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JumiMouse turns your iPhone into a touch pad
You've probably heard of Mobile Air Mouse, the clever app that turns your iPhone into, well, an air mouse. (It's currently on sale for $1.99, by the way.)
JumiMouse is a bit different: It turns your iPhone (or iPod Touch) into an oversize touch pad, complete with left and right mouse buttons, tap-and-drag support, and so on.
The free JumiMouse app turns your iPhone into a roomy touch pad controller.
Why would you want such a thing? For starters, JumiMouse could take the place of a laptop touch pad that's worn and no longer working properly.
It could also solve the common problem of accidentally grazing the laptop touch pad with your thumb, causing the cursor to jump and your document to get messed up. Just deactivate the touch pad and use JumiMouse instead.
Finally, JumiMouse is an ideal replacement for netbook touch pads, which are notoriously tiny. The iPhone screen is ginormous in comparison.
JumiMouse communicates with your PC via local or ad-hoc Wi-Fi. To use the app, you must first install the free Jumi Controller utility. It's currently compatible with Windows XP and Vista (32-bit). I tried it with Windows 7: no go.
(Mac users should check out SnatchTest, a similar utility that duplicates the Mac touch pad. It's free.)
On a Vista system, JumiMouse was a snap to set up. My iPhone immediately detected the server, and a tap later I was controlling the cursor from my screen. Everything worked perfectly, and I detected no lag between my finger movements and the cursor.
At first I was disappointed by the lack of options for things like pointer speed and size. But it turns out that Windows recognizes JumiMouse as hardware, so all you do is hop into the Control Panel and tweak the standard Mouse settings to your liking.
This is a fabulous little app for anyone looking to control a PC--for any reason--with an iPhone or iPod Touch. Amazingly, JumiMouse is free.
Rick Broida, a technology writer for nearly 20 years, is the author of more than a dozen books. In addition to writing CNET's The Cheapskate blog, he oversees BNET's Business Hacks. Rick is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CBS Interactive. Disclosure. Deals found on The Cheapskate are subject to availability, expiration, and other terms determined by sellers. Follow Rick on Twitter at cheapskateblog.
i remembered other thing...Windows 7 supports multitouch...so itīs possible we can use this app to do do multitouch stuff on a pc/notebook?
if thats the case, it would be nice if i could just sit back and control my laptop with my iphone.
Airmouse is cool cause you can also type into webbars and pretty much control anything on the screen as you would with a keyboard/mouse.
it has everything including macros ,gestures and watever else
it actually beats having a real keyboard and mouse
perfect for HTPC setups in living rooms !
but unfortunately it's a bit expensive
I Bought it during the sale !
Next thing you know people will be clamoring for a universal garage door opener app (oh darn, there's already an app for that as well, at least so says the internet...). And here I had the audacity to think it was already a no brainer simply to hit a single button on the dedicated remote already in the car.
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by s_godkhindi
August 5, 2009 7:16 PM PDT
- I tired this app and was impressed. The one use I can see is when you are making presentations and want to use your mouse while want to interact with the audience.
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