I would love to try but no iPad at moment. So the cursor moves with your finger as you drag your finger around the screen? Or does the cursor simply jump to where you touch instantly?
The discussion I was having with Shunnabunich (see the earlier threads) was could an iPad work with screen sharing on Lion. Shunnabunich had said he'd be able to use it to send one Mac's desktop to multiple iPads. I was dubious an iPad could run Lion (or any Mac OS X) in screen sharing or using ARD. It may be able to (I hope it can) but this demo isn't it. Obviously the reverse is possible since I do that now with the SDK and have an iPad on my Mac operated via a mouse.
This demo illustrates an iPad becoming a large trackpad with some visual clues. It doesn't allow use remotely since you cannot see the app running on the iPad. So you have to be at the Mac which is not a remote usage at all in the sense of the original question I raised.
That depends on which client you use and what its settings are, I'd say. Mine is set to do the former, with a bit of a "momentum" effect which makes it easier to flick the cursor over a large distance. You could most likely find quite a few examples of iPad VNC apps in action on YouTube.
So do you see theMac OS X application on the iPad screen? As in can you be in the next room running the Mac and not seeing the actual Mac screen itself?
Apple almost did this right. Now what they need to add to it is to be able to log into a 2nd (or 3rd, 4th) user account by simply connecting a second monitor and keyboard to the host computer. No additional computer required. If you recall, computers were capable of this way back in the 70's. Think about it when used in a business environment... one computer, two people in adjacent cubes using the same machine. And to compensate for the loss of the sale of the 2nd computer Apple could charge some premium for the OS's capability to support that. (I've been trumpeting this for a long time now, and just maybe it's coming.)
I tried to use apple remote management with vnc viewer (by the parent company) for iPad today. It worked well. Since this is an extension of sorts i couldnt really see why it wouldn't work. Except.. It only offered a password not a user/password for login.
Have to wait and see. Personally I can't see why Apple would bother with creating this unless they had an iPad client in the wings. Without it what are you going to do, hook up to a multiuser mac from your mac?!? Remote management sure, but you don't need multiuser to do that.
So, if I have a big MONSTER machine at my remote location, and a small less powerful machine in front of me, and I log remotely onto the MONSTER, and launch say ... Mathematica or some game ... and want the processing to happen on the remote machine because it is faster (or has multiple porcessors) ... is that what happens?
There are actually 2 issues here:
1. Where does the CPU processing happen?
2. Where does the GPU processing happen? For example, if you are playing a game?
My real interest in this is that I need a Mac Pro for my work, but I hate the noise from the fans ... so I would like to stick the Mac Pro in a far off room, and then remotely connect, and let the Mac Pro do the work, and allow me to work with, say a Mac mini, in relative quiet. Please advise!
And there is more to it than just making the windows remote. For the remote session, also file storage..., USB sticks, ..., printing, etc. should at least be an option to use at the client computer.
...
The processing is supposed to happen at the remote MONSTER machine, including the GPU stuff.
Let's hope that the network, the VNC (or better) protocol, and the less powerful client computer can deal with speedy enough screen updates. If so, heavy duty gaming using a remote graphical login should be feasible.
This is really good news. There has been at least one third-party package (Aquaconnect) to do this for a while now, but it has been prohibitively expensive, costing per user almost as much as buying another Mac per user, so it wasn't realistic for me as a small-business. Now with this capability built-in, it will be free!
I see this capability being useful to me in two scenarios:
1) Work: It would allow me to share a headless Mac Mini server among a group of PC and Mac users at the office. The PC users can log in to the Mac Mini remotely for the times they need to use a Mac, without me having to buy them a dedicated Mac that they don't need most of the time. Remote users can dial in from the road using an iPad or a cheap netbook, but still have access to the full power of the Mac at the office.
2) Home: I want to set up a Mac Mini as a home server and connect it directly to my TV. That way I could keep all my media on it to use as a home theater system, but I could also allow anyone in my house to log in to it as needed to share media, software, etc, from a cheap client. I would also run home automation software on it, since I could keep it running all the time. There are many scenarios where current solutions such VNC or file sharing are just not sufficient. In particular, I want to install one copy of Photoshop, or FileMaker, and let users log in to the server to use it when they need it instead of having to manage, and pay for, several copies on different computers.
