Help! What VNC app should I choose?

LogMeIn all the way

I use logmein as well and love it. It costs a bit of money but it is a solid piece of software.

I use realVNC, it might not have the features of log me in but it does what i need and the dev's have been really good at adding any features i request!

They also didn't make me buy a 'HD' app for my ipad so i didn't have to pay twice like some others

Try out mocha there's a fully functional free version available.

Works great for me.

Hi,

I have

Desktop, nice user interface, will wake up computer.

iTeleport, simple nice to use will wake up computer as well.

Logmein, seems fastest but needs Logmein account. Also needs computer to be online. Sometimes I wake my iMac with Desktop or WOL and then use Logmein. Logmein has the advantage of using the touch screen either as a pointing device by putting your finger anywhere on the screen, or dragging by holding and dragging the mouse around.

I tend to use Logmein most, although it needs the desktop client. I like iTeleport for it's simplicity and Desktop for the nice user interface. If you maintain many computers Desktop has that advantage.

Have to say that this function of the iPad is simply amazing in the way it opens up possibilities. The combined price of the various apps was completely worth it for me. Just to be able to try them all out.

Good luck with setting yourself up!

I just got Jump Desktop. It doesn't require a client software, but if you install it, it makes setup a breeze.

It was just on a (1) day sale for $4.99. Now it's back up to the $19.99 price.

I've been looking for a good client to do remote desktop but didn't want to shell out too much $$ for the few times I'd use it. So I kept an eye on the price for about a month and when it dropped, I bought it.

It's also a universal app so you can use it on your iPhone / iPod Touch / iPad which also makes it appealing.

cRuNcHiE said:

I use realVNC, it might not have the features of log me in but it does what i need and the dev's have been really good at adding any features i request!

They also didn't make me buy a 'HD' app for my ipad so i didn't have to pay twice like some others

Click to expand...

Same here. A lot cheaper than the competition and is a universal app so one payment gets you the iPhone and iPad versions.

Stingray454 said:

About RealVNC - it looks good and got ok price, but from what I read about it the mouse control is a bit awkward. Is this true? Also, I read something about it works best when paired with some specific server software that in itself costs $50+. Any thought on this? Does it work good with the built-in screen sharing in OS X?

Click to expand...

I've had no problems running RealVNC using the in-built OS X non-Mac screen sharing (which is VNC anyway!).

Mouse control is good with it - my only complaint is that using two fingers to simulate a right click has an annoying habit of being detected as a pinch and triggers a screen zoom operation.

Try Teamviewer before buying anything. It's free, so the only thing you'll be wasting is a few minutes of your time.

egorka said:

I just got Jump Desktop. It doesn't require a client software, but if you install it, it makes setup a breeze.

It was just on a (1) day sale for $4.99. Now it's back up to the $19.99 price.

I've been looking for a good client to do remote desktop but didn't want to shell out too much $$ for the few times I'd use it. So I kept an eye on the price for about a month and when it dropped, I bought it.

It's also a universal app so you can use it on your iPhone / iPod Touch / iPad which also makes it appealing.

Click to expand...

I've been using Jump for awhile now and love it. Quick and smooth. Does everything I need it to do. I play poker from poker stars on it and it feels like I'm in front of my desktop. Right clicking is a breeze.

One I wouldn't recommend is Wyse. I used that for a bit, very clunkey and slow.

egorka said:

I just got Jump Desktop. It doesn't require a client software, but if you install it, it makes setup a breeze.

It was just on a (1) day sale for $4.99. Now it's back up to the $19.99 price.

I've been looking for a good client to do remote desktop but didn't want to shell out too much $$ for the few times I'd use it. So I kept an eye on the price for about a month and when it dropped, I bought it.

It's also a universal app so you can use it on your iPhone / iPod Touch / iPad which also makes it appealing.

Click to expand...

egorka, I pounced on the Jump Desktop's $5 deal too since it supported most of the options I wanted in a remote desktop app.


Stingray454, here are some things I thought about when selecting a remote desktop app;

First thought, Price! Especially without any re-occurring monthly fees since I'm not using it for tech support! This thought illuminated half of the competition.

Second thought, Type of remote control protocol supported. Jump Desktop supports the two major protocols VNC and RDP, and has it's own thin client. Some of the other apps available require purchasing the VNC app and then purchasing a different app for RDP.

Third thought, Allow non-standard ports to be selected when connecting to the host system. Example 192.168.0.2:5901 which allows tweaking the host receive listening port to 5901 (or pretty much anything I want) vice being stuck with the default 5900 VNC port or 3389 RDP port. And, Jump Desktop allows me to tweak the destination port on both VNC and RDP sessions.

So, the only thing left for me to think about was encryption. RDP has native encryption, while VNC requires opensource encryption. Most of the hosted services with the re-occurring monthly charges provide encryption as well, but they failed my second thought. Anyway, I'm using RDP when I'm on 3G over the internet, and VNC when I'm on my private network. I hope future updates to Jump Desktop will support something like UltraVNC's data stream encryption.


BTW, here is a sweet TIP for everyone which works with Windows RDP sessions on the iPad. (At least it works using Jump Desktop).

