I travelled light this time and used Keynote on my iPad to deliver slides. I connected a third-generation AppleTV to the conference room projector and used AirPlay mirroring to beam the slides from iPad to projector.
This approach actually worked and I learned a few things in the doing. The first thing I learned came a week or so before I arrived. My hosts at the Center for Neo-Victorian Studies have projection equipment that sits at the leading edge of 1987 interconnect technology. Their VGA cables are thinner than a human wrist but somehow deliver resolutions that rival the pricey IBM 8514.
My AppleTV sadly does not support this visual beast. The second- and third-generation boxes drive only wimpy HDMI digital signals. My third-generation box drives 1080p. I solved this problem with a brilliant little box from Kanex that takes HDMI from the AppleTV and converts it to VGA. The box is really no more than a bulky cable. It is powered from the HDMI port. It works. Slides from Keynote wound up sidebar-ed and letterboxed. I started to fight it and instead found a zoom button on the projector remote that got me close enough to an answer. I suspect that a better answer exists. As far as I can tell, my scenario is the intended use case for the Kanex adapter.
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| The AppleTV is about the size of six walnuts (pictured with Betty O'Shannon for scale) Photo courtesy your correspondent |
I got the signal from iPad to AppleTV by using the Personal Hotspot feature on my LTE iPad. I pre-associated the AppleTV with the iPad's SSID before I left home. I didn't want to put any of my devices on my host's network and my personal experience with AirPlay or any other mDNS technology on public networks is spotty at best.
I found the iPad much more comfortable than many dedicated (and much lighter) presentation remotes. I appreciated the simultaneous display of speaker notes, though it's just not my mode to look at them.
Every presentation remote I have ever used has ultimately led to Presenter Induced Oscillation -- a phenomenon related to Pilot Induced Oscillation -- where a remote or key click is somehow missed by the presentation machine and the presenter spends five or six clicks back and forth to regain control of the talk. Many pilots have successfully ejected from uncontrollable PIO situations. Many have not. Presenters rarely choose to bail out. Most just ride that talk down into the ground.
The iPad was perfectly controllable. My talk was not embarrassment free. I got everything booted and associated. I got an image on the projector. It was not the image of my first slide. It was a dialog box from the AppleTV telling me that a software update was available. It asked if I wanted to update now or update later. It did not go away. I realized too late that I had left the Apple IR remote in my hotel room. Fortunately, someone among my hosts had an Apple IR remote and the episode cost me only five uncool minutes.
Apple has prided themselves for years on the visual unobtrusiveness of their products. My Apple monitors have an LED to indicate that the monitor is OFF, not ON, so that I'll never catch a stray eyefull of distracting indicator while working. Do the consumption classes not deserve the attention lavished on the creatives? My Airport base stations subtly change their indicator color to indicate new firmware versions. My iPhone puts a little badge on the settings icon to do the same. Why a faceful of unavoidable dialog from this little box?
I consider the experiment a success but I do not recommend it. Even if your software is up to date and you have your remote stuffed in your pocket, the best case for the Apple TV AirPlay streamer is that it will blast your audience with movie posters for whatever adolescent flicks are at the top of the iTunes payola chart for a few moments before your slides come up. I think it looks about as professional as pulling foils from a My Little Pony Trapper Keeper.
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