Earlier this week I gave my first live presentation using only my iPad hooked up to a VGA projector and my iphone as the remote control.

It all worked perfectly and apart from almost dropping the iphone half way through all went well. I even got comments afterwards about the great slides. The only shortcoming I could find was that there seems to be no way to blank the screen in between slides when giving a presentation using iPad.

Keynote for the Ipad has come a long way over the past year and the recent addition of the the ability to control it remotely using the iphone is at last a reality. Please Apple just add the ability to blank the screen remotely and then we road warriors can consign our netbooks to the cupboard forever!

Posted in Presentation Skills

12 Comments

  1. Knowlicity on 03/02/2012 at 03:44

    I recommend EPR – easy presentation remote app.
    It turns your iPhone/iPod touch into a stylish and reliable remote control for your PowerPoint presentation.
    http://www.knowlicity.com/mobile_apps/epr.html
    I tried many presentation remote apps but this EPR is the best.
    You can download it at
    http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/epr-easy-presentation-remote/id479837542?mt=8

    Reply
    • Gavin Meikle on 03/02/2012 at 14:34

      Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll take a look. Thankfully, since I wrote the original post Apple have updated keynote for ipad to work with Apple Keynote remote for iphone so the problem has been resolved.

      Reply
  2. Zuhanden on 15/08/2011 at 14:51

    Hi Gavin,

    We would be thrilled to hear what you think of our newest iPad app called Presentation Link. The app allows you to seamlessly mash pdfs, images, videos and web content into engaging mobile slideshows.

    You can also find more detailed information on http://www.presentation-link.com.

    Reply
  3. theOracle on 12/08/2011 at 03:27

    Hey Gavin,

    An alternative to Diogo’s approach that works on Keynote for the iPad would be to add blank slides at strategic points of your presentation. These blanking slides should contain a block that covers the whole slide and if fillled in pitch black, looks like the presentation has been blanked. Unfortunately this does not provide the flexibility of choosing when to blank a presentation, but it may present a halfway solution that could address your needs.

    Cheers

    Reply
    • Gavin Meikle on 12/08/2011 at 09:07

      Thanks Perry
      Your suggestion is indeed the only viable solution at present and as you point out it isn’t ideal. I hope that the apple team are aware of this shortcoming and are beavering away to fix it shortly. Thanks for sharing.

      Reply
  4. Diogo Ferreira da Costa on 28/06/2011 at 13:43

    Hi Gavin

    Thank for sharing your opinion but you can do blank screen with one touch. You just need do this once on your keynote templates.
    1- Create a Blank slide (all black?) and put at Last Position on your presentation.
    2- Insert a transparent box (text, image, ..) on this Blank Slide and define this box as a Hyperlink. On Inspector->Hyperlink select Enable as a Hyperlink then select “Last slide Viewed”
    4- Go to master slides.
    5- Insert a transparent box (text box, shape, …) on the masters slides you will use and define as a Hyperlink. On Inspector->Hyperlink select “Enable as a Hyperlink” then select “Last slide”
    6- Finally, using a iPhone remote control application that recognises the touch instructions during Keynote presentation and you are happy.

    D.

    P.S.: I recommend put all the transparent box at the same position on all slides. That is good for no mistakes and for best usability.

    Reply
    • Gavin Meikle on 28/06/2011 at 15:49

      Thanks for your response but I am having a problem I cannot find out how to create an internal hyperlink in keynote for ipad and I don’t own a mac. I found numerous posts that say that keynote for ipad does not support internal hyperlinking. Can you clarify how to do they hyper linking in keynote for ipad?

      Reply
      • Diogo Ferreira da Costa on 29/06/2011 at 17:24

        Gavin

        Sorry but my how-to only works when you hyperlink the slides on Keynote Mac application. Not on an iPad, yet I hope, because this is a must – slide jump.

        D.

        Reply
  5. Tory Burch Outlet Online on 27/06/2011 at 10:55

    Thank you for taking this chance to talk about this, I actually really feel strongly about it and I benefit from learning about this topic.

    Reply
    • Gavin Meikle on 27/06/2011 at 11:16

      Thanks Tory. I appreciate your feedback and would love to hear more about your experience.

      Gavin

      Reply
  6. Fred E. Miller on 25/06/2011 at 12:45

    Gavin:

    Thanks for mentioning how important it is to blank the screen when delivering presentations. So many speakers don’t GET IT! about this important feature of PPT and Keynote (except, on the iPad)

    Blanking the screen immediately takes the attention off the screen and puts it on you, the presenter. This is where it should be!

    (BTW, where’s the audio of this Post?)

    Reply

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