KeyPad – Bluetooth Keyboard

App Versions

1.73 – Better Scrolling, more media controls

  • Improvements to Mouse scroll wheel performance
  • Added X axis scrolling
  • Added brightness controls to media remote
  • Verified sending command for target display mode to iMac
  • Minor UI improvements

1.70 – Improved mouse handling for iPad

  • Improved mouse handling. Added fixes for sluggish mouse handling.
  • Verified Norwegian (Scandinavian) keyboard support.

1.65 – Improved mouse scrolling support

  • Added support to take screenshot on iPhones and iPads, function-shift-3
  • Improved Y scrolling with mouse and trackpad
  • Remove unused user interface features.

1.60 – Add support for M1 (ARM) Mac’s

  • Updated, tested with M1 ARM Mac’s

1.51 – Show keystrokes when typing

  • As you type, Keypad will show your keystrokes on the KeyPad application window
  • Makes it easier to share KeyPad on facebook or twitter, please help me get the app visible
  • Asks you to rate the application if you have used it over 200 times.

1.50 – Fix minor app inconsistency

  • Show KeyPad window only when app can take keystrokes
    • Hide KeyPad window if app goes to background
  • After a couple of days using the app, user is asked to rate on the Mac App Store
  • Fix to Auto Launch at Login, app will go into background
    • Keystroke window will show only when app launched, or brought to foreground with CMD+TAB
  • Pressing app hotkey again will close the KeyPad window

1.45 – Improvements to Hold Connection

  • Improvements to hold connection feature
    • Application window does not close when it loses focus
    • if close X is pressed, will release connection with device
    • As always, closing the lid, screensaver coming on will force a disconnection
  • After a couple of days using the app, user is asked to rate on the Mac App Store
  • Moves the paste button into the Media Bar
  • Beta 4: Fixed a bug where paste button was sending multiple copies of the pasted text.
  • Beta 4: Fixes a bug where hotkey was not working.

1.35 – UI and Language updates

  • UI Updates make media buttons smaller
  • Update supported languages
  • Minor UI bug fixes

Note this is beta software, and may have bugs, use at your own risk.

1.30 – Type to Siri

  • Trigger Siri, and Type to Siri support.
  • Added whats new button to list features added in new versions.
  • Added Power button, support press an hold for media buttons.
  • Minor UI bug fixes.

Note this is beta software, and may have bugs, use at your own risk.

1.30 is available on the Mac App Store

1.20 – Hold phone/device connection

  • Implements “Rest room break” feature (need a better name)
    • You will either really love this feature or absolutely hate it.
    • Keypad will now hold on to the device bluetooth connection
    • Only if the screensaver comes on/user logs out/screen is locked/mac goes to sleep/user powers off the mac:
      • Will keypad let go of the connection
    • Advantage: Will switch to keypad very quickly, you don’t need to wait for the connection establishment
    • Dis-advantage: If you do not have a screensaver set to a low interval you may pick up the phone and walk away from your desk, get a text message, and when you try to reply you will not be able to see/use the keyboard till the mac screensaver comes on, or you disconnect from the phone.
    • You need to set the screensaver to something like two minutes to be able to truly get value from this feature.
  • Alpha 1: “Rest room break” feature is default on, will become a setting in a future release of 1.20
  • Alpha 2: Added “Hold connection” persistent menu option to keypad menu.
  • Beta 1: Updates to language support.
  • Beta 2: Updates to about screen.
  • Beta 3: Make mouse feature free for 1 day.
  • Beta 5: Some updates to translations.

Note this is beta software, and may have bugs, use at your own risk.

1.20 is available on the Mac App Store

1.11 – Bugfix release

  • Fixes a bug where devices menu was not being updated till application was re-launched.

1.11 is now available from the Mac App Store.

1.10 – Switch to app to launch keypad (with Command-Tab)

  • Switch to KeyPad with “command – tab” on the mac. Makes it easier to find and launch keypad.
  • Added localization support for a few languages (do help me with adding your language)
  • Minor updates to Mouse performance.
  • Save previous KeyPad window location.
  • Testing Type to Siri

1.10 is now available from the Mac App Store.

