Panther Feature? 'Home on iPod'

[MacRumors]

One reader (johnpg) notes a previously unadvertised feature of Panther which is detailed on Apple's Mac OS X mobility page called "Home on iPod".

Home away from home

Ever thought you could carry your home in the palm of your hands or in your pocket? You can. Panther's Home on iPod feature lets you store your home directory — files, folders, apps — on your iPod (or any FireWire hard drive) and take it with you wherever you go. When you find yourself near a Panther-equipped Mac, just plug in the iPod, log in, and you’re “home,” no matter where you happen to be. And when you return to your home computer, you can synchronize any changes you’ve made to your files by using File Sync, which automatically updates offline changes to your home directory.

This feature is reportedly not in the latest version of Panther (build 7B85)

While this feature is reportedly not in the latest version of Panther (build 7B85), it was first mentioned in this eWeek article in April which provided some of the first hints of Panther. According to eWeek's sources at that time, "one proposed feature will let users take home directories they've saved on peripherals and networks and use them for file access or securely log into a Mac running Panther.

[arn]

heh... it's actually been pulled since I posted it.

guess it's no longer in panther....

arn

[rainman::|:|]

thank god, i've been waiting for this! terrific apple... i wonder how they put this in without it being in latest builds? i can't wait to get to use this, take everything from work to home to work... hot damn...



pnw

[JoeCanadian]

I followed the link to the Panther mobility site, but there is nothing about "Home on iPod" there.

[arn]

Originally posted by JoeCanadian
I followed the link to the Panther mobility site, but there is nothing about "Home on iPod" there.

It was just there. they pulled it seconds after I posted the story. I don't have it in cache anymore.

arn

[beerguy]

Actually I believe that a precedure for doing this under jaguar was posted on macosxhints.com

[synergy]

That would be a very slick feature.
Almost like Sun's whole Sunray thing with the Java card. Except with this you carry everything with you rather than leaving it on a server somewhere.

Will be a big selling point for business.

[ZildjianKX]

So the feature got pulled? Damn...

So I take it 7B85 is GM since its not suppose to have the feature? Oh the confusion...

[Stella]

Sounds good.

Shame its been pulled. Perhaps it will make its way into one of the minor updates after the initial Panther release.

Better not be restricted to Gen 3 iPods tho..!

[shadowfax]

of course, you could just put your home folder on your iPod. i wonder if it is smart enough not to include my music library in the home folder on my iPod. i have 15 GB of music on it, so having 2 instances of it would just ruin things in terms of being able to fit it on the iPod.

it would sure be nice for them to automate this, though. i would definitely use it.

[sososowhat]

Apple giveth
... and Apple taketh away

[macMaestro]

Wow. Just wow.

Apple appears to be getting sloppy about leaking things. First those G5 specs. Then all those BT mouse and keyboard stuff. Now this.

But this feature will be killer if it get's implemented.

[arn]

found it in my cache.

Posted a mirror here:

http://www.macrumors.com/downloads/applemobility.html

[rainman::|:|]

what a bastard! booo!



why would this happen? i would think either it's a feature yet to be implemented, or it's some odd joke...

dammit.

pnw

[cheesy]

this sounds really cool, especially in places like businesses and schools where there are lots of computers.

nifty

i hope Apple decides to put it back in

[Pedro Estarque]

This seems such an easy thing for apple to do ( just tell the system your home directory is /ipod) and yet so useful that I can't understand why it didn't get to the final version.
maybe 10.3.1? 7CXX?

[Deestar]

It may be added in the rumoured 10.3.1 that will be released soon after Panther 10.3 is released.

[beerguy]

I'm sure it was pulled because it's a huge security risk.

The iDisk offline syncing gives basically the same functionality without giving your CFO the ability to leave the company financials on a train somewhere.

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by Deestar
It may be added in the rumoured 10.3.1 that will be released soon after Panther 10.3 is released.

hey, who's taking bets on how many 10.3.x's we'll have? 10.3.12? 15?

[macMaestro]

Originally posted by beerguy
I'm sure it was pulled because it's a huge security risk.

The iDisk offline syncing gives basically the same functionality without giving your CFO the ability to leave the company financials on a train somewhere.

But they could implement encryption...

You'd plug iPod in, it asks for password, you type password, and (to quote Steve) "Boom, just like that."

[G4scott]

This is awesome. Imagine, a business that uses Macs, and they buy all of their employees iPods for work use, and to use as a benefit to store music too. They can keep their work on the iPod, and use almost any computer in the company, and when they're not working they can listen to music...

[catalystx]

Apple really needs to get their web site managers better at keeping secrets. I guess we don't want that though, so on second thought they should hire a bunch of high school kids to run it!

[cheesy]

Originally posted by macMaestro
But they could implement encryption...

You'd plug iPod in, it asks for password, you type password, and (to quote Steve) "Boom, just like that."

File Vault

[beerguy]

Originally posted by macMaestro
But they could implement encryption...

You'd plug iPod in, it asks for password, you type password, and (to quote Steve) "Boom, just like that."

Real time encryption every time you do IO in your home directory? Better get that G6 ordered.

[Booga]

Originally posted by beerguy
I'm sure it was pulled because it's a huge security risk.

The iDisk offline syncing gives basically the same functionality without giving your CFO the ability to leave the company financials on a train somewhere.

And if it's encrypted, who cares? (Another great feature of Panther since the PGPDisk software kind of died. I used to require PGPDisk on any source code repository that resided on a laptop.)