Remote for Roku

"Remote for Roku" is an elegant in its simplicity iPhone/iPod Touch app that can remotely control the Roku family of digital video players (Roku HD, XD and XDS - as well as SD, XR and Netgear NTV250). The app can automatically discover the Roku players connected to your WiFi network and control them with all the functionality of the IR remote that comes with the box - including the newly added "instant replay", "info" and "back" buttons. It also adds functionality like keyboard support (e.g. for Netflix searches) and a channel launchpad.

This is how the main screen of Remote for Roku looks like. The remote panel looks just like the IR remote that ships with the latest Roku players. For ease of use, the buttons are the same size and appear in the same position on iPhone as in the original infrared remote.

If you have an older model remote, you will notice three new buttons are present - "Back", "Instant Replay" and "Info". Roku added the new functionality recently and while you may not have those buttons on your IR remote, thanks to Remote for Roku now you can take advantage of it too!

In most cases, Remote for Roku will work "out-of-the-box" - as long as your Roku player and iPhone/iTouch are connected to the same network, there is nothing else to configure - just press a button of the remote and it will "automagically" work.

But if that is not the case or you have more than one Roku players connected to the same network, press the (i) in the upper right corner and the remote will flip to a status screen on the back, where you can observe the continuing search for player or select a player from the list (that selection will be remembered for future use).

Here is a novel feature of Remote for Roku - when pressing the Home button, you will see icons of all your channels on the same screen - and switching to a channel is as easy as pressing the button with the channel logo!

No more tedious scrolling for that channel at the end. You don't need to "refresh" that list in any way when added or removed channel - it does reload "automagically".

When in Netflix channel and looking for a particular movie, one will go to Search and type keywords by selecting letters one by one from a 6x6 table with the remote (down-down-down-ok: "s", right-right-up-ok:"o", up-right-right-right-ok:"l" and so on). Wouldn't it be nice if there were an easier way?

Well thanks to iOS touch screen keyboard, now there is a faster way to enter text in Roku! Click on the keyboard icon in the upper left corner and a keyboard pops, click second time when done (or any other button) and it will slide out of the way.

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