly well om both my XP pc and my eeePC with Xandros. I use a 32" tv as a monitor and this saved me from buying a media remote that works with both. Heres a quick demo and pics of this working in linux http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=16797

February 24 2008 at 4:36 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Derrick

This will work anywhere you can VNC. I've got it working perfectly with Ubuntu.

February 23 2008 at 7:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jay

Who cares... just use a goddamned mouse.

February 21 2008 at 10:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bryan

VNSea does the same thing with video. To be honest I think mainly what this guy did was take away the video feature of VNC, if you watch him when he opens the app its the EXACT same interface as VNSea, even the buttons at the bottom are the same. I don't see anything special about this prog, VNSea has been out since 1.0.2.

February 21 2008 at 8:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Hansi

OLD NEWS! Remote Buddy has done that and much, much more for a couple of months now! And unlike Telekinesis (an abandoned project btw), which never really worked for me, it really gives you FULL control over your Mac!

Check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV-zJ9wsigQ

February 21 2008 at 7:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Hansi's comment
Sam

Want more than that? Check out PC2me.net or myf2p.com. Much more accessibility and easy to install.

March 19 2008 at 2:36 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kyle

This is very nice! But I don't have any knowledge on how to set it up. Can anyone describe an brief walk through?

February 21 2008 at 5:37 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
brian

Funny how he keeps pointing the phone at the screen, as if it were an IR remote. :-)

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we can't yet imagine how revolutionary the iPhone/iPod touch will prove to be in the long run. Just wait 18-24 months, when used first-gen devices are being sold for less than $100. (A refurb Touch is already just $249 from Apple.) Music playing aside, it is an awesome web tablet, and between web-interfaces on devices and apps like this, it will truly become the ultimate universal remote.

February 21 2008 at 4:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Randall

so its like salling clicker.

February 21 2008 at 3:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Derek F.

Why do you need to install Vine Server on the Mac to run it? Just turn on Apple Remote Desktop in the Sharing Preference panel.

Was just trying this out - works great on Mac, XP & Ubuntu. It's perfect for PowerPoint presentations - no need to buy a remote pointer or anything. Just tap-tap-tap on the screen and zip through your slides.

February 21 2008 at 3:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
onefoot17

so what's the difference betn Touchpad and VNsea? not tryin to diss the guy's obv l33t skillz but does it run better faster than VNsea? 'cos VNsea is (was, i upgraded to 1.1.3) one of my fav iPhone apps and it worked pretty well.

February 21 2008 at 2:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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