Microsoft Launches 'Remote Desktop' Apps for Mac and iOS

MacRumors · Oct 17, 2013

Along with Windows 8.1, Microsoft today launched new Microsoft Remote Desktop apps for iOS and OS X, designed to give users access to a Windows PC via RemoteFX on their Macs, iPhones, and iPads. News of a potential Remote Desktop app for Apple devices first surfaced last week.

The iOS app offers a secure connection to data and applications through NLA technology along with multi-touch capabilities. It supports high quality video and sound streaming and connects to external monitors or protectors to for presentations. The Mac version also includes the ability to access local Mac files from Windows applications and printer capabilities.

iOS Features:

- Access to remote resources through the Remote Desktop Gateway
- Rich multi-touch experience with remote desktop protocol (RDP) and RemoteFX supporting Windows gestures
- Secure connection to your data and applications with breakthrough Network Layer Authentication (NLA) technology
- Simple management of all remote connections from the connection center
- High quality video and sound streaming with improved compression and bandwidth usage
- Easy connection to external monitors or projectors for presentations

Mac Features:

- Access to remote resources through the Remote Desktop Gateway
- Secure connection to your data and applications with breakthrough Network Layer Authentication (NLA) technology
- Simple management of all remote connections from the connection center
- High quality video and sound streaming with improved compression and bandwidth usage
- Easy connection to multiple monitors or projectors for presentations
- Print from Windows applications to any printer configured on your Mac
- Access local files on your Mac from your Windows applications

In addition to Remote Desktop tools for iOS and OS X, Microsoft is said to be developing similar tools for Android and Windows RT. Earlier this month, former Microsoft CEO Steve announced that the company also plans to expand its iOS offerings with an iPad version of Office to be released after the launch of the next major version of its Office suite.

Microsoft Remote Desktop for iOS is a universal app that can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Microsoft Remote Desktop for Mac is a free app that can be downloaded from the Mac App Store. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Microsoft Launches 'Remote Desktop' Apps for Mac and iOS

aziatiklover · Oct 17, 2013

Nice move no more logmein for me!

EDIT: NVM SET UP PROCESS IS A PAIN IN THE BUTT, I YET GOT IT TO WORK!

2457282 · Oct 17, 2013

I will be getting this for the sole purpose of being able to fix my parents computers remotely ever time the call me. This will be immensly simpler than having them tell me what is wrong -- "the thing said something and i pressed the button and now nothing happens, what should I do?"

Silencio · Oct 17, 2013

CoRD has been doing the job for me for a while. Microsoft's old RDC client for the Mac was just awful. So far the new one seems like a significant improvement, but I'll have to put it through its paces and see if it does as well handling multiple sessions as CoRD does.

kappaknight · Oct 17, 2013

I'll install it... but I hope I never have to use it.

johnnnw · Oct 17, 2013

Just downloaded it for Mac.

No idea how to connect it to my pc though.

ugahairydawgs · Oct 17, 2013

So it comes out on Mac and iOS before WP and WinRT?

Seems....odd

Nunyabinez · Oct 17, 2013

This is nice. I have a PC that is primarily for gaming, but occasionally I want to access it from work and was too lazy to set up team viewer for it.

I will give this a try.

negativepi · Oct 17, 2013

Both versions work for me, the Mac version faster of course. It's still a shame that you can't connect to PCs running Windows 7 Home Premium. Oh well.

newagemac · Oct 17, 2013

But can you access a Remote Desktop of a Windows PC that's actually served through a Virtual Machine on your Mac? Would love to be able to do this from my iPad to use Windows 8 since it's pretty good for touch based devices.

Northgrove · Oct 17, 2013

Haha, Jump Desktop was so close to get a buy from me, with the old Microsoft RDP client out of support on both Mountain Lion and Mavericks. I trialled it just yesterday and felt happy about it. But I think I'll just use this instead. Microsoft's own clients generally seems good and it feels good to use a client from the company who designed the protocol.

----------

johnnnw said:
Just downloaded it for Mac.

No idea how to connect it to my pc though.

1. Here's how to enable remote desktop connections to your PC: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff404238.aspx
2. Next you need to allow port 3389 through your firewall/router.

nicroma · Oct 17, 2013

I just installed it and tried it for my iPhone. I'll be sticking with alternatives for RDP. It was not very user friendly.

rayray5884 · Oct 17, 2013

nicroma said:
I just installed it and tried it for my iPhone. I'll be sticking with alternatives for RDP. It was not very user friendly.