I tried for a while running a headless Mac Mini server at work, and using Screen Sharing (VNC) to access it, but it had some problems that were a pain in the neck. For example, it was impossible to reboot the server remotely if something went wrong and the Apple menu wasn't working or accessible. So I often had to go to the machine and restart it manually, sometimes needing to connect a monitor to it even though I was trying to run it headlessly. I hope Lion supports headless operation better.
Great news! This would allow multiple Windows users to work with Mac only software without tying up a Mac exclusively. If you think about it, this could allow Windows users to "switch" to Mac OS X without buying a Mac.
Apple almost did this right. Now what they need to add to it is to be able to log into a 2nd (or 3rd, 4th) user account by simply connecting a second monitor and keyboard to the host computer. No additional computer required. If you recall, computers were capable of this way back in the 70's. Think about it when used in a business environment... one computer, two people in adjacent cubes using the same machine. And to compensate for the loss of the sale of the 2nd computer Apple could charge some premium for the OS's capability to support that. (I've been trumpeting this for a long time now, and just maybe it's coming.)
This is not the goal that Apple has been aiming for. Apple has been working on - quite successfully too - resetting the value proposition towards hardware and away from software for quite some time. (Think the low price of Apps, first on iPhones, iPod Touches, iPads, and now even on the Mac, including Snow Leopard). These were not arbitrary decisions. These were part of an overall strategy. My hunch is that your idea here would get laughed out of the boardroom in Cupertino within 2 seconds after you uttered it. Apple wants to sell more hardware, and not just keyboards and monitors. And not more OS's at a steeper price.
I find it more likely that they will make it so one can control your Mac from a network connected iPad or iPhone without making the current user log out. In that case, they move more mobile devices.
The processing is supposed to happen at the remote MONSTER machine, including the GPU stuff.
Let's hope that the network, the VNC (or better) protocol, and the less powerful client computer can deal with speedy enough screen updates. If so, heavy duty gaming using a remote graphical login should be feasible.
You would also want to route the sound from the remote system to the one you are sitting at. Microsft's Remote Desktop Connection client can do this.
I tried for a while running a headless Mac Mini server at work, and using Screen Sharing (VNC) to access it, but it had some problems that were a pain in the neck. For example, it was impossible to reboot the server remotely if something went wrong and the Apple menu wasn't working or accessible. So I often had to go to the machine and restart it manually, sometimes needing to connect a monitor to it even though I was trying to run it headlessly. I hope Lion supports headless operation better.
And this is what Apple wants businesses to replace Xserves with.
Neither the Mac Mini nor the Mac Pro have the Lights Out Management feature of the Xserve. LOM is embedded into hardware, and functions independently of the OS, allowing hard shutdown and power up even when the OS stops working.
Standard VNC clients will connect to Screen Sharing in Mac OS X 10.6 and earlier if you enable the VNC compatibilty option. However Screen Sharing while using the same basic protocols as standard VNC 'enhances' the login process by allowing the use of both a user name and a password, standard VNC only uses a password.
Therefore as it would appear Lion will use the login name to indicate which user account to utilise to enable multiple simultaneous user sessions it may not be possible with a standard VNC client.
This would therefore prevent using a Windows PC or iOS client to utilise this feature.
Having multiple Mac clients use a Mac (server) as a Terminal Server is obviously not as useful as using multiple iOS devices or Windows PCs as clients since (duh!) the Mac can natively run the Mac applications. It does not even help let Lion clients run old PowerPC applications since the Lion Terminal Server cannot run Power PC applications either.
As far as I am aware, Apple have not provided their VNC 'enhancement' for other people to implement in to their VNC clients.
Does this mean that one computer would also be able to handle multiple local users? For many lab environments, even a low end modern computer has more power than is needed, so the idea is that one Mac mini could power two screens using two separate mice & keyboards with each one logged into a separate account, so they are essentially independent environments. This would reduce the cost of these labs by about 35% and reduce the maintenance by half. With dual and core chips standard and a little extra memory, I doubt web browsing and writing documents (and even a game on one of the screens) would not noticeably impact the performance on the other screen. If this is possible, I would be thrilled.
I was thinking more along the lines of a Mac Pro running 4-8 computers, but I suppose you could use a mini also.
