Sofa Control: How to Launch, Exit and Browse everything on your Mac with the Apple Remote Control
Posted by Jim Gardner on June 30, 2008
The one application I missed off my list of 10 essential OS X applications is perhaps the coolest little program I’ve ever seen – so I thought it deserved a whole blog entry all to itself, since it expands beyond cool the capabilities of the Apple Remote Control, which ships with every new Mac to control the built-in media player software ‘Front Row’.
Sofa Control is not a new application – it’s been around for a while – but with so many people buying a Mac these days, simply to use as a media centre, you have to presume it’s only a matter of time before Apple begin building this degree of remote control functionality in to OS X by default.
Sofa Control overrides Front Row’s ‘Menu’ click and instead displays an application switcher, with all the applications you currently have installed which are remote control savvy, displayed in a horizontal list.
You can view your current web browser windows, launch EyeTV (Freeview Digital Television software), navigate the hard drive and generally peruse the entire hard drive in a variety of cool ways, which make using your Mac without a keyboard and mouse, through a widescreen TV, as simple as clicking just six buttons, on your Apple Remote.
Here’s a demo screen-cast I recorded using IShowU…
