Prowl

This App does basically nothing for you (at least not "out of the box"), and it is still one of the best ideas for an App I have seen so far. If you don't know Growl for Mac OS X or you don't use Growl, this is not for you. If you do use Growl and are a power user, the possibilities are endless.

Prowl [Appstore link] requires to install a prefpane add-on for Growl on your desktop Mac. It defines a new "display style" called Prowl. This display style is not like the others: it does not change or define the way how Growl displays messages on the screen - it rather allows you to define one of the other styles, for example the style you used to have, for on screen messages. But it sniffs the growl messages and sends them through the Prowl server (yes, you need a free account!) as a push notification to your iPhone. The prefpane add-on is quite flexible: push notifications can be limited to certain levels of importance, to certain applications and/or application specific messages, and also to "send only when inactive for n minutes". The setup procedure is very well described on the Prowl website.

Using AppleScript, for example in folder actions, you may now receive push notifications on your iPhone when new files are added to a folder. With "growlotify", a terminal add-on, you can send push notifications through Growl and Prowl to your iPhone. Applescripts in Mail rules may inform you about certain Emails you received on your home computer. There are endless possibilities, but only for hackers.

Prowl on the iPhone simply works - not much to say. It keeps a list of messages and the "read status" of these messages. The list can be emtied at any time. Push notifications may show as messages, may play a sound if activated and may add a badge. The time it takes from the Growl message appearing on the screen of the desktop computer to the pushed message appearing on your iPhone is typically abiout 2 seconds only!

Great stuff!

WiFi Remote

WifiRemote [Appstore link] requires a small but free server application to be running on the desktop computer it should be paired to.
Pairing is easy, and Wifi remote is easy to use. It comes with several fix button layouts, an app launcher, a trackpad with buttons, a virtual mouse with three buttons and mouse pointer control by tilting (accelerometer controlled) and one (unfortunately ONLY ONE) screen that can be configured by the user. Up to 18 buttons can be configured with three different colors, text, and a keyboard shortcut. The set-up of the key is easy and straightforward. And, luckily, it is the only solution discussed here in this block which I could configure to work really great with Power Point 2004 on a Mac - other solutions work only with Office 2008, or the Windows version, or only support navigation in presentation mode, but not starting and finishing presentations, or switch to the "sort slides" view in power point. The screenshot with the red, green and blue buttons and button text in German has been set up by me and does NOT come with Wifi remote.

Wifi remote does not show a live screen, and is maybe a bit short of eye candy, but it works. Feature requests for the next version are

(1) on the user screen do not show buttons that have no keyboard shortcut associated, i.e. are not used.

(2) more user screens, please

(3) larger buttons as an option on a user screen, or mixing large and small buttons as needed

(4) web based user screen layout exchange

(5) use fotos from foto roll for user screens. The user could then define "hot" areas (buttons) and finally associate keyboard shortcuts with these hot areas.

A lite version is also available, with limited features.

AirMote

One of AirMote's [Appstore link]nicest features is that it pairs with a desktop computer without the need for a special server program to be downloaded, installed and running. It uses the VNC protocol, which worked fine in my case. I wish the other remote apps could do this as well in future releases.

Airmote does not show a live screen of the paired desktop computer, but is limited to buttons which are reasonably large to be tapped safely even during presentations when the concentration should be with the audience and the matter one tries to get across. An unlimited number of such button sets can be created, and several sets are already pre-configured. However I found some of these sets not very useful and not well thought out.

The really nice thing is that the user (you!) can define as many additional sets as you like, with a layout which is specialised for one purpose only.

The really bad thing, however, starts then: before you can place buttons on your button set, you have to define the key or key combination that should be sent to the desktop computer. Some standard keys are already defined, but many are not. And to make it worse, it is not possible to select the keys from a list or even a keyboard, which I think would be straightforward, but must be coded with special, kryptic codes, e.g. \xFF3C (or similar) for the shift key... The required codes are listed in a special help screen which is part of the app. One might then first think about a nice layout for the new button set, then identify the required keyboard shortcuts on the desktop, next look up the required control codes in the Airmote help screen, write them on a piece of paper (or use the new OS 3 copy&paste), and define a button. Once you have defined all the buttons you need, you can place them on your button set.... sounds archaic. Not Apple-like and not iPhone-like at all. Any Linux users here? You may have found what you were looking for...