As iOS gets more powerful, and Lion becomes much more touch-friendly (though not necessarily touch screen friendly, for now) with the magic trackpad pushing out the mouse, and Lion also starting to adopt some of the looks/functionality/feel of iOS . . . I could see a not-too-distant future where iOS and Mac OS converge into a single OS.
Why? A single Mac Mini or MBP or iMac sitting in the home could be the back-end power/server/computer (whatever you want to call it) of an experience on the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or some other product. A business could setup a single Mac Pro then hand out a dozen cheap iPads with bluetooth keyboards to all wirelessly connect to that Pro. A home user could connect anything on the home wifi. (how about a "touch screen" Apple TV a la Msft Kinect via Minority Report giving you a full mac experience on your HDTV). A lot of the comments in this thread already point toward this.
The biggest problem now is the touch screen format of the iPhone and iPad when overlayed on a connected Mac OS is not ideal. Sure, there are currently ways to try and have the Mac OS connection and experience via the iPad, but they're not ideal. If Mac OS continues a drift to become fully touch-compatable, that would resolve this. It's not so much because we're going to be standing around a touch-screen iMac, but because we will want the "full" Mac experience on an iPad connected to said iMac. The only way to do that is to make the "full" Mac experience fully touch-friendly.
Taken to the next level, if wireless data in 10-20 years became fast and ubiquitous enough, then this same process could play out, except not limited to the home or business wifi. It could work just the same driving down a California Interstate while your full-blown Mac sits at home in NY. This would be a "full" Mac experience if you assume the Mac OS and iOS have converged. It is a bit of a cloud service but with distributed servers where everyone's home Mac is its own server.
Imagine a touch friendly Mac OS running a touch friendly Final Cut Studio where you edit from an iPad with a retina display that can handle all this because the back-end processing is actually run off a wirelessly-connected Mac Pro burried in a closet somewhere. Imagine in 20 years the same scenario with blazing and blanketing data connections, where you're throwing together some quick edits from your iPad on the set while that Mac Pro is back in the office across town or across the country.
The only remaining question is what to do when sans internet? How much does the iPhone/iPad get dumbed down to be just a thin client, versus maintaining its own abilities so that it can work while disconnected from the cloud. Or, is this a moot question because in 20 years wireless data is to the point that "no internet" is just unheard of.
I realize a lot of this can be "done" today in some sense. None of it is really groundbreaking. The point is Apple could take this to a point where there is nothing to do to set it up, it's just how their products work. Baked in. In short, it becomes a realistic mom & dad product straight off the shelf, none of this complex stuff. You know, it just works.
But I thought that all Mac software uninstallation was "just drag the application to the trash". Now it turns out that's not the case, even for Apple's own applications?
Comments
I would love to try but no iPad at moment. So the cursor moves with your finger as you drag your finger around the screen? Or does the cursor simply jump to where you touch instantly?
Look no further: Remote Conductor for iPad
Look no further: Remote Conductor for iPad
The discussion I was having with Shunnabunich (see the earlier threads) was could an iPad work with screen sharing on Lion. Shunnabunich had said he'd be able to use it to send one Mac's desktop to multiple iPads. I was dubious an iPad could run Lion (or any Mac OS X) in screen sharing or using ARD. It may be able to (I hope it can) but this demo isn't it. Obviously the reverse is possible since I do that now with the SDK and have an iPad on my Mac operated via a mouse.
This demo illustrates an iPad becoming a large trackpad with some visual clues. It doesn't allow use remotely since you cannot see the app running on the iPad. So you have to be at the Mac which is not a remote usage at all in the sense of the original question I raised.
That depends on which client you use and what its settings are, I'd say. Mine is set to do the former, with a bit of a "momentum" effect which makes it easier to flick the cursor over a large distance. You could most likely find quite a few examples of iPad VNC apps in action on YouTube.
So do you see theMac OS X application on the iPad screen? As in can you be in the next room running the Mac and not seeing the actual Mac screen itself?
Have to wait and see. Personally I can't see why Apple would bother with creating this unless they had an iPad client in the wings. Without it what are you going to do, hook up to a multiuser mac from your mac?!? Remote management sure, but you don't need multiuser to do that.
