Power Prompter 1.4 brings Bluetooth Support (and much more)

Our proclaimed goal is to make Power Prompter the best Mac teleprompter possible. That’s why we sat down and put some serious work into bringing version 1.4 of our OS X teleprompter to you!

And we think we outdid ourselves because we finally brought your most requested feature into life: Remote Control over Bluetooth!

You can now use Bluetooth to remotely control Power Prompter with your iPhone or iPad. No more WiFi headaches. The remote will finally just work!

But we didn’t stop there. We added more features…

Feature #1: Bluetooth support for the remote control

Finally no more WiFi configuration issues and no more head scratching why the remote can’t find Power Prompter.

Bluetooth adds much requested simplicity to the remote control: You don’t have to do anything – it will just work. Well, you will have to turn on Bluetooth on your Mac and your iPhone/iPad – but that’s it. No pairing or setup required. Just turn Bluetooth on and you’re ready to go. (This means also a stop to asking your clients for their WiFi credentials).

Of course WiFi is still supported – but should be only used if you need to control Power Prompter from greater distances as Bluetooth’s range is somewhat limited.

Feature #2: Text alignment options

We got quiet some feedback after our last update and one feature that has been requested pretty often was support for text alignment. Turns out not all people prefer their teleprompter script to be centred.

So we added this setting which allows you to change text alignment for the whole script. Or separate for each talent window. Maybe your talent doesn’t like centred text but you do? Now you can set one window to be centred and the other one to left or right.

Feature #3: Teleprompter scrolling synced to editor scrolling

Now whenever you scroll the editor all teleprompter/talent windows will scroll in sync. This enables an ‘edit & go’ workflow where you can pause the teleprompter, work on the script and continue from the location you edited. (As opposed to the location where you paused the teleprompter).

You can disable this behaviour via CMD+L or via the View menu by unchecking the “Scrolling in Editor …” menu item.

Feature #4: Special keyboard shortcuts for presentation remote “clickers”

You know those remote control clickers people use when they give presentations? They usually identify themselves as USB keyboards and send plain key codes to your Mac. And on most models you can re-map the key codes they send.

So we had an ingenious idea: Why not let our customers use Power Prompter with those remotes? Sometimes you just need haptic feedback and can’t rely on a flat (bright) touch screen surface.

That’s why we added special key shortcuts that are meant to be used with those remotes. You can trigger them ‘by hand’, too. But they can be awkward to press as they involve the Control key. You can see a full list in the documentation (or in Power Prompter’s new ‘Transport’ menu).

Feature #5: We re-designed the iOS remote control app

Let’s be honest. The previous version of the iOS app was less than beautiful. That’s why we gave our UI Designer the task to come up with a UI that is simple, easy to see and not intrusive in the dark. And we think he did a great job!

And while we were at it we also improved compatibility with landscape mode on iPhones. The control layout should make more sense now. Even on smaller screens like the new iPhone SE in landscape mode.

Conclusion

This was our little tour of the new features in Power Prompter 1.4.0. The update is available now via Apple’s Mac and iOS app stores and via our website.

We hope these new features will be of great use to you!

Suborbital Blog