It's not foolproof, but Airlock is one of those great little gems which solves a problem simply and easily, making life a little easier. I toggled Bluetooth on my iPhone off/on and Airlock unlocked. There is a slider available to change between "better battery life" and "more responsive."įellow TUAW-er Brett Terpstra suggested that "do it yourself" folks might be able to mimic this behavior using RedHand (€ 1.49) and Proximity (free) but added "I found absolutely no method of Bluetooth proximity detection that didn't occasionally boot me out to a lock screen at least once every few hours when I (and my fully-charged, often docked, iPhone) were sitting right next to it." While I was writing this article with my iPhone charging and hooked to my MacBook Pro, Airlock locked me out once. Checking more often will secure your Mac faster, but will increase the drain on your iPhone battery. You can also adjust how often Airlock checks for your iPhone's presence. The dot shows you where your iPhone is located in proximity to Airlock. I found that sitting across the room from my iMac at home I was much more likely to run into interference than sitting next to my MacBook Pro at my desk at the office. (You can quit it and relaunch it for another three hours also.)Īirlock also recommends making the "activation range slightly larger than it appears necessary." Wireless signal strength isn't an exact science, and interference is possible. The webpage also warns that "due to a bug in Mac OS X, Airlock may not be compatible with computers that use wireless keyboards or mice." You can use Airlock for up to three hours without registering, which I would encourage everyone to do. However, for the usual use-case of one person and one Mac at an office, Airlock works great. For example, if I lock my iMac at home with my iPhone using Airlock and my wife wants to use it, she needs to have my account password, or else she can't get into the computer (there is no way for her to access the regular login panel, which would be another big feature request). Again, if those things are possible it would require you to know how to code them in AppleScript.Īirlock will also only "pair" with one device at a time, which can cause problems if several people use the same Mac. There are other possible uses for this I can imagine: telling Mail.app to check for mail as soon as I get back, or telling NetNewsWire to resume downloading when I walk out of the room and pause it when I get back, so it will do those functions when my computer is otherwise idle. That can be accomplished if you know how to write AppleScript, but it seems like an obvious feature to build in. The functionality is a little limited at the moment - for example, I'd like a way to automatically set my iChat status as "away" when I'm gone and "available" when I'm back. There is even a manual login option which lets you bypass Airlock using your regular login password (handy in case your iPhone battery dies or you need to use your computer without your iPhone around, possibly because your 7 year-old son has absconded with it to play Super Monkey Ball 2 again).Īirlock will let you automatically open applications when you come into range or go out of range. I've been using Airlock for about a week, and think it is pretty much the perfect balance between security and convenience. Now if I step out of my office for more than a few seconds, my MacBook Pro automatically locks itself, and when I return, it automatically unlocks itself. When I leave my office, I don't have to think about bringing my iPhone with me, it's already with me. Like many people reading this article, I spend my day with my iPhone in my pocket. You don't need to run any software on your iPhone. Once your iPhone is "paired" with Airlock, it will periodically check to see if the iPhone is still "in range" (which you can adjust, using the slider shown above). That might sound like magic, but it isn't, it's Bluetooth. Which I usually forget to do.Įnter Airlock, a preference panel which will automatically lock and unlock your Mac when it senses that your iPhone (or iPod touch) is nearby. The biggest problem with all of those solutions? They require me to remember to do something. (Many Windows users are used to hitting the Windows key plus "L" to temporarily "logout" but Mac OS X doesn't have an equivalent feature built-in, although there are some possible work-arounds.) To solve this, I've tried various things: setting a "hot corner" to trigger my screensaver, which requires my password be typed, or manually switching to the login window. Most of them time I get back to my office and realize that I have left my MacBook Pro unlocked. Occasionally a coworker will call or knock on my door and ask for my help with something, and the two of us will go to wherever I am needed.
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