I tried finding a FOSS app that I could use to use my phone as a mouse (all options for this seem really shady IMO) and Google’s “AI overview” recommended the app “Bluetooth Keyboard & Mouse”. Seemingly, because it has a (mostly empty) Git repo with typical folders. I tried entering the search term into Copilot on my work computer and got the same result, Copilot also gave a little speech on why the app was FOSS. Only when told there was no source code in the repo did Copilot backtrack and say it wasn’t open source (and later having it listed as not recommended because of an unknown origin [eventhough it’s in the Google Play store…]).
As a user, i.e. not contributor, of FOSS I found this an interesting revelation. Is this an intentional catfishing strategy to get apps promoted by the LLMs – as a semi-illegitimate growth hack for a legitish app or for entirely illegitimate purposes? Or just a serendipitous LLM hallucination?
KDE Connect lets you use your phone as a mouse, among other things.
KDE connect is amazing, I’ve used it way more than I thought I would.
Thanks, yes, I came across it and it looks very good but the target device is an IPad so I didn’t consider it an option (well, I found no closed or open options I liked, really).
You want to use your phone as a mouse for an iPad? I don’t think iPads allow for virtual input devices, I don’t think you will have much luck.
There are actually a few closed apps that do it, some claim to make your phone discoverable as a Bluetooth HID and others via a server/client combo. But I don’t really want to have an internet enabled device being able to track all my screen interactions and control another internet enabled device without some assurance that there’s nothing nefarious going on behind the scenes.