You can’t do this on Windows: Sony Ericsson Clicker might be Apple’s next killer app

One popular shareware application making the rounds right now, called Sony Ericsson Clicker, allows a Sony Ericsson phone with Bluetooth to act like a remote control for Bluetooth-ready Macintosh computers from Apple Macintosh Computers. The software lets users control music, video or presentations (and much, much more) on the Mac from across a room. As big as Aldus PageMaker was to the Mac? Probably not, but it still has the potential to become truly useful, while showing off Apple’s Mac OS X, AppleScript, and Bluetooth in concert to potential “Switchers.”

Now Wired has discovered the Sony Ericsson Clicker, too, which means Windows users at least get to read all about it:

“Last week, (Jonas) Salling released a clunkily named but surprisingly versatile piece of software for Mac OS X called the Sony Ericsson Clicker, which turns a Bluetooth-equipped Sony Ericsson cell phone into a universal remote for the Mac — and more.”

“Bluetooth is a short-range radio technology that lets devices communicate wirelessly within 30 feet of each other. Apple’s latest Macs have Bluetooth built in, and older models can be made Bluetooth-compatible with a USB plug-in.”

“Using scripts freely available on the Net, Salling’s $10 software can be set up to make the machine play music automatically when owners enter the room, and pause it when they leave (as long as they’re carrying their cell phone).”

“Using this ‘proximity sensing,'” the software can also lock and unlock a computer as a person enters or leaves the room, or even start and stop a central heating system if used in conjunction with inexpensive and readily available X10 controllers.”

“The software can also turn a cell phone into a universal remote, controlling music and DVD players or presentation programs like PowerPoint or Apple’s Keynote.”

“‘(The software) does the kind of things Bluetooth was supposed to do,’ said Salling from his home in Stockholm. ‘It’s quite exciting. It’s amazing what people are getting it to do.'”

“Salling is referring to the explosion of scripts, created by others, which are popping up rapidly all over the Internet,” reports Wired. Full article here.

You can’t do this on Windows, folks. Find scripts for the Sony Ericsson Clicker here. More SEC scripts here:

http://www.resistance.net/SEC
http://homepage.mac.com/erichc/CheckMailMsg.html
http://home.insightbb.com/%7ejwesterhout/clickerscripts.html
http://www.hennig.nu/clicker

Happy clicking!

Jonas Salling Software’s Sony Ericsson Clicker page here.

9 Comments

  1. You can do this with a PC using Float’s Mobile Agent. http://www.eflame.com/fma/ this has been around since early 2002, and it scriptible as well. I used it long before i switched to a mac. I’m glad to see things getting caught up. In some ways its more powerful because you can get more info from you phone plus saved SMS messages. its also free.

  2. who the heck cares what you can or can’t do on a PC. Point is, you can do it on a mac now… killer app or not ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />

    yawn

  3. I doubt Windows will have anything like this anytime. One of applescript’s strong point is automating GUI applications. Does Windows have anything like this?

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