A few years back, I used the Apple Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard as a cheap remote. Then I moved to the new keyboard, for which there is no keypad on the wireless. I recently read in another thread here about the LMP Bluetooth Keypad (WKP-1314) for the Mac. It copies the style of the Apple Wireless Keyboard, and even comes with a little clip that joins them together so you can sort of carry them around as one. (that clip is not strong enough to resist a lot of force, so you have to be careful) It's not as perfectly elegant a solution as would be an Apple keyboard with keypad built-in; in other words, I'd rather have a
complete Apple Wireless Keyboard, but that's not an option, thanks to Steve Jobs' conviction that he knows better than we do what we need (which is often right, but dead wrong in this case). But given that there is no perfect option, this keypad genuinely is the next best thing.
There is only one major drawback, which most people won't notice at all: you can't use modifier keys (command, option, control, shift) with any key on the keypad. They are separate keyboards, so the modifier from one cannot act upon the keys of the other. I happen to use a lot of those commands, so it IS a problem, but less of one than having no keypad at all.
[optional paragraph if the previous one was important to you] If you have QuicKeys, you can use "sticky keys" to trigger an action with multiple commands. So, I could preface any key on the keypad with, say, COMMAND-OPTION-CONTROL-C, then it would wait for the next key, which would be, say, ENTER. (Enter and Return are not the same, btw, and this keypad treats them separately in true Mac fashion) In this way, I can retain the large number of keypad shortcuts that I use normally on a full-size keyboard.
Anyway, I recommend the keypad for a remote, If all you need is transport, you don't even have to carry the keyboard around. Just the keypad. Very handy!
Here's the link at OWC:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Cropmark/8337/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Shooshie
Maybe it's the cigarette. What's in that cigarette, anyway?
