Ideal for teachers, presenters, developers

A new application for Macs leverages the AirPlay technology found in the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 to mirror the screens of those devices onto a Mac running Snow Leopard or higher. Called Reflection, the app can simply show the screen or put a "device shell" around the screen to simulate the look of an iOS device and its contents. The program utilizes the AirPlay abilities to wirelessly stream visual and audio information from the device to the Mac.

The program mimics an AirPlay ability that might become available in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, which is expected to be released this summer. The next version of OS X is expected to have increased AirPlay abilities that will, for example, allow Mac owners to wireless mirror their screens onto HDTVs via an Apple TV unit using AirPlay (indeed, the author of Reflection has previous made another utility called AirParrot that does exactly this for current Lion and Snow Leopard users).

Once the Reflection app is installed and running, simply swiping the to right on the taskbar of the iOS device will show the AirPlay icon next to the volume slider. Tapping that lets users choose their Reflection-running Mac from the list. The program includes options such as recording any demonstration for tutorial or YouTube use, changing the device "wrapper" or simply going full screen.

The developer is hoping that developers, presenters, educators and others who can take advantage of wireless AirPlay mirroring won't wait and will purchase a license, which comes in two versions: a single machine license for $15 or a five-machine license for $40. The program is limited to the iPhone 4S and iPad2 even though Airplay is also available in older models because of the hardware requirements of mirroring.

by MacNN Staff