MBA and infrared

Hi there. My MBA has arrived. I've been working with it for a week or so. No noise, no hot, really light, quite confortable keyboard, nice batery life (4-5h, depending on the task, but for me is enough) and despite the CPU is a bit less powerful than my 15'' MBP, I have the impression that the MBA is faster (maybe the SSD has something to do...).
The only unexpected thing is that, after researching a bit, I surprisingly found that the 2011 MBA doesn`t have infrared, so I can't use my apple remote for giving presentations. Isn't this shocking? wasn't this laptop designed to be on the move from here to there, giving presentations or whatever? does anyone know if there is any solution (other than buying a usb remote)?

 

Do you have an iPhone or iPod Touch? There is a remote control app for Keynote.

 

IR remotes and communications with notebooks is pretty much a dead thing. There was a time when notebooks could wirelessly beam information to equipped printers, PDAs could communicate with each other, and people would use remotes all through IR. Now there is no need for that with the advent of other wireless technology that is not only faster but much more reliable and often not requiring a direct line of sight. In fact, I am surprised Apple continues to sell the MBP line with IR input since it has pretty much died outside of the living room.

There are still many things that you can do. Apple has a Keynote controller app for the iPod touch and iPhone, you can buy a bluetooth wireless mouse, you can buy a bluetooth wireless remote, you can use a virtual mouse app on an iPhone or iPod touch, and there are a few more things. Either way, there are plenty of wireless options that don't require a USB dongle since the MBA has bluetooth built-in.

 

Oh, I didn't know IR remote was an outdate technology (it comes with the new MBP 13''...). I don't have an iPhone or Ipod Touch, so I'll have a look to a bluetooth remote.
Thanks for the replies. Really helpful.

 

Yeah, it just isn't heavily featured in notebooks anymore and it was actually being phased out around 2002. It seems like only business notebooks continued the IR trend when I purchased my notebook in 2005 and, when I purchased my MBP earlier this year, it was the only readibly available notebook I saw with IR. Bluetooth has come such a long way and even other proprietary wireless technologies (ie those 2.4Ghz wireless systems you see) provide much better results.

IR is still alive and kicking in the living room thanks to TVs, DVD players, etc. that all use it for remotes but that is about it.