1.06 – Move keypad screen, minor bug fixes

  • Adds support so that the KeyPad screen can be moved away
    • This is temporary, and it moved only for the current session. Does not remember the last position.
  • Minor bug fixes

1.06 is now available from the Mac App Store.

1.05 – Keyboard + Mouse

  • Adds support for Key states. Reports shift/command/option state changes to connected device
    • For example, press and hold command key on iPad will show local menu of keyboard shortcuts
  • Testing command-tab functionality in iPad (use function + tab) to switch applications
  • Improved logging to support remote debugging
  • Added support for Mouse, tested only on iPad
  • Added scroll wheel support so you can vertically scroll using the touch based scroll on the magic mouse
    • Major surprise. Scroll wheel is not implemented with the magic mouse 1 on the iPad, so in theory my virtual mouse is better.
  • Adds support for iPhone with mouse; go to Settings | Accessibility | Touch and turn on Assistive Touch

General comment of lag in mouse performance. The mouse performance on the iPad sometimes is great and sometimes is terrible. This seems to be linked to two things.

  1. The settings app on the iPad seems to be a major issue, if you close the settings screen the performance immediately improves. This is an iPad issue.
  2. Using a Magic Mouse 1 or a trackpad anywhere nearby degrades that IPad Performance. The ipad gives a warning that the device will interfere with wifi and bluetooth

1.05 is now available from the Mac App Store.

1.00 – Production release with In App Purchases

  • Fixes a bug where Keypad window would popup multiple times over current applications.
  • Holds bluetooth connection for devices (other than SmartPhones) should make launching much faster
  • Fixed UI bug when an empty square would appear next to the app icon
  • Added In App Purchases when a user wants to setup more than one device. Hope people will buy

This version is available on the Mac App Store.

0.95 – Configure HotKeys

  • Supports deleting connected bluetooth devices.
  • Supports defining separate HotKey’s for each bluetooth device.
  • Supports changing the default HotKey
  • Updates to clipboard paste feature
  • Migrates to using the new website (https://bluetooth-keyboard.com/)
  • Includes a link to a installation support video
  • Known issues:
    • Once a device is connected, you have to press Launch Bluetooth Settings again to connect a second device.
    • You cannot use a hotkey that is in use for the app unless you delete the hotkey
    • If you delete a hotkey for device 0, it will default to Command + option + p

0.92 – Support more than one bluetooth device

  • alpha release: May 14th 2020, Alpha 2:May 15th 2020, Beta 1: May 16th 2020
  • Supports connecting to multiple devices.
  • Known Issue: Only first device has hotkey (command – option – p)
  • Known issue: Requires menubar selection for selecting devices to connect.
  • Known issue: Cannot delete a device from the list (hmm does it really matter? Do people go delete bluetooth connections ever?)
  • Alpha 2 fixes a bug that phone going out of range was not resulting in closing the keypad window.
  • Beta 1: Fixed a bug when bluetooth device does not have a name, just address.
  • Beta 1: Holds onto the iphone connection longer, it will disconnect only when screensaver on mac kicks in or user changes app.
  • Beta 1: Initiating a bluetooth connection from the phone will trigger keypad (connection can be originated both ways)
  • Beta 2: Ready for release testing, locking the iPhone will disconnect.
  • Expect bugs, I am looking for help testing this out.
  • This version has been released, it can be downloaded from the Mac App Store.

0.91 – Support clipboard text paste

  • Initial release 2nd May 2020 – This feature will likely be rolled into the next app store release.
  • Beta release 8th May 2020 – Pre-release.
  • Final release: 10th May 2020 – now available on the Mac App Store.
  • Support clipboard paste
  • Expect bugs, especially with non-US-English device. Please help me figure this out.

0.90 – Support Media Keys

  • Release 26th April 2020
  • Added support for Media Keys like Play/Pause and Volume control.
  • Bring up soft keyboard to type emoji’s.
  • Available on Mac App Store.

0.82 – Fixes to support TVs

  • TV’s and Media boxes were not seeing the keyboard.
    • Verified with Sony and Samsung TVs
    • Verified with Google Nexus Player, Apple TV etc
  • Aligned release to 10.15.4.
  • This release is available on Apple MacOS App Store

0.81 – Minor Fixes

0.80 – Initial Release

Latest beta

Any pre-release beta’s will be available here. These are for testing only. Please download the app from the Mac App Store.