Is there really no pinch to zoom? You have to use that little on screen thing? Unless I missed the option that allows you to change that, I'll stick with the alternatives.

justperry · Oct 17, 2013

Northgrove said:
1. Here's how to enable remote desktop connections to your PC: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff404238.aspx
2. Next you need to allow port 3389 through your firewall/router.

Very User friendly.

snowatom · Oct 17, 2013

OMG what a crappy App... I have used iTap before which unfortunately have been discontiniued. They say on iTap's the website that MS will providing their own soon.

I really hope that this is not MS attemp to purchasing a company just to make their app worthless...

I paid for iTap, but the MS version is free, but so what it's CRAP...

I had so much hoped, that the only change would be a "made by MS" logo instead, and the iTap app whould be the same. But no, there are so many things you can't do in this app, that you could do in iTap. Won't even go into details, as there are hundres of things.

OK, you twisted my arm.... Pinch to zoom, hold pointer to magnify, change various settings ( ex. Resolution) multiple touch gestures (ex. Two finger touch for right mouse click, three fingers down for keyboard)... And so on and so on...

So sad...

snowatom

neuropsychguy · Oct 17, 2013

Silencio said:
CoRD has been doing the job for me for a while. Microsoft's old RDC client for the Mac was just awful. So far the new one seems like a significant improvement, but I'll have to put it through its paces and see if it does as well handling multiple sessions as CoRD does.

I found the old version of RDC superior to CoRD. I've been using CoRD exclusively for over a year but so far I like this new version of RDC more than CoRD. Everything runs a little faster and more smoothly than with CoRD.

Nevaborn · Oct 17, 2013

Seems like massive pain in the backside

cdavis11 · Oct 17, 2013

No pinch to zoom as far as I can tell on iOS. Agree with earlier comments about it being not so user friendly - i'll stick with pocket cloud and logmein.

Mac client is okay, but lost the ability to tell it to start on a secondary display in preferences. I hope that just "sticks".

GIZBUG · Oct 17, 2013

johnnnw said:
Just downloaded it for Mac.

No idea how to connect it to my pc though.

Same. I guess I don't put in my internal ip (from router) but the public IP. But i would guess we need to setup/configure something on our windows pc for this to work..

jomo25 · Oct 17, 2013

cdavis11 said:
No pinch to zoom as far as I can tell on iOS. Agree with earlier comments about it being not so user friendly - i'll stick with pocket cloud and logmein.

Mac client is okay, but lost the ability to tell it to start on a secondary display in preferences. I hope that just "sticks".

I also don't see the pinch to zoom on the iOS client...I'll stick with iTeleport, much more user friendly. I don't know if iTeleport is still free or not. If not, I guess the MS one works if you are cheap. But really much less functional/capable than iTeleprt.

Xenomorph · Oct 17, 2013

Holy heck - they MURDERED the iTap client.

They removed all kinds of options on the Desktop version (font smoothing, etc), and destroyed the iOS client. No portrait, no mouse pointer, messed up interface.

NCWildcat · Oct 17, 2013

I've been using the RDC that came with Office for Mac '11. I wonder if this will be any better?

Swiss-G · Oct 17, 2013

NCWildcat said:
I've been using the RDC that came with Office for Mac '11. I wonder if this will be any better?

So far significantly better on the Mac and very little lag.

The main benefit for me is the ability to configure the RDP client to access the remote gateway which was not possible with the RDC client.

ctcampbell · Oct 17, 2013

Please, for the love of god don't allow direct connections to your PC from the Internet. Anyone who opens port 3389 on their router or firewall is asking for a world of pain.

Xenomorph · Oct 17, 2013

NCWildcat said:
I've been using the RDC that came with Office for Mac '11. I wonder if this will be any better?

On Mac OS X, it is "OK".

What it is based on, iTap, is MUCH better, though.

iTap has been the best RDP client I've used for iOS and OS X. The Microsoft-branded versions are stripped down (and in the case of the iOS version - *broken*).

They say "version 8.0" in the app. They are more like beta 0.1 builds.

Microsoft Launches 'Remote Desktop' Apps for Mac and iOS

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