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Apple Alerting Customers to Upcoming Discontinuation of Back to My Mac in macOS Mojave

watkipet said:
Just this morning I was troubleshooting BTMM (it would work to my AirPort Express but not to the machine behind the AirPort Express). Correct me if I'm wrong, but Apple's recommended solutions don't fulfill the same use-case as BTMM:

  • Screen Sharing - Requires you to accept an incoming request on the remote machine. That doesn't work unless I'm in two places at the same time.
  • iCloud file syncing - "the cloud" is just another name for storing your personal data on a stranger's computer--a stranger who insists you sign an agreement indemnifying them if their service gets hacked. No thanks.
  • Apple Remote Desktop - From the lack of updates, it sounds like this is on the chopping block too. Not too many happy $80-the-poorer users.
When it worked, BTMM, with its NAT transversal, was one of the things Apple really got right. No home user wants to set up IPsec and mDNS themselves. I could remotely access my files, view my screen (any of several Macs), SSH, and access any other mDNS services. In my opinion, BTMM and Time Machine are some of the best features of macOS.

Oh well. At least we'll have Animojis in the latest version of iOS. I'm glad the brightest minds and biggest budgets are working on something useful.
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I use screen sharing daily and it’s never asked me to accept an incoming request.

I agree that Apple’s BTMM solution was the simplest in terms of configuration, but it’s also not very hard to expose the screen sharing ports and set up a dynamic dns service. If one really needs BTMM, that person is probably skilled enough to manage it.
 
robbyx said:
I use screen sharing daily and it’s never asked me to accept an incoming request.

I agree that Apple’s BTMM solution was the simplest in terms of configuration, but it’s also not very hard to expose the screen sharing ports and set up a dynamic dns service. If one really needs BTMM, that person is probably skilled enough to manage it.
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This ^^ I was disappointed for about 2 minutes when I started using Mojave in June. Then I setup a port forward on my router and started using screen sharing. To be honest, it’s more reliable which is probably a big reason Apple dropped the feature.
 
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WestonHarvey1 said:
It was a totally unreliable feature. It could never be counted on. It would work for a bit, then when you were out somewhere and actually needed it, it would just mysteriously give up, requiring you to go home and reboot routers, Macs, log out of iCloud, whatever mysterious voodoo dances you could come up with to maybe get it going again.
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And kinda hard to do when you are on the other side of the country. I went to Dropbox when I was stuck in an airport in Chicago trying to access my computer in California. I started moving things to Dropbox as soon as I got home.
 
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teknishn said:
This ^^ I was disappointed for about 2 minutes when I started using Mojave in June. Then I setup a port forward on my router and started using screen sharing. To be honest, it’s more reliable which is probably a big reason Apple dropped the feature.
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I think reliability is the main factor. I never heard very good things about BTMM, although I never used it. I used to mess with ports and stuff. Now I just use a VPN router. Nothing is exposed to the internet. I make my vpn connection and I can access any device on the network.
 
MacRumors said:


backtomymacending.png
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Do not let this go quietly! Let apple know this is not ok! Bring back to my mac back and expand it to iOS, family support and multi user support. Let your voices be heard.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html
 
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First the AirPort Time Capsule is discontinued, then MacOS Server is crippled beyond recognition, and now Back to My Mac is being dropped completely.

2018 has been a great year for Mac users. :rolleyes: Well ok, at least Apple finally added the dark mode we were asking for in 2014, if you have a Metal-capable Mac that supports it...
 
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scottlitch said:
Back to my Mac never worked that reliably for me. I set up my iMac as a default server on my AirPort Extreme and use VNC or SMB to log in. This works just as well. I was concerned about security, but I guess the login and the connection are both encrypted from what I've read.
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I stopped using BTMM because without some significant and unsupported fooling around, it's incompatible with Server's VPN functionality, which does more for me. Of course, that's getting dropped too eventually. Doubtless there are open source replacements, probably free, if without nice GUIs for setup.
 
dabrain13 said:
The fact they think ARD is a viable alternative at $80 is absurd.
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Agreed, but one can always hope they come out with a "consumer" grade ARD without some of the sysadmin type features?

There are a lot of alternatives, including VNC for local management, and Team Viewer for local or remote.
 
Apple is slowly removing services to prepare a MacOS that will run on the new A12 bionic desktops and laptops. Probably recompiling then for the A chip proved to be more bother than it was worth. Just like they gave up on the Server software.
 
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JosephAW said:
Apple is slowly removing services to prepare a MacOS that will run on the new A12 bionic desktops and laptops. Probably recompiling then for the A chip proved to be more bother than it was worth. Just like they gave up on the Server software.
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I'm not seeing the connection. VNC will run on a toaster. It wouldn't trouble an A12
 
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My guess is this is a continuation of Tim Cook's focus on increasing services revenue. "Free" doesn't really align with his goal. It's possible some new Apple service will come about and be wrapped into an iCloud subscription, though they may not think enough people use these features to bother.
 
techwarrior said:
Agreed, but one can always hope they come out with a "consumer" grade ARD without some of the sysadmin type features?

