14 DAY TRIAL // Alfred is the best productivity tool for your Mac. An app launcher and quick file searching app at heart, Alfred can do a lot more through workflows. The app is going to have a little help from your iOS device.
Alfred is a truly indie app for Mac. It is developed by Andrew Pepperrell and promoted by his wife, Vero. It was launched as a free app in the Mac App Store, but Apple's restriction made them distribute the app on their website instead for the 2.0 version. Now Alfred is up to 2.4 and it has gotten a great community of developers and users behind.
Back in the second half of June, the Alfred.app team announces they are working on an app called Alfred Remote for iOS. There was no info other than the fact that the new app will probably work on iPad and a webpage where anyone can sign up to receive more info when the app will come out.
A new picture tease posted on Twitter yesterday shines some more light on this. Andrew has an app running on an iPad Mini that corresponds to a a Preferences Menu on the Mac app. Still no further details, but the new app may very well be a launcher for apps on your Mac that you can run on a iOS Device. Just tap the app icon and you will see the app popping up on your computer screen.
A quick search online reveals a similar concept posted by Zach Waugh, a Mac and iOS Developer. He wanted to just have the Alfred search window on a simple iOS screen and results ill only appear when you type something, like on the Mac. As expected, tapping on the app icon will open it on your computer.
On the other hand, if you the app like iTunes is already running on your Mac you could have the option to show what actions you want to perform on that app. Actions unique to that app, like Play, Next, Previous will appear in purple and actions for any app are white.
This concept, as simple looking and awesome as it was, never materialized into an iOS app. Until now. With Andrew efforts, something similar, or perhaps a more simple app will emerge soon and will help you control your Mac from your iPhone or iPad.
It will be good to see if the Remote app can add triggers to Workflows so you could get advanced scripts running on your Mac with a tap on your iPad's touch screen.