Today Remote Buddy expands its reach to all Apple platforms, receives completely new capabilities, a modernized look and a new website. That's not all that is changing, but let's start there.
Introducing Remote Buddy Display for tvOS
Remote Buddy Display is the brand-new Remote Buddy companion app for tvOS that brings your Mac apps onto the new Apple TV's screen through high-speed screen sharing while turning the Siri Remote into a trackpad, keyboard and remote to control them.
This combination makes Remote Buddy Display both the first screen sharing app and the first remote app available on tvOS.
Developed from scratch specifically for Remote Buddy Display, the screen sharing engine at the core of this app was designed to deliver high frame rates at a low latency even when content is played back full screen. Building on the latest GPU and CPU technologies, it delivers up to 60 frames per second with a latency of around 0.1 seconds. See it in action in the embedded demo video, where Remote Buddy Display shows a Mac mini's (Late 2012) screen at full 1080p resolution during fullscreen playback of a YouTube video.
Remote Buddy Display allows using the Siri Remote as a trackpad, remote and keyboard to interact with the apps on the Mac whose screen is shared through it.
Integrated into the trackpad mode is a feature called Mousespot. This powerful and easy-to-use presentation tool gently highlights the area around the mouse cursor when a finger rests on the touch surface for more than two seconds - and disappears again if two seconds pass without a touch.
In remote control mode, the Lazy Gestures feature can detect multiple gestures in a row without requiring the finger to be lifted inbetween. If f.ex. you are fast forwarding in QuickTime Player by swiping right and holding and you fast forward too far, you can simply swipe left and continue holding. Remote Buddy Display will then detect this as a new gesture and tell Remote Buddy to start rewinding.
But that's not all. Remote Buddy Display also supports multiple displays, accessing and running app-specific actions, launching, switching and quitting apps, putting the Mac to sleep and more.
For more information and a technology comparison with AirPlay and VNC, please visit the Remote Buddy Display page.
Remote Buddy Display is FREE and now available on the Apple TV App Store.
Introducing Remote Buddy Mobile for iOS and watchOS
Remote Buddy Mobile turns your iOS device into a remote, trackpad and keyboard for the Mac and is the first remote app to also offer and fully embrace screen sharing.
The inclusion of screen sharing is a game changer as it means that you can now control the Mac from another room or when its screen is turned off. Want to keep watching EyeTV while fetching something in the kitchen? Or initiate a download on your HTPC Mac without waiting for the TV to come on? Remote Buddy Mobile has you covered!
If you're using Remote Buddy as part of a home theater setup, you'll love the Night Mode - an eye-friendly, dark color scheme optimized for use in dark environments. It can be activated automatically between sunset and sunrise, calculated based on location and date.
Remote Buddy Mobile also includes a Watch app so that the Apple Watch can be used as a remote, dictation keyboard and presenter aid for Remote Buddy on the Mac.
Both iOS and Watch apps provide access to app-specific actions and can be used to launch, switch and quit apps.
For more information, please visit the Remote Buddy Mobile page.
Remote Buddy Mobile supports iPhone, iPad and iPod touch running iOS 8 or later and Apple Watch running watchOS 1.0 or later. It is FREE with in-app purchases for premium features. Version 1.0 is now available on the App Store.
Version 1.1 - already submitted for review - will bring significant performance gains for screen sharing, as it adopts the same screen sharing code already found in Remote Buddy Display.
Remote Buddy 1.27
The new Remote Buddy release adds Mobile Access, which is needed by the new iOS, watchOS and tvOS apps and includes the new screen sharing capabilities. It also adds support for OS X Photos.
Many more changes have taken place under the hood, including stability fixes for OS X El Capitan and an improved virtual input layer. Starting with this release, AJAX Remote is no longer supported. It will continue to be included for the time being, though.
Apart from a new logo, Remote Buddy - after many, many years of price stability - also gets a new price. At 24.99 €, it's still a steal and continues to be priced at the low end of the price range for a product this powerful.
Remote Buddy Express
Remote Buddy Express is currently not available on the Mac App Store as version 1.27.2 with full support for the tvOS app is awaiting approval by App Review. The latest approved version - 1.27 - works with the tvOS app, but only offers about 10% of the framerate version 1.27.2 is capable of delivering.
New website
IOSPIRIT is getting a new, mobile-friendly website that lays the groundwork for more frequent content updates in the future. Not everything has made the jump over to the new content engine yet, but this is being worked on. If you notice anything that does not work as expected, please drop a mail.
One more thing
Watch this space for one more, exciting product release in the coming weeks. If you want to be among the first to know, subscribe to the low-traffic newsletter below - or follow @iospirit on Twitter.