Intuitive presenting with Airtame’s new desktop app

One window with more possibilities

Version 4.0 takes the Airtame app from a menu-bar app to a windowed app. 

While the menu-bar worked in the past, customer feedback and end-user testing made it clear that a new design was needed. 

Windowed apps can be moved around your computer screen, resized and minimized. This makes the app easier for presenters to find, as it opens up from any place on your computer (not only from the menu bar or notification area). It’s also more versatile, as you can drag the app around the screen so it’s not blocking anything important.

More intuitive presenting with a new notification bar

While conducting user research, we found that some presenters forget to disconnect from the screen once they’re finished sharing. Having minimized the notification bar, these participants no longer had a visual reminder that they were still connected. The benefit of the minimize option was to prevent the notification bar from blocking anything on the presenter’s screen. But considering some people would completely forget to disconnect as a result of minimizing, we decided it was time to redesign the streaming notification.

The benefits of the new design are threefold. First, the notification bar is now 60% smaller than the previous version while accommodating larger, clearer controls. This makes it both less intrusive and easier to use. Second, the app is better at prompting presenters to disconnect when they’re finished. This happens when they move their mouse, which is when the streaming notification pops up. The streaming notification is otherwise invisible so as to not cover any slides or media that’s shared during the presentation. Third, the new notification bar provides easier access to the main Airtame window to allows users to share to multiple screens simultaneously.

Easier screen sharing on every network

The Airtame app has an ingenious discovery feature that automatically shows a list of all the Airtames on your network. This list makes it fast and easy to share your screen. However, discovery only works if a given network allows it. 

For networks that don’t allow for automatic discovery of devices, presenters need to type in an Airtame’s IP address (shown on the Airtame-equipped screen) in order for it to appear in the app. Once found, presenters can “star” the Airtame so that it automatically appears next time without having to re-type the IP address. 

Recent user testing showed that it took a little while for some presenters to understand that they had to type in the IP address to find an Airtame to connect to. By making the instructions more concise and highlighting the search field, the design of app 4.0 makes it much easier to get started in cases when automatic discovery isn’t allowed on a particular network. 

Fewer steps to share audio on Mac

Presenters who’ve used the Airtame app on their MacBook may have encountered the Soundflower prompt. The Soundflower extension, created by developer Matt Ingalls, made it possible for applications like Airtame to capture and stream audio from a Mac computer to an external display. 

The only problem was that it took six clicks to enable audio with Soundflower. It only had to be done once, but the six-step process would still trip up some presenters. 

Not wanting anyone to struggle to get audio working, we decided to retire Soundflower with Airtame. Airtame has developed its own solution that only requires two clicks to enable audio, without relying on external software. Again, you only have to enable this once on Mac, and then next time you’ll just need one click anytime you want to stream audio. 

A fresh take on wireless presenting

Whatever platform or tool we present to the world, Airtame strives to make things easy to understand and use. That’s certainly been the case with the new desktop app. 

You can try out the refreshing new app experience with version 4.0, available on our download page. If you have the Airtame app, simply keep an eye out for the update banner.

There’s lots more to come with Airtame. If you’d like to test new features prior to release and provide insightful feedback as a Beta tester, please check out this article. 

Interested? Let’s talk.