Connecting iPad Keynote to iPhone 4S Keynote Remote via Bluetooth in iOS5
We’re huge fans of Keynote for iPad. Having your own lightweight presentation device to show off your stuff is an amazing leap forward for designers. That said, trying to do hand gestures over the iPad screen while presenting your work is clumsy at best. That’s where Keynote remote for iPhone steps in…but not without problems.
If you’ve tried to use Keynote Remote on your iPhone 4S to connect to an iPad 2 via bluetooth you’ve probably had issues. Wi-Fi works like a charm, but the Bluetooth connection is broken in iOS 5 on these devices. Until Apple updates Keynote Remote, there is a workaround.
The workaround idea is pretty simple really – use a different bluetooth app (that actually works) to connect the 2 devices. After the connection is alive and well you can then go about your business and link the Keynote apps.
To set up / test:
- Install the Free app “PhotoShare” on both iphone and ipad.
- Turn off Wi-Fi on both devices. Turn on bluetooth.
- Launch “PhotoShare” on both devices and establish a bluetooth connection. After the connection is active you should see the lit bluetooth icon on both devices.
- Hit the home button on both devices and launch Keynote on iPad and then Keynote Remote on iPhone. The connection for PhotoShare will close with the app, but this doesn’t matter.
- Unlink any old connections if needed (iPad Keynote > Settings > Advanced > Remote) and then click Link to Keynote on iPhone Keynote Remote, or Settings > New Keynote Link. You should now see your iPhone listed in Remote Settings on the iPad – enter the passcode from your iPhone and you’re good to go.
We’re certainly not the first to identify this workaround, just updating the solutions we found with a free workaround that did the trick for us. More on the issue.