There are actually 2 issues here:
1. Where does the CPU processing happen?
2. Where does the GPU processing happen? For example, if you are playing a game?
My real interest in this is that I need a Mac Pro for my work, but I hate the noise from the fans ... so I would like to stick the Mac Pro in a far off room, and then remotely connect, and let the Mac Pro do the work, and allow me to work with, say a Mac mini, in relative quiet. Please advise!
...
And there is more to it than just making the windows remote. For the remote session, also file storage..., USB sticks, ..., printing, etc. should at least be an option to use at the client computer.
...
The processing is supposed to happen at the remote MONSTER machine, including the GPU stuff.
Let's hope that the network, the VNC (or better) protocol, and the less powerful client computer can deal with speedy enough screen updates. If so, heavy duty gaming using a remote graphical login should be feasible.
I see this capability being useful to me in two scenarios:
1) Work: It would allow me to share a headless Mac Mini server among a group of PC and Mac users at the office. The PC users can log in to the Mac Mini remotely for the times they need to use a Mac, without me having to buy them a dedicated Mac that they don't need most of the time. Remote users can dial in from the road using an iPad or a cheap netbook, but still have access to the full power of the Mac at the office.
2) Home: I want to set up a Mac Mini as a home server and connect it directly to my TV. That way I could keep all my media on it to use as a home theater system, but I could also allow anyone in my house to log in to it as needed to share media, software, etc, from a cheap client. I would also run home automation software on it, since I could keep it running all the time. There are many scenarios where current solutions such VNC or file sharing are just not sufficient. In particular, I want to install one copy of Photoshop, or FileMaker, and let users log in to the server to use it when they need it instead of having to manage, and pay for, several copies on different computers.
I tried for a while running a headless Mac Mini server at work, and using Screen Sharing (VNC) to access it, but it had some problems that were a pain in the neck. For example, it was impossible to reboot the server remotely if something went wrong and the Apple menu wasn't working or accessible. So I often had to go to the machine and restart it manually, sometimes needing to connect a monitor to it even though I was trying to run it headlessly. I hope Lion supports headless operation better.
Great news! This would allow multiple Windows users to work with Mac only software without tying up a Mac exclusively. If you think about it, this could allow Windows users to "switch" to Mac OS X without buying a Mac.
Most definitely NOT what Apple is hoping for.
Thompson
Apple almost did this right. Now what they need to add to it is to be able to log into a 2nd (or 3rd, 4th) user account by simply connecting a second monitor and keyboard to the host computer. No additional computer required. If you recall, computers were capable of this way back in the 70's. Think about it when used in a business environment... one computer, two people in adjacent cubes using the same machine. And to compensate for the loss of the sale of the 2nd computer Apple could charge some premium for the OS's capability to support that. (I've been trumpeting this for a long time now, and just maybe it's coming.)
This is not the goal that Apple has been aiming for. Apple has been working on - quite successfully too - resetting the value proposition towards hardware and away from software for quite some time. (Think the low price of Apps, first on iPhones, iPod Touches, iPads, and now even on the Mac, including Snow Leopard). These were not arbitrary decisions. These were part of an overall strategy. My hunch is that your idea here would get laughed out of the boardroom in Cupertino within 2 seconds after you uttered it. Apple wants to sell more hardware, and not just keyboards and monitors. And not more OS's at a steeper price.
I find it more likely that they will make it so one can control your Mac from a network connected iPad or iPhone without making the current user log out. In that case, they move more mobile devices.
Thompson
The processing is supposed to happen at the remote MONSTER machine, including the GPU stuff.
Let's hope that the network, the VNC (or better) protocol, and the less powerful client computer can deal with speedy enough screen updates. If so, heavy duty gaming using a remote graphical login should be feasible.
You would also want to route the sound from the remote system to the one you are sitting at. Microsft's Remote Desktop Connection client can do this.
I tried for a while running a headless Mac Mini server at work, and using Screen Sharing (VNC) to access it, but it had some problems that were a pain in the neck. For example, it was impossible to reboot the server remotely if something went wrong and the Apple menu wasn't working or accessible. So I often had to go to the machine and restart it manually, sometimes needing to connect a monitor to it even though I was trying to run it headlessly. I hope Lion supports headless operation better.
