One of the announcements during MacWorld is the new iWork ‘09 suite. Keynote ‘09 which forms part of this suite comes with a new feature that should be of interest to iPhone and iPod touch users: remote controlling your presentation using the Keynote Remote application, which is available separately thru the iTunes App Store. Now, that does sound very exciting and the new Keynote Remote app looks to be the answer for everyone who ever dreamed of going on the stage emitting RDF, just the way Steve Jobs does, previous MacWorlds anyway.
And so I went to iWork.com and downloaded the 30-day Trial version of iWork ‘09. Installation onto my MacBook took less than a few minutes and I’m off to creating a new presentation for the purpose of this review.
Once I have the presentation ready, it’s time to link my iPod touch with the Keynote ‘09 application. Now, this is where the fun begins. To do this, you’ll need to ensure that both devices (the iPhone or iPod touch) and the Mac must be on the same Wi-Fi network. There are two ways to accomplish this. The most common method is to have both devices connected to the same router, this is the typical setup at most locations. I have both my MacBook and the iPod touch configured to connect to my Airport Express which provides internet access to both devices. The other method to accomplish this is to setup what is called an Ad-Hoc Wi-Fi network. This may be useful if you are traveling and do not have access to a router with which to setup your wireless network. Check out 1Password’s excellent step-by-step instructions here. I am happy to report that both methods actually worked fine for me.
After you have the Wi-Fi connection configured, open up Keynote’s Preferences pane, then select the Remote icon and tick the check box next to Enable iPhone and iPod touch Remotes. Start the Keynote Remote application on your device and proceed to create a link to Keynote. Follow the on-screen instructions. You shall be given a super-secret 4-digit passcode. Click on the Link button next to the device that you want to link to in Keynote’s Preference pane, and proceed to type in your super-secret 4-digit passcode.
Keynote Remote shall now attempt to establish a connection to the Keynote application on the Mac. I had some fun trying to figure out what went wrong here when Keynote Remote threw me an error saying that it “coult not play slideshow”. Rule of thumb when syncing iPhone with an app on the computer: make sure that the connection is not blocked by the firewall. It turns out that this was not the issue in my case. Firewall logs reported that connections are up and established between both Keynote and Keynote Remote.
Upon further investigation, I came to realise that the presentation I loaded is not an ‘actual’ Keynote presentation. I have actually loaded an older iWork Tour keynote which came with iWork ‘08. Well, that’s easy. I copied a few slides from iWork Tour and have them pasted into a new Keynote presentation. Then, I crossed my fingers as I launch Keynote Remote again. Voila, it works and I now have full control of Keynote!
Using Keynote Remote is simple. Just tap on Play Slideshow to begin. However, if you do that from the Keynote Remote app, the slideshow shall begin from whichever slide that is currently being displayed on Keynote’s screen. I’m not sure if this is by design, but it sure helps if the app provides options for this behavior.
Speaking of options, the Settings page within Keynote Remote is simple. It consists of a Keynote Link section to get you started, an Orientation section and a Presenters Note section. Note that Keynote Remote does not make use of the accelerometer to determine the interface’s orientation. You set it here in the Settings page. In portrait mode, the presenter’s note is displayed at the lower portion of the screen, while landscape mode places slides next to each other for easier preview. Presenter’s note are not displayed in landscape mode.
One of the problems I have with Keynote Remote is the speed. Your are allowed to swiftly move to the first slide in your presentation, but you can’t browse slides quickly like how we are able to do so using the Page Up/Page Down key on the computer. Making things worst is the fact that Keynote Remote does not implement any form of caching. Thumbnails of each slide are sent over the air as and when its needed. Both my devices are connected at 54Mbps, but that doesn’t seem to help at all. The swipe to advance feature which was advertised seems sluggish in this sense. Aside to that, your iPhone/iPod touch stays on throughout the duration of the slideshow.
Overall, the app is still in its infancy, iWork ‘09 has just been released a matter of hours ago. I sure hope Apple would fix those problems I mentioned here and perhaps add an extra feature or two, like sound feedback on the iPhone.
Get Keynote Remote from the iTunes Store here. Keynote Remote will only work with iWork ‘09 version of Keynote, so make sure you download the 30-day Trial beforehand.
Rating: 3.5/5.0 Taps
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July 26th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
It should be noted that the app *won’t work* unless Presentation is set to “Normal”