Snatch for your iPhone - Get your mind out the gutter - It’s a Trackpad for your Mac

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 by Aaron Besson
Category: 3G iPhone, AppStore News & Reviews, Apple Computers, Apple News, Featured, iPhone, iPod Touch News.

There were rumors going around and a couple well crafted photoshops of Apple’s new Notebooks using iPhone/Touch like glass multi touch trackpads that double as displays. Well everything was right about those rumors except for the display part. The new Apple Trackpads used in their new unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pro’s are glass, multi touch, but they aint got any display.. That’s where a new App called Snatch and your iPhone come into play. Snatch transforms your iPhone into a wireless trackpad for your Mac.

Features:

Using your iPhone as a wireless trackpad — tracking, clicking,
two-finger scrolling, two-finger tap, window dragging and screen zoom.
Separate scrolling mode for easy one-finger scrolling in either
linear (iPhone style) or iPod clickwheel-type circular scrolling.
Separate keyboard mode for entering text.
Automatic configuration — just install each piece of software and,
so long as both devices are on the same network, it just works
Can also be used in an environment without WiFi by creating an ad hoc network on your Mac.

Currently there are two versions available from the AppStore. There is the full featured version for about $8, and Snatch Test, with limited functionality (just single click and tracking). There is some software that you have to install on your Mac called Snatch Server which allows you to use to your iPhone and Snatch via a password protected wireless netwrok connection.

Limitations:

No support for three finger or four finger scrolling as offered in
the new MacBooks — I’m not sure if this is a limitation of iPhone
hardware though
Tapping with two fingers, if set to perform right click, doesn’t work
When scrolling, the action is inverted. It would be good to have an option to change this, as it seems a little unnatural.

This is a really cool app that’s worth playing around with. I dont know if I would buy the full version, but the Free version is nice to toy with. Enjoy

[via TheAppleBlog]