Remote control Apple TV from MacBook

You can use your Mac as a Bluetooth keyboard for your Apple TV. I.e. type on your Mac's keyboard to have text appear on Apple TV.

For this you need Type2Phone ( http://www.houdah.com/type2Phone/ ) from the Mac App Store.

Full disclosure: I am the developer of Type2Phone.

You could try AirFlick, which will play/stream files from your Mac to your Apple TV using Airplay. It supports specifying a URL to stream content but I'm not sure if it works with youtube URLs. Worth a try as the app is free.

[Edit] Just confirmed it does work with YouTube URLs but it first downloads the video content (h.264 version) and then streams it to the TV2. So makes it less useful than browsing YouTube on the TV itself.

And more options are becoming available to solve this problem! We just launch two new apps for this:

You can try our CiderTV for OS X (get for free in Mac AppStore or at official web page cidertv.com/osx)

This simple app lets you to navigate between Apple TV menus right from your Mac. And in case you lost native remote for your AppleTV, this app can help you to pair without it (see FAQ on site)

One more analougue - Ezzi Keyboard (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ezzi-keyboard/id1069314102?mt=12). You can use it as a remote control for your Apple TV (2nd or 3rd generation). And navigate Apple TV menus,rewind and fast-forward favorite movie scenes, browse your iTunes collection, type texts, passwords and logins on your Apple TV from Mac

Any feedback is welcome. Enjoy!