left to my own devices

whenever im out in the b.h its family time 24/7, excluding any quick solo trips to fairfax or melrose. since im up early with the nephew every day, there isnt much left in the tank when party time rolls around. so instead of going out and getting wasted by the pool at the roosevelt hotel (good times), i spend some much needed personal time with my favorite devices, lucy and louis, my powerbook g4, and iphone, respectively. get the title of the post now?

its been bothering me lately that i have not been able to find a native iphone app comparable to the lovely touchpad pro. the app basically turns your iphone (or ipod touch) touch screen into a wireless keyboard and trackpad, but it is only available to those courageous, or sometimes unfortunate souls who have chosen, or were forced, to jailbreak their iphones via installer.app

well, those times of despair have come to an end, hopefully. im going to walk you through the install of this new app i found called snatch (favorite move AND potentially favorite iphone app? bomb.) first though, i wanna build the hype for you by sharing some of the reviews from the app store...

winston says, in a post titled saved me $130, "when i saw the logitech dinovo mini bluetooth keyboard, i knew i had to have one for my mac mini media center [me too, winston. that thing is fuckin rad]. it's been on my wishlist since the CES [consumer electronics something-or-other, show maybe? i dont care to look it up], but now im taking it off [thats what she said]. snatch completely obviates the need for it. scrolling? check. universal access zoom in/zoom out? check. keyboard support so that i can launch apps with quicksilver? check."

damn winston, that was wordy but much appreciated and totally "obviates" (proper use?) all other reviews. you gave the app five stars and i will give your review the same score. fuck yes! and if you dont trust winston, cuz really, who the fuck is he? iLounge.com (theyre kinda relevant) ranked snatch in its top 100 iPhone apps and was specifically named the best mouse and trackpad app.

so, after reading winston's dissertation, and a few others, i decided to give the app a whirl. the app is $7.99 from itunes, but unlike most apps i can think of, the developer has a try before you buy version of the app. what? yes. they did that. awesomeness. ok on with the install.

first things first, get the app onto your phone. upon launch the app instructs you to head head over to hoofien's website to download the server that allows your iphone and mac to "speak" to each other. setup the configuration you want, make a password, etc. the configuration i chose allows me to automatically launch the server app on start up of osx, but in the background with only a menu bar icon that lets me know when its connected to the iphone. note: make sure you turn the server on

next, get the iphone in hand and setup the configuration on there. super easy. tap the little i then tap the hoofien logo on the bottom and follow directions. eventually you just choose the computer you want from the server list. fill in the blanks and tap done. here are some shots of the app and the settings for it:

its just like the old trackpads, with the clicker part on the bottom, which allows for really convenient dragging and dropping. also, two finger gestures allow you to easily adjust screen size and location, but it lags a lot.

tapping the "tracking" button in the main interface of snatch brings up the options menu you see above. im playing around with the inertia option now. if you have inertia enabled with the bounce mouse pointer off screen edges you can entertain yourself for a hot 10 seconds, but then you should prob turn both back off cuz they make the app reaaaally hard to use for any functional purpose other than to watch the cursor go flying around the screen as it bounces from one screen edge to another. the only setting youll need to mess with is the speed setting. grandma status is to the left and ninja reflex status to the right.

thats all there is to it for the free app, but im impressed and im upgrading to the paid version right now. it includes includes support a few extra options:

• three mouse buttons, like you would have on a mighty mouse - right click, left click, and anything you enabled as your "button three" in sys prefs>keyboard and mouse.
  
• a scrolling only interface of the app with full up down left right capabilities.
• a full iphone keyboard, as well as access to the apple ctrl and alt/optn key, esc, full function keys (f1-f16), volume controls, and up down left right arrows. all of which allow the iphone + snatch to replace your apple remote completely. (i am constantly left digging around my room wanting to go to sleep, but unable to find the remote to watch some tv before i pass out)

needless to say, all in all i think ill be using this app a lot, and im totally happy spending the 8 bucks on it. five stars. so easy, so apple. just one more thing left to say:

google phone.......crackberry.........windows.......TOASTED.

dont hate the player.