I’m stupid w/ computers. Got to work after 5 m.

Longtime Finale user and I needed a keypad for Sibelius on my Mac Book Pro (late 2013) as I’m trying out Sibelius for the first time. Looked at options online, including external keypads. Based on reviews external keypads pose their own set of connectivity problems, not to mention time spent running to the store to buy one and hoping it connects to my laptop AND hoping that it then works with Sibelius.

After looking at several apps in the app store, this one looked most promising, if a little more costly than some of the other keypad apps. I decided to pay $4.99 and see if it worked, and I can say it does - for a lot less money and hassle than going to the store and buying an external keypad. The optional Sibelius/Finale layouts are especially nice.

As for connecting to my laptop, I initially chose “tap on a computer to connect” and it just spun for 5 minutes while I was pouring myself a new cup of coffee. With a sense of drudgery, I read one of the other reviews about clicking on the HELP menu within the NumPad app on my iPhone and following those prompts. I “trudged" through the 5 or 6 steps, and in less than 5 minutes it was connected. Not bad at all, I must confess!

The app will not connect to your computer through blue tooth. On your computer you will have to click on SYSTEM SETTINGS and then on the SHARING folder and then select “SCREEN SHARING” and maybe one or two other steps. That’s it.

Let me be clear - I hate setting computer stuff up (cursed for a full hour as I explored Sibelius’ free trial version late last night, just to give you a head’s up about my computer and software skills). I hate spending time at a computer figuring stuff out. I just want to be able to compose like the old days with an acoustic piano, staff paper, and a pencil. Even so, this was not too bad to set up.

The one negative is not a fault with the app, but rather the iPhone - as another reviewer noted, the phone 5 screen is a little small feeling for tapping on the virtual keypad with the amount of note entries I am doing for a full jazz band + voice score. But perhaps with a larger iPhone this would not be a concern. Also maybe with time I’ll get used to it on my iPhone 5. In any event, it was a quick and cheap solution; it will suffice for now, and I can recommend the app.

saxy motha about NumPad., v4.1.0