App Spotlight: Epson iProjection Beams Presentations to Your Projector

The Epson iProjection app for iOS helps you cut the cord between your presentation and your projector.

See, the typical setup goes like this:

1. Connect your laptop to your projector (assuming you can find the cable).

2. Wait what seems like an hour for your laptop to boot.

3. Fire up PowerPoint, then open your presentation (assuming you can find it).

4. Find an extension cord for your laptop’s power supply, because your battery is running low.

5. Run the presentation while standing awkwardly near the laptop, which must remain tethered to the projector.

That’s a long list of hassles most presenters would gladly do without. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could bypass the laptop altogether, instead running your show from your tablet or smartphone?

You can, but usually there’s a special adapter and cable involved, which means you’re still stuck handcuffed to the projector. With the iProjection app, you can roam the room. It connects via Wi-Fi to any of several dozen compatible Epson projectors, which must be on the same network (via Ethernet or Wi-Fi). That means you can show your slide deck from your iPhone, iPad, or even iPod Touch. And not just slide decks, but also Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Apple Keynote presentations, PDFs, and photos.

The app also has built-in projector controls for things like input selection and audio sources. Now for the bad news: iProjection doesn’t support video playback or presentation animations (which, let’s face it, should be used sparingly anyway). Nor does it allow mirroring; you’d need to bring an Apple TV into the mix for that. The app is easy enough to use–just pair it with your projector and choose the document(s) you want to show. Alas, I don’t have a compatible Epson projector on hand, so I wasn’t able to conduct a real-world test. But I can speak from experience in saying that the old laptop-wired-to-the-projector system really stinks. This is how presentations should work; no wires, and just a few taps to get connected and start the show. In other words, for the presenter, this takes nearly all the technical hassles out of the equation. Now you just need to make sure your actual presentation is as impressive as the technology that’s displaying it. If you’ve had the chance to see iProjection in action, hit the comments and share your feedback.