By Dan Moren

April 14, 2016 2:36 PM PT

Screens 4 brings one-touch passwords, groups, redesign

Note: This story has not been updated for several years.

Edovia’s Screens is one of my indispensable iOS apps, if for no other reason than it brings much of the power of the Mac to my iPad and iPhone, no matter where I am. The screen-sharing app’s major 4.0 update is replete with features, many of which I didn’t even know I wanted until I saw them, as well as a design overhaul.

While the purple/white aesthetic stays, Screens’s interface has been simplified. There’s now just a single top-level screen showing you all your saved connections–even better, on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, you can use 3D Touch on the iOS app icon to quickly jump right into a session, no waiting.

My very favorite new additions, however, are both password related. For one thing, there’s now even better integration with 1Password–you can access the extension from the Action menu and send any of your stored passwords back to your remote Mac. But my true love is the new One-Touch Password feature. When you reach the login screen of your Mac, you can tap and hold on the Action menu in Screens’s toolbar, and it will automatically type your saved password into the the text box, saving you the time of entering it via your iOS keyboard. Brilliant.

There a bunch of other improvements as well: everything from the ability to group connections into folders to Spotlight integration and multitasking support on the iPad. All of those just go to making Screens an even better version of itself.

Screens 4 is a free update for existing users of the iOS app; if you’re buying it new, it’s $20.

[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His latest novel, the supernatural detective story All Souls Lost, is out now.]

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