LogMeIn Ignition Review

LogMeIn Ignition is an iPhone application that allows you to easily connect to your computer and/or laptop (provided they are on) and perform the same tasks that you could if you at the machine itself.  I was a bit skeptical at first and that was mainly due to the price point – it is $30 in the App Store and without being able to test it out I wasn’t sure if I wanted to plop down $30 for an app (especially if it ended up being not so great).  This application is definitely geared more towards business users or more advanced home users.

How does it work?  It’s pretty simple.  First, create an account with LogMeIn.  Then install the LogMeIn desktop software (Windows and Mac compatible).  There are several versions of the desktop software but the free version should work just fine.  Once you have the software installed and it’s running on your computer open up the LogMeIn Ignition app on your iPhone you will be prompted to login with your account name and password.  After you login you should see a list of all your computers that you have installed the desktop software onto.  From that list, just select the computer you want to connect to and it will connect you – that’s it! So simple.

LogMeIn Ignition has a number of finger gestures to make remote computing easy from your iPhone, for example, if you want to scroll a web page, document, etc on your computer just use two fingers and scroll up or down.  Of course, you can pinch and zoom with the multi-touch technology built into the iPhone or use the app’s magnify feature which zoom you into the part of the screen where your mouse is located.  The app works in both portrait and landscape mode as well.

The app also has the ability to easily switch back and forth from left to right click (the option is in the menu bar).  Additionally, you have full access to all of your function keys (F1, F2, F3, etc) as well as CTRL, Command, etc. depending on your platform (Windows or Mac).  LogMeIn Ignition also includes a number of customizable options such as adjusting the screen resolution, color quality, network speed and more.  I found in my experience the defaults seem to work best for most situations.

Overall, I would recommend this application.  It is great for quick little tasks that need to get done on the go.  I really would love to see an iPad specific version of LogMeIn Ignition – the bigger screen on the iPad would present an even better experience.  You can download LogMeIn Ignition from the App Store (direct link).

Thanks again to LogMeIn for providing me with the opportunity to review LogMeIn Ignition.