Well, it’s 2012 and our iPhones still somehow don’t come with built-in pico projectors. But at least Epson has a new app that lets you wirelessly connect to a projector to display your slide shows, quarterly earnings forecasts and vacation photos. Epson’s iProjection is a free app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch that lets you display local and cloud-based content from your device to select Epson projectors.
IProjection works with any wireless Epson projector, as long as both your iOS device and the projector are connected to the same wireless network. It allow users to play PowerPoint or Keynote slide shows and display Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, JPGs or PNGs, but it won’t allow you to play video or animations in slide shows. You can either sideload files through iTunes into the Epson app to make them accessible to the projector or grab them from your email account or cloud storage services, including Dropbox.
This is a pretty handy tool for educators, since it requires no additional devices and minimal setup, or for businesspeople traveling light, as long as they know for sure there will be an Epson wireless projector waiting in the boardroom where they will be presenting. It is not as versatile as using an Apple TV with AirPlay connected to a projector, but it also doesn’t require as much stuff. Plus, it lets you control projector input sources, audio settings and more with a software remote included in the app.
Next time around, I would love to see Epson and company building AirPlay right into their devices. But in the meantime, this is a nice value-add feature and one that doesn’t require new equipment or software purchases, either.
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