Turn your iPad into a Mac OS X shortcut keyboard

Wouldn’t it be so much easier for us all iPad users if we could always remember the key combinations for the programs that we tend to use the most? This would really be cool especially because it would save us from all that hassle to go through the menu in order to find exactly what we were looking for. It would be great to be able to do both these things, don’t you think? Well, if you are on the same barricade of thought as I am, then I will delay it no longer and give you a good news: we now have Hotkeys at our disposal. What exactly Hotkeys is and what does it do. It is an app and what it basically does is that due to it you can use your iPad as a programmable shortcut keyboard. It already comes preloaded with some shortcut packs for both Mac OS X and Photoshop.

If you aren’t that much into standard things, then probably you will not want to settle just with the preloaded packs. The preload packs are not bad, don’t get me wrong, but why not take the opportunity to bring a certain flavor of your own to them. So you can either bring editing to the packs or even start all over again and do them yourself from the very beginning, so that you can then state they are your own. Besides the packs, perhaps you are also interested in the labelled shortcuts, so do give them a go too and see if they are more useful as such.

Hotkeys is the perfect app as long as you don’t ask too much of it, because it is pretty much designed to do the basic. So if you are waiting for it to be able to handle really complex macros, then you might think again. It will not be able to do this for you. Each of the shortcuts is a customizable button. Each button is made up of a combination of keys (from one key up to four keys) and also of a label, on top of the key. When it comes to button pressings, this has to be performed simultaneously (Ctrl-C, for instance). In terms of getting HotKeys fully automate any feature that might involve sequences or timing, forget it. So as mentioned its functionality set is not that thorough, however is pretty decent overall. There are of course a lot of features that could have contributed to a better spectrum of utilities, but at least there is time for improvement for next versions, who knows.

Let’s get to the editing chapter now. Let’s say you would like to have a key edited. In order to do this, you need to simply hold it down, so it enters the so called wiggle mode, and immediately afterwards just tap the orange button which you can find on the top right corner of the key. So this is it until now, as you can see – nothing complicated so far. But not everything is as great and after these points editing becomes a little bit unmanageable, so just be careful. Jog dials are being used for setting key combinations, there are over 100 keys in the Apple Pro keyboard. What is great is that you have to set the button just once, so the dials are good to deal with, but users have reported that instead of this they would have liked the app to have a visual keyboard out of which to pick the buttons.

But when it comes to icons’ design and icons in general, then not everything is that great. You really have to the read the text labels, and the icons can just be glanced that, as mentioned. General users’ opinion is that this of course could have been much more improved, and that they would have preferred if HotKeys had a simple picture set where the most used OS X features could be saved: cut, paste, and print, along with Photoshop tools like lasso, brush and eraser. If all these ticked, then it is claimed that HotKeys could have been an ideal shortcut utility.

If you really like this app, then what is the point of waiting. Just go and download it. You can find HotKeys in iTunes and you can also find the Mac client app there as well. Although there is also a PC version of HotKeys’s server app, it has been reported that when trying to connect it to the iPad app, the connection would fail. But just beware that you will also not find  it advertised on the iTunes page that the HotKeys is compatible with Windows.

All in all, if you are into this app and you like what you have read, then give it a try, and also let us know afterwards what your thoughts on it are. Looking forward to hearing this from you. Best of luck!