Product Reviews

Touchpad Elite is one of the better remote control applications that we've downloaded from the App Store. It doesn't show your Mac's Desktop on the iPhone's screen. Instead, it's intended as a remote control and wireless multitouch trackpad. The screen is rather uninspirational, as it's mostly filled with black. A toolbar runs across the top of the screen through which you can access a virtual keyboard and Mac modifier keys.

However,

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it's multitouch gestures that help to navigate your Mac. Pinching gestures are mapped to Mac OS X's Zoom feature, which has to be enabled in Universal Access so that you can magnify the Mac Desktop from across the room.

Touchpad also replicates gestures from the latest Apple notebooks so that two fingers scrolls through documents, although Expos?© and task switching are controlled with three rather than four fingers, which helps you to get around the Mac even more quickly.

It doesn't always work well, though: two-fingered scrolling lacks the smooth movement of a proper trackpad, and cursor movement became erratic and stuck in places if a movie was playing in iTunes. However, the final set of virtual controls are very handy. Among them are the Media button and a directional pad, which you can use to open and navigate Front Row. This is handy for recent Macs that ship without an Apple Remote, which cost £15. Touchpad offers a much cheaper alternative for indulging in lazy entertainment.