And this is what Apple wants businesses to replace Xserves with.
Neither the Mac Mini nor the Mac Pro have the Lights Out Management feature of the Xserve. LOM is embedded into hardware, and functions independently of the OS, allowing hard shutdown and power up even when the OS stops working.
Therefore as it would appear Lion will use the login name to indicate which user account to utilise to enable multiple simultaneous user sessions it may not be possible with a standard VNC client.
This would therefore prevent using a Windows PC or iOS client to utilise this feature.
Having multiple Mac clients use a Mac (server) as a Terminal Server is obviously not as useful as using multiple iOS devices or Windows PCs as clients since (duh!) the Mac can natively run the Mac applications. It does not even help let Lion clients run old PowerPC applications since the Lion Terminal Server cannot run Power PC applications either.
As far as I am aware, Apple have not provided their VNC 'enhancement' for other people to implement in to their VNC clients.
Does this mean that one computer would also be able to handle multiple local users? For many lab environments, even a low end modern computer has more power than is needed, so the idea is that one Mac mini could power two screens using two separate mice & keyboards with each one logged into a separate account, so they are essentially independent environments. This would reduce the cost of these labs by about 35% and reduce the maintenance by half. With dual and core chips standard and a little extra memory, I doubt web browsing and writing documents (and even a game on one of the screens) would not noticeably impact the performance on the other screen. If this is possible, I would be thrilled.
I was thinking more along the lines of a Mac Pro running 4-8 computers, but I suppose you could use a mini also.
Why? A single Mac Mini or MBP or iMac sitting in the home could be the back-end power/server/computer (whatever you want to call it) of an experience on the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or some other product. A business could setup a single Mac Pro then hand out a dozen cheap iPads with bluetooth keyboards to all wirelessly connect to that Pro. A home user could connect anything on the home wifi. (how about a "touch screen" Apple TV a la Msft Kinect via Minority Report giving you a full mac experience on your HDTV). A lot of the comments in this thread already point toward this.
The biggest problem now is the touch screen format of the iPhone and iPad when overlayed on a connected Mac OS is not ideal. Sure, there are currently ways to try and have the Mac OS connection and experience via the iPad, but they're not ideal. If Mac OS continues a drift to become fully touch-compatable, that would resolve this. It's not so much because we're going to be standing around a touch-screen iMac, but because we will want the "full" Mac experience on an iPad connected to said iMac. The only way to do that is to make the "full" Mac experience fully touch-friendly.
Taken to the next level, if wireless data in 10-20 years became fast and ubiquitous enough, then this same process could play out, except not limited to the home or business wifi. It could work just the same driving down a California Interstate while your full-blown Mac sits at home in NY. This would be a "full" Mac experience if you assume the Mac OS and iOS have converged. It is a bit of a cloud service but with distributed servers where everyone's home Mac is its own server.
Imagine a touch friendly Mac OS running a touch friendly Final Cut Studio where you edit from an iPad with a retina display that can handle all this because the back-end processing is actually run off a wirelessly-connected Mac Pro burried in a closet somewhere. Imagine in 20 years the same scenario with blazing and blanketing data connections, where you're throwing together some quick edits from your iPad on the set while that Mac Pro is back in the office across town or across the country.
The only remaining question is what to do when sans internet? How much does the iPhone/iPad get dumbed down to be just a thin client, versus maintaining its own abilities so that it can work while disconnected from the cloud. Or, is this a moot question because in 20 years wireless data is to the point that "no internet" is just unheard of.
I realize a lot of this can be "done" today in some sense. None of it is really groundbreaking. The point is Apple could take this to a point where there is nothing to do to set it up, it's just how their products work. Baked in. In short, it becomes a realistic mom & dad product straight off the shelf, none of this complex stuff. You know, it just works.
Works fine with no ill effects. Yet.
You can still use ARD in Lion if you wish. Just uninstall the Lion version of ARD client (I think it's 3.5) and download the 3.4 client from Apple's downloads site. Install it and you should be able to fire up ARD Admin. Obviously, you'll need to be running the 3.4 Admin.
Works fine with no ill effects. Yet.
But I thought that all Mac software uninstallation was "just drag the application to the trash". Now it turns out that's not the case, even for Apple's own applications?