If your iPad RDP app supports modifying the RDP session's screen resolution (like Jump Desktop does), then modify the RDP session screen resolution to 768x1024 instead of the standard default 1024x768. This will allow flipping the iPad into full screen portrait mode (768x1024) when viewing the remote host. I have two RDP sessions setup for the same host with one session labeled Landscape and the other session labeled Portrait depending on how I want to hold my iPad at that moment. Too bad the RDP session can't auto-switch the screen resolution when flipping the iPad between landscape and portrait, but at least this TIP works for me.

cRuNcHiE said:

I use realVNC, it might not have the features of log me in but it does what i need and the dev's have been really good at adding any features i request!

They also didn't make me buy a 'HD' app for my ipad so i didn't have to pay twice like some others

Click to expand...

I also like RealVNC, because one can access the server via a variety of means, including a java webserver

Here's another vote for RealVNC. I used it extensively during a four-month overseas trip, with my MacBook Pro online back at home. Worked great.

I use iSSH, great VNC support, nice keyboard, function key, and scaling.

I also use it for straight SSHing into my Macs and Linux boxes.

I've also heard good things about Splashtop, which is relatively cheap at $5.

Apparently it specializes in smooth playback, enabling you to watch videos and etc.

I, too, am torn among Jump, Desktop, and now Splashtop.

iTeleport (if you need to tunnel over SSH)

Warning: Long post. This info is probably of more use to I.T. people and net-admins than those merely trying to share their home PC's desktop with the iPad. Still, I'm hoping some may find it useful.

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I thought I'd put in a plug for iTeleport since the OP asked specifically about VNC clients, (which I take to mean ones that use the actual VNC/RFB protocol, allowing you to connect to any compliant VNC server), not those that seem to use their own proprietary protocols such as Ignition or TeamViewer.

When I first set out to use my iPad for remote workstation/server administration, I had a specific requirement when choosing a VNC client app -- it had to support remote sessions through SSH tunnels. (By design, the VNC/RFB protocol doesn't include any form of sophisticated encryption natively -- this was viewed as being the responsibility of the transfer mechanism, not that of the core screen-sharing protocol)

What this means is that your remote system needs to accept SSH logins and all your VNC sessions are made through (and thus protected by) those SSH connections. You can configure a single host machine with both an SSH and VNC server, or more practically, set up a public-facing SSH server to allow TCP-forwarding for an entire internal network of VNC-enabled host machines. It also means that your firewall needs to be configured to allow incoming SSH logins -- this method does *not* rely on an external 3rd-party service to setup the connections the way some other remote desktop apps do.

Anyway, when I looked around, there were really only two candidates that supported VNC-over-SSH: iSSH and iTeleport. For SSH shell logins, iSSH is great. It allows you to do some nifty tricks with SSH tunnels and such. Since I already owned this app on my iPhone, it was was the first one I tried on my iPad as well. The problem is that the built-in VNC client is somewhat slow. Granted this can be attributed to a number of external factors and the iSSH author has been attempting to make performance improvements to this feature in the app. However, the fact is that my VNC sessions over it were pretty bad. So although I still consider iSSH to be invaluable for shell logins, it was pretty unusable (to me) as a VNC client.

That's when I found iTeleport. I wasn't real happy with the price ($29.95 US), but it was the only other app at the time that claimed to support SSH tunnels. After reading numerous reviews, I finally bought the app. It turns out that (with a few exceptions) it does everything I'd hoped and I now use it daily.

Currently, I use it to remote access three types of systems: the desktop consoles of VMs running on VMware Virtual Server on an Ubuntu host (Virtual Server, like Fusion on OSX has a built-in VNC server), WinXP workstations running UltraVNC and a couple of Macs using the native Screen Sharing feature with the VNC option enabled.

Besides the SSH tunneling capability, some notable features are the impressive performance of the screen-sharing itself, the ability to send just about any keystroke found on a standard 101-key PC keyboard and a decent mouse-pointer interface.

So what don't I like about the app? The price is a bit higher than I'd hoped. (That being said, it allows me to be much more productive, so I feel it was worth it. However, it is still on my list of the 5 most expensive apps I own) and updates aren't all that frequent. Yet, the single biggest problem I have with iTeleport is that it doesn't support public-key authentication for SSH connections, only passwords. This makes iTeleport unusable for a few systems I support. (iSSH supports pkeys with the ability to configure an arbitrary number of key pairs to any of its login profiles). With the release of iOS 4, it may be possible to use iTeleport in conjunction with iSSH to accomplish such a feat in a limited fashion, but it would really be nice to have all this available in a single tool.

Edit: Apparently Desktop Connect and the latest release of Jump Desktop supports SSH tunnels also. Anyone know if they do public-key authentication?

Splashtop Remote for Mac

Splashtop Remote for Mac is coming soon (I work for the company). For now, yes, Windows only.

We actually don't use the RDP protocol. As @ravenvii pointed out, we differentiate by supporting video and audio. RDP does not really allow you to watch remote video or play flash games etc, as the screen refresh is typically too slow with RDP.

Splashtop

I've recently been using Splashtop.
Mainly for watching flash videos on my iPad.
I watch a football game from espn3.com on my ipad. It worked great!

But I hope they get an easy firewall solution soon. Because I can't connect to my work computer when I'm at home because of it.

Firewall crossing

@2macORnot2mac Yep, connecting across the firewall (without port forwarding) is also coming soon in Splashtop Remote - working on it now. By the way, for folks out there who use the VPN on their iPad to connect to the office network, that is already supported.