Remote Buddy 1.32 is out today - and there's a lot to talk about:
macOS Mojave
Remote Buddy 1.32 has been updated for macOS Mojave. Now, there wouldn't be a lot to add to that sentence - if it wasn't for macOS Mojave's security architecture changes. Here's how these affect Remote Buddy users:
Accessibility access
In order to control apps via synthetic keyboard and mouse events, Remote Buddy now needs Accessibility access. Unless you already granted that to Remote Buddy in the past for other purposes, it will now prompt you during launch and wait until it has been granted.
In case the checkbox for Remote Buddy is shown greyed out in System Preferences, click on the closed lock in the lower-left to unlock the settings.
If Remote Buddy isn't granted Accessibility access even though you tick the checkbox in front of Remote Buddy's entry, please remove Remote Buddy's entry from System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility using the "-" button, and then re-add it using the "+" button. That should fix the issue.
Privacy prompts
As you try to control other apps through Remote Buddy, you'll see security prompts like this one:
These prompts come up whenever an app wants to control another app using AppleEvents. Unfortunately, these prompts also come up for completely harmless actions. Like f.ex. when Remote Buddy wants to tell iTunes to start playback.
When they come up, these prompts pause Remote Buddy. Therefore you can't respond to them with Remote Buddy's own Virtual Mouse or iOS app.
To ensure you can control your Mac through Remote Buddy as usual, please perform your most common actions in every app you want to control with Remote Buddy after installing macOS Mojave.
That should only take a few minutes, but get most (hopefully all) prompts triggered and out of the way while you still have access to a mouse or trackpad and can respond to them without hassle.
Also, whenever such a prompt comes up for Remote Buddy, please make sure to press "OK". Otherwise, Remote Buddy can't control the app.
Unfortunately macOS will only present every prompt once. So if you accidentally press "Don't Allow", the only way to grant the permission afterwards is to open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Automation and tick the app's box under "Remote Buddy".
I'd have loved to provide a Setup Assistant that guides you through all of this. However, at the time of writing Apple doesn't provide sufficient API support for that.
If you also believe Apple can do a lot better here - and would like to support my efforts, please let Apple know and mention my bug report and/or my blog post in your message to them.
Full disk access
macOS Mojave limits access to sensitive locations in the file system more strictly. That's a good thing, but can also mean that if you use Remote Buddy's built-in Files browser, you may not be able to navigate to all folders on your Mac.
If you run into this problem, you can solve it by adding Remote Buddy to the list of apps with full disk access at System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access.
You may need to relaunch Remote Buddy afterwards for the change to take effect.
DVD Player
Mojave comes with a rewritten DVD Player app - hidden in macOS' CoreServices directory. Unfortunately, AppleScript support is among the few features of its predecessor that didn't make the cut.
Remote Buddy now uses a new mechanism to control the new DVD Player. Please let me know if you run into any issues.
Dynamic Wallpapers
Remote Budy Mobile uses your Mac's Wallpaper to represent your Mac in its server list. This still works in Mojave in general, but fails if you've selected a "Dynamic Wallpaper" in System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver. The image format used by these is not supported. Your Mac's entry in the Mobile app's server list will just show as white then.
Please select a "static" wallpaper if you'd like to see a picture there.
Leaving the Mac App Store
After maintaining a special Express version of Remote Buddy for the Mac App Store for many years, I decided to remove it from sale a few days ago.
Seeing how Apple has historically managed the Mac App Store, I've considered such a step for years. But in the end I always decided to continue to serve my customers with continued updates.
This time, however, Apple won't let me. As of June 2018, Apple no longer accepts updates to 32-Bit apps. And right now, Remote Buddy is still a 32-Bit app. In order to submit even a minor update or bugfix, I would first have to port the whole app to 64-Bit.
Porting Remote Buddy to 64-Bit, however, is a major effort that simply wasn't doable in time for Mojave's release.
And rather than keep selling an app I'm not allowed to maintain, I decided to remove it from sale. Rest assured I sure would have preferred a different outcome.
Customers who have purchased Remote Buddy Express from the Mac App Store in the past can continue to use the app or reinstall it from the "Purchased" section of the Mac App Store. The only change is that it can no longer be purchased and I can no longer provide updates for it.
UPDATE An upgrade path from Mac App Store version to full version is now available.
watchOS 5
watchOS 5 dropped support for watchOS 1 apps. It is therefore no longer possible to use Remote Buddy Mobile's Watch app after updating your Apple Watch to watchOS 5.
To achieve compatibility with watchOS 5 and later, the Watch app would need to be rewritten from scratch to run fully on the Apple Watch.
Unfortunately, with metrics indicating that there are - on average - less than five users using the Watch app per day, I can't justify such a major effort.
I have therefore removed most mentions of the Watch app from the Remote Buddy website. Furthermore, since Apple no longer accepts updates to watchOS 1 apps into its App Store, I will also be forced to remove the Watch app from the Remote Buddy Mobile app with the next update.
If you have an Apple Watch running watchOS 1-4 and would like to keep using Remote Buddy Mobile's Watch app, please make sure not to install the next Remote Buddy Mobile update and not to upgrade your Watch to watchOS 5.