It’s a beta application and it has some stability issues, and I found the control interface to be a little cumbersome even though it is very powerful. Out of the ‘box’ iRed comes with a lot of useful commands and scripts, and I was able to get it to control VLC very well without too much effort. Once it’s up, you can move to the application switcher by hitting ‘Menu’, select an application, and then hit ‘Menu’ again to use the remote with the application. You call up iRed itself by clicking and holding the ‘Menu’ button for a couple of seconds. It also recognizes ‘click and hold’ for several of the buttons so you get more than just 6 functions from the 6 buttons available. iRed splits its functions on a per application basis (though you can set up more than one set for a specific application if you want) and you can set up any of the buttons on the remote to send a keyboard command or run an applescript. They all do a good job of extending the functionality of the Apple remote, but there are some differences in how they work. Well, I didn’t have to wait long and there are now at least three options available: iRed Lite, Remote Buddy, and my favorite, Sofa Control. There are some excellent third party remotes available for the Mac and I could have purchased any of those and configured it away but I knew some enterprising programmers would eventually figure out how to make the Apple remote do more than Apple provided. If you want to control any other application, you’re out of luck. The included infrared remote control functionality is severely lacking! The intel Mac minis include an IR port and the little Apple remote (which is surprisingly functional for only having six buttons) but you can only use it to run and control Front Row and to operate a few included applications like the DVD player, iTunes, and Keynote.

When I hooked up my Mac mini media center and started using it, something became quickly apparent.

Adding a remote for mac mini