You will be hard pressed to find an application that matches the extensive feature of Remote HD. Below you’ll find descriptions of some - but not all - of
Remote HD’s major features related to Apple TV in particular. Click to read up on what Remote HD can do on a Mac and
the available features for Windows-computers.
Remote View - your LIVE Apple TV in your device
One of Remote HD's major features is the Remote view. Tap on the monitor button located at the top-right side of the remote to bring your LIVE desktop into view, complete
with pinching, zooming, left and right-clicks, drag and drop, 3-finger window scrolling and easy access to the keyboard if you ever need to type on the connected computer.
Remote HD will feed your iPad / iPhone / iPod Touch with a constant stream of screen data to show you exactly what's happening on the
AppleTV while you're controlling it. Prepare to be surprised by the response time and refresh rate!
Remote View - it's our favorite, and using it there's nothing you can't get done on your computer - we promise!
Sending mouse clicks - tap to click, secondary tap to right click
Tapping anywhere in the Remote View will send a regular mouse-click, so you can operate quickly when you're zoomed in with
a clear view of what you're clicking. You can also double tap to send double clicks. And to send right-clicks, touch the screen with one finger and tap with a second finger.
Drag and drop - tap and hold to drag
Drag and drop is a very powerful feature of the new Remote View. It allows you to drag and drop files, move windows, highlight text and more.
To integrate this naturally with the iPad/iPhone's built in multitouch zoom gesture was a huge challenge. And after many iterations, we finally got it right.
Lets say that you want to drag and drop a file. Here is how you would do it:
- Start by zooming into the Remote View such that you can clearly see the file and can easily tap on it.
- To start dragging, touch and hold the file for half a second. Be careful not to slide your finger.
- This will make the file stick to your finger. Now moving your finger around will drag the file around.
- Letting go of the touch will let go and drop the file.
"Apple-style" remote control
Remote HD's very first feature was the Apple-like remote control. You've seen this done time and time again but it was about time
someone improved on this, so we did and now it's even better! You get your usual set of buttons found on the physical Apple-remote:
up, down, left, right and OK along with the Menu-button. These will work as expected and in fact, they mimic the
functionality of the actual Apple Remote.
When you're using Remote HD on another platform (like Windows or Mac), you'll get a lot of features we felt missing from the standard
remote control: a full-screen button handy for lots of applications (presentations, visualizations and - well, full-screen); a convenient
volume slider; and the Application Switcher is always just one tap away.
Help is underway
Since Remote HD's interface for remote controlling programs is so versatile and dynamic, we realized that button hints would be helpful. If you ever need
help with knowing what the buttons do, one tap on the Information-icon will label every button with it's respective function for the program currently
running. It's built-in and works like a charm.
Extended Keyboard
Remote HD provides a heavily modded wireless keyboard for remote access. The new remote provides new additions like arrow keys, tab button, volume buttons and multimedia keys.
And it supports all the international keyboard layouts present in your iPad / iPhone / iPod Touch.
Connections management
Remote HD is intended to be your one-stop-shop for remotely accessing and controlling your computer. Computers, even. Mac, Windows or Apple TV.
This is why you are able to manage all your available connections. See available WiFi-connections of any computer nearby running Remote Helper;
have Remote HD discover available connections over the Internet; and create (or copy) connection information and save in a list of manual connections.
Power Options: sleep, restart or shut down
Featuring extensive power options, Remote HD allows you to put the Apple TV to sleep, restart it or even shut it down altogether. In addition, selecting
"Log off" will perform a "soft" restart on the Apple TV. These options come in handy whether you want to conserve energy, protect your privacy or restart
after performing system maintenance.
Adaptive bandwidth usage
Even on your WiFi-network, available bandwidth and connection quality can change. To ensure smooth operation of Remote HD on your iPhone / iPod Touch, Remote Helper
will detect the available bandwidth and make appropriate changes to data quality on the fly. This means reducing image quality while maintaining frame rates and
ensuring your refresh rate and response time stays at an acceptable level given any limitations to bandwidth resources. When your connection quality improves,
so will the data quality of Remote HD!
Data conservative-mode on mobile networks
When you connect to your computer or Apple TV using the mobile network (3G, EDGE, GPRS), Remote HD kicks into a mode designed to save data transfer and optimize its performance
based on the available bandwidth at any given time. Among the actions Remote HD takes to ensure proper performance is using using text-labels only (instead of text and
icons) and using saved copies of frequently accessed information (such as applications-lists).
Visual Trackpad
Remote HD features a built-in trackpad. Much like the remote control, the trackpad has been done a million times before, so we made it better.
The Visual Trackpad is something else. Your fingers will leave glowing, fading traces of their motion, it supports
multi-finger gestures and it has buttons for left, right and center click (tapping the trackpad itself also works). As always, the must-have
Application Switcher is one tap away and to ensure proper performance (even on older devices), you can play with the Settings-panel to decide
how the trackpad works best on your device.
The trackpad now also supports sending right-clicks and drag-n-drop. To right-click, touch anywhere on the trackpad surface and tap with a secondary finger.
To drag things, touch anywhere on the trackpad surface and hold your finger steady for half a second. This will enable dragging.
Application Switcher: switch and close running programs
Switch between running programs without any pointing around. Tapping the name of the current application brings up the
Application Switcher. It shows you a list of running programs, much like when you cmd-tab on your computer, with large icons and clear
text labels. Scroll and tap to focus any running program - you can even close a running program by tapping the 'x' by every icon!
Launch any program
You have a handful of programs that you routinely use, and shortcuts to these are probably located in your Dock. There comes a time when you'll want to run an application that usually isn't accessible with a single click or a tap... but in Remote HD, every application is! By looking for programs installed on your computer (the Applications-library), Remote HD will save you the digging through folders upon folders - you simply get a list of all the programs Remote HD finds on your computer. Just tap to run, that's all there is to it!
Complete redesign of the user interface
The user interface of Remote HD has been completely revamped, built and designed from the ground up - not a single pixel remains unchanged from the previous versions. We did
rounds and rounds of design iterations to come up with a sleek interface with smooth animations, pixel-perfect icons and cool transitions.
VoiceOver
This time around, Remote HD was redesigned with VoiceOver in mind. We are proud to have designed an application which can be used by anyone.
Every interface element contains correct accessibility labels. Dymaic buttons change their accesibility labels accordingly.
Furthermore, any changes in the button layouts caused by switching applications are automatically announced to the user.
In-application settings
All the settings for Remote HD are accessible from within the application, instead of the Settings-panel in your device. This allows you to change every setting without
interrupting your workflow or disconnecting the current session. There are settings to change the behavior of Remote HD, and also some settings to optimize the performance
of certain features on older models of the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Reconnect to last connection
If you use Remote HD mostly to connect to the same computer or Apple TV, you can save the time of searching for available connections and tapping to connect.
Go to the Settings within Remote HD and turn on Auto-Connect. This will cause Remote HD to automatically connect to the most recently accessed computer. It's
just a little something to make things easier for you
and save a bit of time.