There are a lot of alternatives, including VNC for local management, and Team Viewer for local or remote.
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Um, it’s called screen sharing and it’s already built in. What would a “consumer grade ARD” be? I can’t figure out what ARD has to do with Back to My Mac.
 
JosephAW said:
Apple is slowly removing services to prepare a MacOS that will run on the new A12 bionic desktops and laptops. Probably recompiling then for the A chip proved to be more bother than it was worth. Just like they gave up on the Server software.
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What are you talking about? There are plenty of VNC apps for iOS that work just fine, so the chip isn’t an issue. As for Server, do you honestly believe those changes have something to do with the underlying processor architecture? Really???
 
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Based on my own considerable experience with the two remote access solutions mentioned in the main article, I recommend:
- using SplashTop
- avoiding LogMeIn and TeamViewer

I’ve been a longtime paid subscriber to all three services. I am happy only with SplashTop. The others target the enterprise market and are therefore expensive and can also be diabolical (ie Windows-like) to use, compared to SplashTop.

SplashTop’s mission is to provide a comparably lowcost but robust and reliable solution. I don’t work for them, I’m just a happy customer of their Business tier and their separate iOS remote viewing service.

www.splashtop.com
 
This is disappointing from my perspective. Back to My Mac made it easy to work with my elderly parents as they struggled (and still struggle) with using a Mac. Sure it simple stuff, but IMO, this is just another way in which Apple is becoming a less attractive ecosystem.
 
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BoyRacer said:
Based on my own considerable experience with the two remote access solutions mentioned in the main article, I recommend:
- using SplashTop
- avoiding LogMeIn and TeamViewer

I’ve been a longtime paid subscriber to all three services. I am happy only with SplashTop. The others target the enterprise market and are therefore expensive and can also be diabolical (ie Windows-like) to use, compared to SplashTop.

SplashTop’s mission is to provide a comparably lowcost but robust and reliable solution. I don’t work for them, I’m just a happy customer of their Business tier and their separate iOS remote viewing service.

www.splashtop.com
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You bring that name up…

I can vouch for the reliability. 3 years after the iPad was released, my US studies teacher used it with her personal iPad 2 and school-provided PC to control the PPT and allow us students to answer questions in front of the class.

Very reliable, never had any real hiccups the entire year.
 
watkipet said:
  • Screen Sharing - Requires you to accept an incoming request on the remote machine. That doesn't work unless I'm in two places at the same time.
Oh well. At least we'll have Animojis in the latest version of iOS. I'm glad the brightest minds and biggest budgets are working on something useful.
Click to expand...

Wrong. This is configurable in System Preferences.

Go ahead and keep beating the dead horse. Animoji is a really simple skin over a framework that was already developed for Face ID.
 
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teknishn said:
Challenge accepted. Zero need to buy $80 ARD app. Screen Sharing app is still built into MacOS. ARD is $80 because it’s got a ton of features designed to manage multiple Mac systems in an enterprise or school for example. For simple Remote Desktop, the screen sharing app works fine, it’s just less convenient than back to my Mac was. And by less convenient, I mean that you have to properly setup your router to accept the proper incoming ports and forward them to your home system etc. This is something you have to do with both $80 ARD and built screen sharing app.... and any Windows situation as well for that matter.
Click to expand...

If it's such an easy solution, why did Apple get rid of it? Maybe their decision making is skewed to comparing any investment in home infrastructure or traditional OSs to the lip smacking returns of 1K+ phones and tablets...

Just seems like they're building higher walls in their garden.
 
konqerror said:
The discussion wasn't about BTMM, it was about RDP/ARD. Specifically the cost of ARD. And the clients are totally useless without a server, and no the client isn't even "free" under RDS, because the clients are associated with a CAL, if you do per-device.
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I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to say here but you don't need a server to run ARD. I have ARD and connect to multiple devices in my Home. I can control my parents Mac in the UK, from here in Australia. It works happily over VPN also.

ARD is much more than just screen sharing and can accomplish many tasks that other "free" alternatives like Teamviewer and Screens cannot (I have used both of those). For example, I can run reports, scripts, terminal commands, run updates, install or remove software, run spotlight file searches, wake, sleep, log out current user, lock, shutdown, empty trash etc, etc etc without having to physically pull up a screen. This can be done to a single, or multiple Macs at once. Think of it as remote enterprise level management, rather than just an $80 screen sharing app.

Granted, most people don't need that fine grained control, therefore screen sharing will work fine and it's free. Setting up a VPN into your home network is also free and comes with many other benefits.
 
Screen Sharing has enough of the ARD features to make it suitable for most people. What's really being taken away here is the iCloud.com virtual network that connects your two devices together through your Apple ID.

If you have the ability to VPN to your home network, use Screen Sharing. You'll be in great shape and likely be on a more reliable network than the iCloud.com network.
 
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gsmornot said:
In the end this will save me some time. Seems I have/had to login again to keep it going anyhow. It's true too that mostly iCloud Drive has covered my needs. I would however like to see a plan between 200G and 2TB. Something about $4 would be ok I guess.
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I started using Family Share and purchased 200GB/month for $3, which I thought was reasonable.
 
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