In response to our tip about the presentation iOS app, Remote Mouse, Cult of Mac reader (and iOS developer) Roman Keller sent us an email to recommend Logitech’s own remote mouse iOS app, Touch Mouse. What a great app to have on hand, because you know I’ve always got my iPhone, but I may have left that mobile mouse at home. Thanks for the tip, Roman! Let’s look at it a bit more in depth.
First up, head on over to the Logitech website and download a server for your Mac. Choose OS X from the dropdown menu and download the .dmg file. Open that up on your Mac and drag the iTouch Server app to your Applications folder, and launch from there.
Then, once you’ve grabbed this free app from the App Store, tap to launch it on your iPhone or iPod touch. Once past the splash screen, the app will search for the iTouch Server you just installed. Touch Mouse on the iOS device should see the server, as long as you are both ont he same Wi-Fi network. Tap the name of the computer you’re wanting to use Touch Mouse with, and you’re ready to go. You can even type with the app, as evidenced by this very sentence, which i just typed using the Touch Mouse app.
Tap the gears icon in the lower right of the app to access a ton of settings, like whether you want to show button 3, which mouse button, left or right, you want as the primary button, whether you want to display button labels, and the like. You can turn off two finger scrolling as well as horizontal scrolling. You can even set the tracking and scrolling speed there. All in all, most things you can set on your normal mouse.
This isn’t a review, but a tip, so I’m not going to go into too much of how it works, but the ease of use and setup impressed me. Next time you need to control a computer and you don’t have a mouse handy, this might be the way to go.
Got an OS X tip? Need help troubleshooting OS X? Drop me a line or leave a comment below.
