Alfred Remote

Control Alfred from afar

£3.99 Developer Running With Crayons, alfredapp.com

Works with iPhone, iPod touch, iPad Version 1.0

Alfred Remote is beautifully made but feels like a solution searching for a problem. It resembles a remote for OS X productivity tool Alfred, but it’s more of a companion.

Essentially, you use the Mac app to create pages of actions, grouped into collections, and these can then be triggered by tapping the relevant icon on your iOS device, which is effortlessly paired via Wi-Fi.

With the free version of Alfred, you’re restricted to apps, system commands, files, folders and bookmarks. With the Powerpack installed, you can trigger iTunes commands, clipboard snippets, scripts and workflows.

It’s here the app has potential, not least if you often forget action keywords. Even so, we’d like Alfred Remote more if it also rolled in keyboard/mouse/prompts support as well as fully remote (off-network) access. Craig Grannell