After I posted my review of the Logitech k480 keyboard I got a comment from Richard that he uses the Mac app Type2Phone to let him type on all of his devices right from his Mac. I had completely forgotten about this delightful little app! I actually bought it back when I reviewed it ages ago and it’s definitely worth mentioning again. Type2Phone is $10 in the Mac App Store from houdah.com. I hadn’t run it in ages like I said but it couldn’t have been easier. When you first launch it, it gives you instructions on how to pair your device with your Mac by going into Bluetooth settings. From there you’ll see your Mac (as long as Bluetooth discoverability is enabled of course). Select your Mac from the iOS device and you’re ready to go. Open an app on iOS and type away.
I wanted to see how it worked if I had multiple devices so I added both my iPhone and my iPad and I got a nice little pulldown that let me choose on which device I wanted my typing to appear. I can easily switch back and forth between the two devices and if I click outside of Type2Phone all typing reverts back to my Mac.
Type2Phone has an interesting feature – it shows you in giant text every character you’re typing, including showing characters for space bar and delete. A little distracting if you’re typing long form, so there’s a little pencil in the bottom left of the screen on the Mac that lets you type a bunch of stuff and then send it to your device.
Type2Phone even lets you type on your AppleTV which can be really nice if you’re searching or have to type in a darn password. For some reason Netflix has decided to ask me for my password every couple of days so I could have been using Type2Phone to do it instead of that awful little remote! They don’t say Type2Phone can do this, but you can even pair another Mac with your Mac and type from one Mac another. Not sure why you’d want to do this, but maybe just for continuity you’d like to use the same keyboard. As I type this I have a “command center” set up with my MacBook, my iPhone, my 27″ Cinema Display my iPad and my MacBook Pro all in an array and I’m controlling them all! I think I need to go outside and play soon, the indoor radiation is getting to me!
If you’re a slider and need to work on Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, the Logitech keyboard is probably a better choice for typing to multiple devices, but if you live in the Apple ecosphere, check out Type2Phone in the Mac App Store.